Athlete

Novello Award-winning indie-rock heavyweights Athlete produce an epic but intimate sound redolent of Coldplay and Snow Patrol.

Their massive slew of summer gigs is testament to their claim to be the hardest working band in rock ‘n’ roll, and Greenbelt can’t wait to welcome them.

Athlete’s debut album, Vehicles & Animals, propelled them from the basement of a church cafe in Deptford to the top 20 of the UK album charts.  Early single You Got The Style was all infectious grooves and glottal stops long before Kate Nash cornered that market. A Mercury Music Prize nomination followed, and the album went platinum.

So, how to follow this up?  With many contemporaries falling by the wayside after one album, Athlete came back two years later withWires, a massive hit – their first UK top 5 single – written by lead singer Joel Pott while watching his prematurely-born daughter lying in intensive care.  Myla Pott thankfully came through the ordeal, and Athlete’s second album, Tourist, became even more popular than their first, debuting at number 1 in the album charts. Wires also won an Ivor Novello ‘Best Contemporary Song’ award in 2006.

Beyond the Neighbourhood followed in 2007, again hitting the top 5. Album number four, Black Swan - their first with Fiction Records, where they are labelmates with Elbow and Snow Patrol – will be released a few weeks before Greenbelt. 

Most Excellent Factoid: Athlete come from Deptford, one of the first areas in south-east London to be served by a “bendy bus” route.

 

 

 

Athlete – Wires

Athlete – Hurricane