About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

The Levellers (band)

Encyclopedia : T : TH : THE : The Levellers (band)

The Levellers are a popular English band that plays Folk-rock or Indie rock influenced by Punk and traditional English music.They are based in Brighton England where they were founded in 1988. They took their name from the Levellers, a radically democratic faction of Oliver Cromwells New Model Army, but the name is also a reference to 'The Level', an area of Brighton around a flat triangular green in the centre of hilly Brighton, where members of the band used to live. Strongly interested and outspoken about green anarchism issues the band have built up a strong and devoted fanbase, despite being nearly universally ignored by mainstream critics. The band have been spokespeople for a number of issues including campaigning against the Criminal Justice Act and various anti-capitalist and environmental issues. They continue to tour extensively around Britain and Europe but maintain a mutual dislike with the music press which stems from their early days.

Contents

History

Mark Chadwick and Jeremy Cunningham met in The Eagle, a public house in Brighton known for atracting the more bohemian element of Brighton's residents, in 1988. Mark had just left local glam-metal act The Soup Dragons (not the 1990s indie act of the same name) and Jeremy was trying to sell his bass guitar in the pub, having become disillusioned with the music world.

Discovering that they had a lot in common, including a left wing view of politics and a love of being drunk, they decided to try and reinvigorate their interest in music by forming a new band. Jeremy knew Charlie Heather through their previous band, The Fence, where he had proved himself a skilled but not too showy drummer. He was promptly recruited to this new band.

With Mark on guitar and lead vocals, Jeremy on bass guitar and Charlie on drums, it was decided that something extra was needed to make for a more interesting sound. Jeremy was keen to have a violin player on board as he was impressed by the sound of local angry-folk favourites McDermott's 2 Hours. Jon Sevink, the brother of Mark's girlfriend, was brought in to play the violin, adding a more melodic element to the band's Sex Pistols-esque sound. Mark's flatmate "Bucky" was also brought in to play the guitar, but lost interest in the band fairly quickly and left afer a few months.

Mark and Jeremy penned the songs that would become part of their first recordings (the audio-cassettes "An Agreement of the People" and "All the Free Commons of England" sold at gigs throughout 1988/89) and the band set off touring Brighton and beyond. They soon built up a large and dedicated live following with their raucous shows; a goup of fans known as the "happy hitchers" would hitch-hike around the country, following the band from gig to gig and busking or begging for ticket money.

The first EP recording by the band was put out in 1989. Carry Me which contained the fan favourites Carry Me and England My Home was a comparatively big hit, even getting Radio 2 airplay for the title track (despite the swearing in Carry Me which apparently went unnoticed). In order to play Carry Me live, the band realised they needed to bring in an extra person to play the harmonica as Mark couldn't play the guitar and harmonica parts simultaneously. They recruited Alan Miles to the band to play harmonica as well as guitar and mandolin. Alan also provided backing vocals for the band, being an able singer unlike Jeremy and Jon. The lineup of the Levellers solidified as Mark, Jeremy, Jon, Charlie and Alan, releasing the next EP Outside/Inside and touring with this roster throughout 1989 and most of 1990.

After successfully releasing the two previous EPs on their own Hag label in 1989, a short lived contract was signed with French record label Musidisc. Their debut album "A Weapon Called the Word" was released on Musidisc in 1990 and has since become one of the few albums to go platinum without ever charting. Unfortunately, the first single from the album, World Freak Show had too few copies printed by Musidisc; the record selling out but without sufficient copies existing for the song to chart.

After an acrimonious split with Musidisc, the Levellers were discovered by Derek Green (the man responsible for signing the Sex Pistols) and signed to China records.

At this point, Alan became disenchanted by the Levellers' communist approach to money - all of the band's earnings being put together in a fund from which the members were paid the same amount every day. After being refused more money to buy food one day (having spend his day's allowance elsewhere) Alan quit the band. Finding themselves suddenly short of one member, the Levellers' manager called Simon Friend, a young singer-songwriter and at that time a roadie for New Model Army, who had played some acoustic support slots for the band in the past. Simon accepted the invitation to join the band, despite it meaning turning down a chance to be the guitarist for New Model Army.

