Air Traffic: Biography

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• Discography
• Biography
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Genre:

Rock Music

Decades Active:

2000's

Air Traffic are one of the breed of piano led, indie rock bands, prevalent in the early 21st century, from England and hail from the sleepy seaside town of Bournemouth on the South Coast, not a hotbed of musical heritage to date. The name originated from their rehearsals in an abandoned industrial unit near to the runway at Bournemouth International Airport, where air traffic control signals could be picked up on their equipment. Singer, pianist and main songwriter Chris Wall's roots go back to Ireland, both his parents were of Celtic descent and his uncle Jimmy McCarthy was a folk singer living in the town of Cork. Wall met drummer David Jordan and guitarist Tom Pritchard while still at school and formed Air Traffic as a sideline to their exams, only really taking a potential career in music seriously during their gap year while in Queensland, Australia.

On returning to London the three 21 year olds recruited a fourth band member, bass player Jim Maddock. Their first single featured the tracks Just Abuse Me and Charlotte and was released as a limited edition of 500 copies on the Fandango label, the independent record label of live music promotion company Club Fandango, in July 2006. This was officially a time for more study but in reality, they were all blowing their student loans on hiring rehearsal studios. They cut some demo recordings and the industry began to take notice, a process that speeded up when David Kosten saw the band at a gig in London in 2006 and both signed them to his Tiny Consumer label, part of the EMI group and took them to Rockfield Studios in Wales to record their debut album. While recording the album, an EP of four of the tracks was released and the band also had their first television appearance in November 2006 when they appeared on Later With Jools Holland.

In April 2007, they rereleased the track Charlotte as a single and took it to no.33 in the charts. This was quickly followed by Shooting Star, one of the tracks from the EP which although only achieved a slightly higher place at no.30, paved the way for the release of the album Fractured Life in July which was named as Capital Radio's James Cannon album of the week. Following the album, Air Traffic announced a series of live dates around the UK including the V festival and the iTunes festival in July 2007 and a tour of eleven universities throughout the U.K. in September.

- Sharon Mawer, All Music Guide