Blacklight Pioneer

Lucille This one’s been around for a while, but we couldn’t not post it once it was brought to our attention. If you’re a fan of sweeping guitars and huge hooks, here’s your bombastic indie rock tune of the day. This lot have been gigging consistently this year, and their first single is due out February 28th 2011. - Audiovisuals (several sites)

Liking Kettering boys Blacklight Pioneer. An instantly distinctive riff, keyboard line, vocals.. "She's a real rough diamond..., Lucille look what you've done to me".
CD Track 2 'No Excuse' has another anthemic intro, strong well thought out arrangements, production and vocals and intriguing story-line lyrics. Good debut, should pick up plenty of interest. Here's the pr....
British rock band Blacklight Pioneer formed with one simple aim. "We wanted to sound big."
That means big rock songs with big melodies. In the words of guitarist Jamie Thompson: "A sound that would fill huge venues."
This much is evident in the song the band has chosen as its debut single, Lucille. Yet this is not an orthodox love song. As singer Adam Fowkes says, "It's about being buried alive by a woman".
Blacklight Pioneer was formed in 2009 in the very heart of England, in the market town of Kettering. All six members of the band have history in hardcore and metal: Jamie Thompson and his brother Dave, the band?s drummer, previously played in Raging Speedhorn.
However, as Jamie explains: 'Even though we've all been in heavy metal and hardcore bands, that kind of music isn?t what we listened to most of the time. I've always loved pop and electro as well as metal and rock. The range of influences in Blacklight Pioneer is just huge.'
Jamie lists Bruce Springsteen and Led Zeppelin among his key influences. Adam cites The Smiths and Jeff Buckley. Both are fans of the brooding sounds such as Joy Division, Television and Interpol, although Adam states: ?I don?t think we sound similar to any of them.? More accurately, Blacklight Pioneer have been compared to alternative rock bands Mansun and Talk Talk. "We never had a preconceived sound we wanted to go for," Jamie says. "The sound has come pretty much by accident. We're a rock band with big hooks, but even the poppy songs aren't 'happy poppy'. We're a darker sounding band."
Adam admits, "My sense of humour is quite black and that comes out in the lyrics." Lucille, he says, "is a bit of a joke, like those old Alice Cooper songs." Equally dark is the grimly ironic title of The Girl Who Stopped Traffic, Adam's eulogy for a young woman killed in a road accident.
Says Jamie: "The name Blacklight Pioneer fits the band perfectly. Sometimes they lyrics can be fairly miserable, but at the same time we have these big pop tunes. That's our vibe."
Most important of all, says Adam Fowkes, "We're doing something we love. And I think you can hear that."
live dates -
February -
11th Southampton - Hamptons
12th Leicester - The Looking Glass
14th Lincoln - The Cloud
15th Hull - Linnet and Lark
17th London - 93feet East
18th Kettering - Rehab
W/The Whigs
22 Feb - Oxford - Jericho
23 Feb - London - Dingwalls
24 Feb - Sheffield - The Plug
25 Feb - Birmingham - Academy 3
26 Feb - Manchester - Deaf Institute
27 Feb - Nottingham - The Bodega
28 Feb - Bristol - Thekla - Mike

It was a triumvirate of talent at The Bodega this week, with headliners The Whigs and Dead Confederate (both hailing from Athens, Georgia), supported by last minute addition, Blacklight Pioneer. Although the audience started out smallish, it quickly filled to an excellent turn-out for a Sunday night gig.

The night started out big, literally, with 6 piece band Blacklight Pioneer. Their songs were just as grand as the band itself, with a stadium filling rock/indie combo that lay huge riffs and spun darkly comical lyrics, which I enjoyed immensely. The audience definitely seemed to warm to them and the way was fully paved for the next band. - Penny Reeve

There appeared to be some anticipation for the second band up tonight.

Having seen some very determined and persuasive postings on facebook suggesting Kettering's Blacklight Pioneer were 'not to be missed' and 'one of the most exciting new bands to come through Hull in a long time', one cannot help but think that this is just huff and puff on the part of promoters much of the time, but this was most certainly NOT the case tonight.

There was a palpable air of anticipation in the Adelphi as they hit the stage with their massively powerful, yet still very accessible tunes.
Lying somewhere between Bloc Party and White Lies, they have a sound that is very 'now', whilst not being 'more of the same'; something that the Adelphi crowd seemed to pick up on with a rapturous reception from the off.

Stand out tracks for me were Making History and Lucille which is expected to be their debut single in 2011. For me it felt as if we were witnessing something special, and had really got the night moving. - Dick Spring