Band of Skulls 'Baby Darling Doll Face Honey' album

The three Southampton, UK members of Band of Skulls, Russell Marsden (guitar & vocals), Emma Richardson (bass & vocals) & Matt Hayward (drums), first met at college and quickly discovered that having two lead singers and three songwriters in a band was always going to present unlimited possibilities.

"We needed to make a big sound with less band members," says lead singer-guitarist Russell Marsden. "So having two singers really gives us two more instruments."

The band offered up their new album Baby Darling Doll Face Honey (Shangri-La) exclusively on iTunes for two weeks before making it available on CD via their website, bandofskulls.com on April 21st. "It's the modern way," says Marsden. "An online listening party for the freeloading disenfranchised."

The group sounds as American as the Allman Brothers or Kings of Leon, and were raised on David Bowie, Jon Bonham and BB King, and their current musical tastes are just as diverse, from Radiohead to the Queens of the Stone Age and the Raconteurs.

They met in college and got their name from a club night at a spot called the Talking Heads. "The club's sign, which was from Hamlet, was a hand holding a skull and we loved it," says Marsden. "The Talking Heads was obviously taken so we decided on Band Of Skulls."

The single, "I Know What I Am" is now impacting Alternative.

meet the band Band of Skulls
Matthew Hayward - Drums
Russell Marsden - Guitar & Vocals
Emma Richardson - Bass Guitar & Vocals

Band of Skulls biography
The three members of Band of Skulls, Russell Marsden (guitar & vocals), Emma Richardson (bass & vocals) & Matt Hayward (drums), first met at college and quickly discovered that having two lead singers and three songwriters in a band was always going to present unlimited possibilities. With their creative process and sonic path fully intact the band quickly established themselves in the music and art community with a series of culturally inspired club nights in Southampton, London and further afield in Moscow and Tokyo.

BoSThe band, previously known as Fleeing New York, were working on new demo's in late November 2008 at Courtyard Studios in Oxfordshire when their paths crossed with an international collective based in London, Montreal and LA who are now, in a very modern way, partners with the band.

Soon followed more studio time, which formed the basis of their debut album, "Baby Darling Doll Face Honey". With a working relationship sealed with a handshake the album was recorded, mixed and mastered from January through to March 09 before contracts had time to be signed.

From that point onFrom that point on, the progression of events from Southampton to global iTunes happened at lightning speed for Band of Skulls. Their music came to the attention of iTunes staff and made such an impact they were selected for the coveted iTunes Single of the Week campaign in April with the debut single 'I Know What I Am'. Within weeks of completing the album the band will be introduced globally to a digital audience in the USA, UK, France, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the Netherlands via this free download. The album has also been speedily brought forward to be released digitally at the same time.

BoSMusic fans around the world will get the first taste of the band's driving guitar force, heartbreaking duets and sun-kissed, Wall of Sound harmonies of not only their single but their powerful debut album released in the USA on Shangri-La Music on April 6th, available exclusively at iTunes for two weeks before being introduced to the wider world at all download stores and even on an old fashioned CD.

It has been an extraordinary and heady last few months for the band and the swift turnaround of the digital album is surely a taster of the way the modern digital world is now driving the changing landscape of an industry undergoing radical changes. It also means that an unknown band are being thrust into the limelight with very little know about them. To provide some background:

the digital worldAll the artwork so far has been based on paintings by bass player / vocalist Emma who recently held an exhibition called "Meat Me At The Butchers", in a butcher's shop where she worked at weekends. She has a record collection of over 20,000 albums and singles, swam for England and even won some medals.

Drummer Matt has played tennis with John McEnroe while his Dad was in a band who supported the Rolling Stones and had the same manager as the Troggs.

Russell's great great grandfather was a stowaway on the Titanic, fleeing Southampton and leaving behind three wives and 16 illegitimate children.

He survived a near fatal car crash that was started by weaving to the rhythm of Ace of Spades by Motorhead. He has also fallen through a glacier, and again, obviously, he survived...

Baby Darling Doll Face Honey was produced, recorded and mixed by Ian Davenport (Supergrass, Badly Drawn Boy) and recorded at Radiohead's Courtyard Studios in Oxfordshire and mixed at the House of Blues studio in Los Angeles.

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Band of Skulls - Baby Darling Doll Face Honey