Lightspeed Champion

Lightspeed Champion

http://www.lightspeedchampion.com
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Biography



"I obsess over songwriting to the point where when I listen to music I hear the song rather than the genre," says Dev Hynes, the genial creative force behind Lightspeed Champion. "The first music I was into was musicals: stuff like Hair and the Rocky Horror film. Those songs had a big effect on me. And I'm an unashamedly huge country fan. My aunt in Houston always played the country stations. I'm pretty out of date with the new indie bands, though I still listen to a lot of hip hop."

This most unassuming of sonic polymaths is best known as the guitarist with the hot pink axe in precocious trio Test Icicles: pick 'n' mix purveyors of garish riff and agitated rhythm, who lit up the UK underground in 2005 before calling it quits a year later with a headline show at London's prestigious Astoria Theatre. "Test Icicles was one of many projects that the three of us did," explains Dev. "We weren't doing it for money or to be famous, so when the music stopped being fun we moved on. We didn't want to cheat people, especially because it was mainly kids who were into Test Icicles. But none of the success was lost on me - I appreciated the fact that we got to play the Astoria, for instance."

Although still friends with his former bandmates, the split allowed him to focus on the sweetly melodic fare that's closer to his soul, revealing more of himself along the way. Still only 21, Dev was born in Houston but his family moved around a lot when he was a child - from Texas to Edinburgh, eventually settling in Essex. As a six year old Dev would follow his big sister everywhere, which is how he came to play the piano - she was taking lessons and he'd go with her. Three years later he started learning the cello, and by the age of 12 drums had entered the picture. Dev's early teens were spent teaching himself the guitar and logging time as a bassist in "bad hardcore punk bands".

After finishing school he upped sticks to London, which is still home.
The sound of Lightspeed Champion, however, was shaped thousands of miles away in Omaha, Nebraska by experienced studio hand Mike Mogis, resident producer for Saddle Creek records.
Backed by an informal band that included multi-instrumentalists Mogis and Nate Walcott. The Faint's drummer Clark Baechle and guest vocalist Emmy The Great - not to mention moonlighting members of Cursive and Tilly And The Wall - Dev was able to furnish his gently humorous, open-hearted songs with an unaffected warmth. He has fond memories of this communal experience.
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