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Scouting For Girls
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Scouting for Girls are a pop banformed in 2005 by Cristian Buhus, Andrew Martin and Jeffrey Johnson. Buhus and Johnson met in the Cub Scouts and Martin met Buhus at school.
The name Scouting for Girls is a play on the words of the Scouting for Boys handbook first published in 1908 for the Scouts, which provides boys instructions on good citizenship. Similarly, the Scouting for Girls fan club is known as the "Wolfcubs" and is based on the Dennis the Menace fan club. It has been noted that the band was looking for a spirited way of removing themselves from the drudgery of their everyday lives, looking to the whimsy of childhood fantasy through playing a moog organ. Churchouse has observed on several occasions that playing bass is something he wanted to pursue as the bass has "two less strings".
Whlist in University Stride and Churchouse were in a band called Cape. With Stride swapping from guitar to piano, "Scouting for Girls" began to do concerts in a room above a pub in Harrow. By the time they were signed they had built up a fanbase - on MySpace and Pulse Rated, a website for unsigned bands. They had also already written a demo of Heartbeat and produced a video for The Airplane Song.
On 14 February 2007, Scouting for Girls were signed to Epic UK (a division of Sony BMG). Almost immediately the band headed out to Helioscentric Studios in Rye, East Sussex to begin work on their debut album. Produced by Andy Green (Keane, KT Tunstall, The Feeling), the band’s first release was the ‘It’s Not About You’ EP, released on 25 June 2007. It sold-out, and became the highest charting limited edition EP in chart history. The album was released in September 2007, and has sold in excess of 900,000 copies in the UK alone. It spawned a host of hit singles; She's So Lovely, Heartbeat, and Elvis Ain't Dead.
‘Scouting For Girls’ self-titled went to number 1 in the UK on 20 January 2008, where it remained for two weeks.
The band toured the UK heavily throughout 2007 and 2008, upgrading and selling-out venues in every city they performed. During their first tour of 2008, Cristian Buhus lost his voice en route to a gig in Birmingham and was diagnosed with laryngitis, forcing the band to reschedule a series of dates on the tour. The rescheduled dates included an extra night in London, with the band-selling out a record four consecutive nights at the Shepherds Bush Empire. The band’s final tour of the year concluded with two sold-out nights at London’s Hammersmith Apollo, and one at London’s Brixton Academy.
Scouting For Girls also made a series of appearances in Europe, Japan, Australia and America in 2008, including performances at 2008’s SXSW Conference in Austin, Texas and CMJ in New York City.
Scouting For Girls returned to Helioscentric Studios (East Sussex, UK) in 2009 to commence work on their second album with producer Andy Green (who produced the band’s eponymous debut album). The album, ‘Everybody Wants To Be On TV’, was released in the UK on 12 April 2010. The first single to be taken from the record was 'This Ain't A Love Song' which went straight to number 1 in the UK Singles Chart on 4 April 2010, giving the band 2010’s Easter Number 1.
Roy has commented on how hard they worked to make this record the best it could possibly be, scrapping early recording sessions and re-writing many of the songs in his quest for the ‘perfect pop song’.
In the lead up the album’s release, Scouting For Girls performed in the Woolpack Pub on the set of long-running British soap, Emmerdale for a Radio Aire session.
Scouting For Girls will tour their new album throughout 2010, commencing with a full UK tour throughout late April and May 2010.
The band also took part in a sponsored Chopper bicycle ride from London to Brighton for the charity WellChild.
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