Midnight Youth

It’s not just a song you’re hearing when Midnight Youth come barreling out of your stereo assaulting any workday complacency into submission with their blistering guitars, cocksure vocals and stomping rhythm section. No, what you’re hearing is the sound of a band. Remember those?

Before hip kids with laptops, rappers with records and preening pop-princesses transformed the musical landscape into aural blandness there were bands. Real bands, whose music and group identity would make you rush to discover where you could sign on and join up. It’s a sound you don’t hear much ‘anymore, but it’s unmistakeable and it’s what you’ll hear when listening to the new songs from Midnight Youth.

Hard as it is to believe, it’s been three years since we last heard from the group. Their ubiquity in the mainstream at the time betraying the two years of grunt work and dues paying they’d put in to become an “overnight success”. Their singles The Letter and All On Our Own gave the charts a shake-up, bringing stadium-filling hooks and rousing choruses back into fashion while simultaneously going gold in the process. Since then they’ve been largely quiet, at least on the home front, but you better believe they weren’t resting on any perceived laurels. Instead the band went out into the world and did what they’d always done; taken their music to the people.

Tours in America and a relentless gig schedule across the ditch in Australia saw Midnight Youth solidifying as a musical unit, tightening and toughening up and enthralling audiences with their raucous live energy. After playing the bejesus out of that first batch of songs the band realized it was time to start thinking about writing and recording their follow-up. They’d been “road-testing” new songs at gigs and, encouraged by the response, decided that their new songs needed to capture the enthusiasm and energy of the live show. To achieve this, Midnight Youth took a thoroughly unique approach. “That’s why the album sounds like it does. Because we’re the tightest band, not just musically but in terms of people as well.” And that’s what you hear when you listen to their songs; Midnight Youth is not just five musicians playing together, it’s a group, a musical hive mind, a gang. “That’s what rock bands are, we’ve finally given ourselves the chance to be the rock band that people need to know us as, because that’s what we are. The first time we turned the album into a show and this time around we turned the show into an album.

PERFORMANCE HIGHLIGHTS:

• Toured with Birds of Tokyo as part of their Australian National Tour May – June 2010.
• Midnight Youth performed live at The Whiskey Bar, LA as part of MusExpo 2010.
• Performed at SXSW & Viper Room in LA in 2009.
• 2009: Four Australian national tours taking in 40 dates right across the country in all major cities, including 27 date national Australian Trilogy Tour with Dukes of Windsor & Trial Kennedy.
• Sounds of Spring, Brisbane; One Movement, Perth; “Come Together”, Sydney’s Luna Park.
• New Zealand: Performed to 400,000+ over Summer including Big Day Out main stage, headlined NYE Rhythm & Vines Festival and Coca-Cola Xmas in the Park. Two NZ national tours, supported Incubus and INXS to name a few.

AUSTRALIAN CHART HIGHLIGHTS – ADDED:

• ‘‘The Brave Don’t Run’ Album released 21 May 2010.
• ‘All On Our Own’ & ‘The Letter’ released to radio.
• Across the Board: Nova; Triple M; Sea FM; NXFM; Macquarie; Hot FM; Star FM;
• Regional: 104.7, Eagle FM, Snow FM, CFM, SA FM 107.1, RED FM, Triple H, Coast FM, Zoo FM,
• Power FM, 99.7 Redcliffe, 96.5 Family, 101.9 FM, 2BH & Hill FM, Now FM, Triple G.

NEW ZEALAND CHART HIGHLIGHTS:

• 24th October 2011 – Releasing 2nd Album “World Comes Calling”
• 29th Aug 2011 released single “Who Said You’re Free” from upcoming 2nd Album
• In September of 2010 they released their first single, ‘Just For Once’, from what will be their second album.
• ‘The Brave Don’t Run’ Album debuts at #1 on NZ iTunes and #2 on NZ Top 40 Chart. Certified Platinum.
• 7 Singles have been in the NZ40 Radio chart to date.
• ‘All On Our Own’ – Gold Single. #1 on All airplay for 8 weeks. #1 on iTunes.
• ‘The Letter’ #1 on NZ40 Radio chart. #2 on All airplay for 10 weeks.
• ‘The Letter’, ‘All On Our Own’, & ‘Cavalry’ all #1 music videos on Juice TV and C4 TV.

TV:

• “Cavalry” was used as official Super 15 Rugby Song for 2010 / 2011 Season
• Midnight Youth’s latest single “Golden Love”, featured for 2½ minutes at the end of “One Tree Hill’s” worldwide season finale on 17th May 2010.

MUSIC AWARD HIGHLIGHTS:

• 8 NZ Music Award nominations in 2009: Best Album, Single, People’s Choice, Group, Rock Album, Artwork, Breakthrough Artist & Engineer of the Year.
• Winning Best Rock Act – Best Group – Best Engineered Recording
• Awarded Most Played NZ APRA Silver Scroll Award for “The Letter” in September 2009
• Won best Rock act and Best Artist on MySpace Music Awards 2009
• Won Juice TV Award Best Group Video for Cavalry 2010

Band Members:

Simon Oscroft (guitar)
Jeremy Redmore (vocals)
Matt Warman (bass)
Aidan Bartlett (drums)
Nick Campbell (keyboards, guitar)

Links:

Website - http://www.midnightyouth.com
Facebook - facebook.com/midnightyouth
Myspace - myspace.com/midnightyouth
Midnight Youth Twitter - twitter.com/midnightyouth