Kingmaker: Ұлыбританиялық инди-рок тобының тарихы

British indie rock band

Kingmaker were a British indie rock group, founded in Kingston upon Hull in 1990. The group was formed during their gap year by school friends Loz Hardy and Myles Howell. They placed an advertisement for a drummer, and recruited John Andrew who was an ex travelling puppeteer.

The band began playing and touring, before making their recording debut with The Celebrated Working Man EP. After this they signed up to Chrysalis Records and released a second EP, entitled Waterproof, in 1991. Their debut album Eat Yourself Whole was released on 7 October 1991. It was well received, and spent three weeks in the UK Albums Chart, reaching a high of No. 29 in October 1991. In addition they released the single "Eat Yourself Whole", which, despite sharing the name of their album, did not appear on the original UK version. It reached the top twenty of the UK Singles Chart. During 1992, Kingmaker were supported on tour by Radiohead, who had not yet released Pablo Honey, and by Suede, who were on the verge of releasing their first single "The Drowners". On 29 August that year, they appeared on the bill alongside Babes in Toyland, Beastie Boys and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at the Pukkelpop festival near Hasselt, Belgium. They then landed an American recording contract with Chrysalis. Their second album, Sleepwalking, was released on 17 May 1993.

Speaking to Hybrid magazine in 2000, Hardy explained that when "Armchair Anarchist", the first single taken from Sleepwalking, failed to break into the Top 40, executives at their record label made several changes that Hardy felt were to the detriment of the band. These changes included re writing Sleepwalking, to include more commercial sounding tunes and moving all the publicity in house. One more aspect that Hardy felt destroyed the band as a creative unit was the record label's decision to introduce formatting of their singles. "I dunno if you have that over Stateside but [formatting] basically means there would be different b sides on the 12 inch (2), cassette (1), CD 1 and CD 2 (3 on each). So if the album has, say, 13 songs on it and with three singles that means you're gonna need 40 songs. 40 fucking songs! So the workload is near impossible and plus the fans get ripped left, right and centre to boot. What was also happening was that you did songs for the album and then b sides but really fucking excellent songs were ending up tucked away third song on CD 2 and no one heard them."