Rocketeer

Rocketeer was formed in the summer of 2006 when two brothers, Hugh and Benny combined forces with their cousin and local musical wunderkind, Francis. Through a series of raucous phenomena they happened upon Felix, then a humble drunkard roaring along a darkening path to oblivion and together they enlisted Tom, a dangerous musical innovator residing on a local farm. Rocketeer was born. The band flung together some toothsome ditties and took their first tentative steps as a musical force. They began a haphazard campaign of gigging, cramming themselves onto stages in restaurants, town halls and sweaty, sticky pubs.

With their die-hard delegation of devotees marching merrily in their wake, they played and they played. After a year of this Felix descended totally into madness and a halt was called while he pieced himself together again. Two months later Rocketeer were back, a tighter, slicker outfit altogether. An acclaimed performance on the John Peel stage at the 2008 Glastonbury Festival galvanized them into action and they embarked on a rigorous crusade of gigs, recordings and headline festival appearances, showcasing their distinctive sound to hordes of delighted fans.

Lyrically, a lot of Rocketeer’s songs are set in an alternate reality; an archaic and utopian Olde Englande in which wild and fantastic events take place. They see these as allegories – modern day parables that satirise and reflect modern life on one level, and tell a fanciful story on another. As Felix puts it, “No one cares what I think, but everyone loves a good story.” This refusal to bow to modern lyrical narrative conventions is one of the factors that mark Rocketeer out as a force with which to be reckoned. Visitors to their live shows often remark on how the music is unlike anything they have heard before. All five members of the band are classically trained in several disciplines, and this is reflected in their arrangements and intellectual use of harmony and structure. A tasty diminished fifth here, a delicious modulation there and Rocketeer can inject any piece with a musical intensity rarely found in the modern rock music landscape.