Funeral Party: Finale: 24TH JANUARY 2011: JIVE

East LA three-piece Funeral Party are pleased to announce the release of brilliant new single “Finale” on January 24th. Their eagerly awaited debut album “The Golden Age Of Nowhere” will also grace us with its presence on the same day. A UK tour in support of the release will take place at the start of the year (full dates below).

The trio formed late one night in a park in their hometown of Whittier, California, an East Los Angeles suburb comprised of mostly working-class enclaves. A post-punk dance- craze revival was emerging, Funeral Party began gigging every weekend drawing more than 800 kids at random backyards across East Los Angeles. Quickly achieving a mythic status in the LA underground, Funeral Party attracted the attentions of Lars Stalfors, engineer for Mars Volta, who invited the band to record in Volta’s studio.

The Funeral Party phenomenon is already creeping onto our shores after the bands first two singles took the UK by storm. With early playlist adds from Radio 1, 6 Music, Kerrang and XFM, as well as grabbing press attention across the board means the trio have firmly established themselves as ones to watch for the future. Funeral Party are set to take 2011 by storm, they dismiss any attempts at categorization, and have created a visceral music that encapsulates experiences of youth universally.

JANUARY
Mon 24th – London, Bush Hall (New To Q Session) / Tues 25th – Bristol, Fleece / Wed 26th – Oxford, Academy 2 / Thurs 27th – Manchester, Academy 3 / Fri 28th – Glasgow, King Tuts / Sat 29th – Aberdeen, Tunnels / Mon 31st - Belfast, Stiff Kitten

FEBRUARY
Tues 1st – Dublin, Academy 2 / Thurs 3rd – Newcastle, The Cluny / Fri 4th – Leeds, Cockpit / Sat 5th – Nottingham, Bodega / Sun 6th – Norwich, Arts Centre / Tues 8th - Birmingham, Academy 3 / Wed 9th - Brighton, Audio / Thurs 10th – London, Cargo 

http://www.myspace.com/funeralparty

Southeast of Los Angeles, beyond the Hollywood sign and Scientology centres and porn-bodied beach bunnies, lies the city of Whittier. Here, life is a little tougher. Here, if you happen to form a band as a means of escape, you may see someone getting stabbed in front of the stage you’re playing on.  

Funeral Party? Quite literally sometimes. Which makes the band’s sudden leap this summer from cult local Whittier heroes to Radio One playlist-busting pop stars all the more remarkable.

The nucleus of the band, Chad, plus guitarist James Torres and bassist Kimo Kauhola, (they’re now a five-piece, with keyboardist Tim Madrid and new drummer [DIDN’T CATCH HIS NAME!!]) were high school friends, who drifted into the Whittier backyard scene after leaving school. Basically, with little money about, and with nowhere to spend it anyway, locals began having parties in their backyards, and bands naturally began to form to play them. “There was a cool feeling in the air that something new was finally on,” remembers Chad, “You’d go to these backyards and see all these bands, and there was just a cool movement. There were so many different types of people there – you’d have your gangsters, your punks, and they’d all be mixed up in one backyard.”

The three friends decided to get a band together, mainly out of that classic reason that stirs young men onto great things: jealousy. Chad says, “We wanted our share of it. We just used to act crazy to get noticed. Our main agenda was just to be as in your face as possible.”

That was a mere two years ago. Word spread fast about the band mainly due to the mania of their live shows, but also to the way they quickly transcended the hardcore and metal on the scene, and wrote catchy, dance songs which touched on influences like The Cure (their got their name from a song on ‘Faith’), At The Drive In, and even The Human League.

The immediate result of the development of their “disco-punk” sound was that Lars Stalfors, engineer to the Mars Volta, asked them to record at their studio. “We met Lars at a backyard show and he was like, “I want to record your band NOW.”

After the resultant sessions came ‘NYC Moves To The Sound of LA’, which turned into a big local hit. They got signed to an indie label before Jive nabbed them and thrust them, via the propulsive single ‘Just Because’, onto UK radio stations. A series of eye-catching gigs on both sides of the Atlantic followed, before the band bagged a crucial support slot to Julian Casablancas. Julian would tell the crowd “we were the future.” Now Funeral Party’s debut album, ‘Golden Age of Knowhere’, is about to cement their status as just that.

The album was recorded back at Mars Volta’s studio, though this time, they, “were in the main studio, not the storage room.” Lars Stalfors was producing again, and it seems his role was mostly keeping the Funeral Party boys in order.

Dave Sardy (Oasis, LCD Soundsystem) mixed the album, and the result, from the future indie dance classic ‘New York City Moves To The LA Sound’ to the epic glam-punk of ‘City’, it’s an album that shakes your hips as well as grabs your balls. For Chad, the key track is one of their earliest songs, ‘Where Did It All Go Wrong’, “It’s the first song we ever had where the audience sang it back to us.”

‘Golden Age of Knowhere’ is a rollicking ride and is set to make Funeral Party one of the hottest bands of 2011, and an unmissable live draw. A support slot with 30 Seconds to Mars on their UK tour will give people the first sign that they belong in front of big crowds. “We want to show people something new, and give audiences something that can remember,” Chad says.

Funeral Party are here to restore your faith in rock bands.