1991 saw the release of their second album; "Levelling the Land", which was a massive success, entering the charts at number 14. The anthemic single "One Way" despite not bothering the Top 40, became a popular song and live favourite for years to come among the travelling and indie community. Levelling the Land is often viewed as an all time classic amongst people who were students or travellers in the early 1990s. The Levellers' began to sound more of a well-rounded folk-rock band with the addition of Simon's multi-instrumental skill and the improvements in musicianship amongst all of the band. Whereas All The Free Commons of England sounded like the Sex Pistols with a fiddle player, and A Weapon Called the Word sounded more like gentle indie-rock, Levelling the Land had a well-rounded sound including punk-rock tracks Liberty Song and Battle of the Beanfield, folk ballads The Boatman and The Road and folk-rock crossover tracks like The Riverflow and Another Man's Cause. Simon's distinctively gravelly voice added depth and volume in backing up Mark's vocals and he began the tradition of taking lead vocals on a couple of tracks per album. Mark's singing also improved from the gruff shouted vocals of their early EPs to a fine melodic singing voice. The band also landed a U.S. deal with Electra, although they have since failed to make much impression in the USA. A disastrous tour of the USA in the early 1990s left the band disillusioned with America and the long haul journeys and lukewarm local receptions endured by touring bands.

Throughout 1992 the band enjoyed a series of successful tours, particularly their debut on one of the main stages of the Glastonbury Festival (although they'd played the travellers' area previously). Mixing tracks from their first two LPs with a couple of more obscure songs (like the rock/spoken word crossover Dance Before the Storm) and a storming high speed cover of Charlie Daniels' The Devil Went Down to Georgia, the Levellers popular performance secured their place on the large Pyramid Stage for their famous 1994 set (despite jokingly calling Glastonbury owner Michael Eavis a "cunt" over the PA system when they heard he didn't like swearing). The band also scored a chart hit with the "15 Years EP", a track which was added to later repressings of Levelling the Land due to its popularity.

The Levellers generally consider 1993 to be a bad year for the band. Jeremy was becoming dependent on heroin, having first taken the drug as an alternative to his growing alcoholism. Feeling overworked and unmotivated the band nevertheless felt obliged to try and write a new record to capitalise on their growing popularity. The creative process was not particularly enjoyable for any of the band who were drifting apart as friends and commuting to the recording studio to lay down the tracks for the album. Suffering writer's block, the band filled space on the new album by covering Dirty Davey (an early track by McDermott's 2 Hours) and recording an old track originally written by Simon while he was still at school (Is This Art?). The generally gloomy atmosphere that surrounded the band is reflected in the darker tone of the resulting eponymous album (Levellers). Despite the band's dislike of the album, it was a huge hit, giving the Levellers an instant number one in the album charts. In fact, Levellers contains a number of songs that have stood the test of time as fan favourites, with the negativity felt by the band giving an appropriate emotional tone to the aggressive 100 Years of Solitude (which manages to namecheck just about everything the Levellers considered wrong with the world, from Exxon to the NME) and the melancholy Julie (which Jeremy wrote about the experiences of a heroin addicted girl).

1994 saw the Levellers really hit the big time, as their appearance at the Glastonbury Festival attracted the biggest stagefront crowd that the event had ever seen.

In 1995 they released the album "Zeitgeist" which had the hit "Just the One", and this was followed by their biggest hit in years "Beautiful Day" from the album "Mouth To Mouth".

In 2003 they set up their own festival called "Beautiful Days" which takes place in South Devon, England in August. Their most recent album is called "Truth and Lies" .

The band are still a strong and hard working live act, selling out venues and festivals all over Europe each year. The band remain strong supporters of anarchist and green issues, and are also strong supporters of the Brighton music scene by owning their own studio and rehearsal space in which they record and produce all their albums, as well as allowing use of their facilities for many other local bands and musicians. The Levellers' festival success also continued in 2005 when, despite the continued lack of attention by the music press, the band played to the biggest ever stagefront crowd at the Jazzworld stage of the Glastonbury Festival.

Members

The Levellers - current lineup circa 2006. Front: Mark, Jeremy. Middle: Simon, Charlie. Back: Matt, Jon.
Enlarge
The Levellers - current lineup circa 2006. Front: Mark, Jeremy. Middle: Simon, Charlie. Back: Matt, Jon.

Sometimes supported by Stephen Boakes (swampy) (didgeridoo). During 1992-93 they also featured Scott Tobin of La Cucina.

Ex-members:

Discography

Albums

Singles

See also

External links

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: