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White Light Parade: Want You To Know

• 17th May 2012

Bradford’s finest, White Light Parade, return after a two year absence with a blistering new single ‘Want You To Know’ on July 2nd through Split Records.

The last couple of years have been a bit of a rollercoaster for White Light Parade. Previous singles, ‘Wait For The Weekend’ and ‘Turning All The Lights Down’ won support from XFM and Radio 1’s Huw Stephens. They toured with Kasabian, Fightstar, Reverend And The Makers, and The Subways, received great praise for their debut album ‘House Of Commons’ and to cap it all their Mick Jones-channeling ‘Riot In The City’ was selected for feature by, 22-million selling videogame monster, ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’.

As the band came off tour in 2010 and returned to their home turf of Bradford, West Yorkshire they decided to take stock and challenge themselves in a brand new way. Where ‘House Of Commons’ was a record that dealt directly with the realities of life in recession Britain – being skint, getting in scrapes, getting away with it by the skin of your teeth – all to a rowdy, urgent soundtrack steeped in Britrock favourites from Oasis to The Clash and The Jam, it was now time to try something a little different.

“The debut album was our way of sending out a message to people,” says frontman Danny Yates. “It was all about our way of life, and the state of the UK at the time. But with our new songs, we didn't want to just go and do the same things again. We wanted to experiment, to test ourselves lyrically and musically. The first album will always be there for people to listen to, but now we’re pushing ourselves in a whole new direction.”

The seeds of this new direction came last July, upon hearing that debut album track ‘Young Believers’ was chosen by leading US sports network ESPN as title music for their baseball shows. This news kickstarted the band back to life after a six-month hiatus with a replacement in the form of singer Danny’s old friend Mark Lewalski on drums. Suddenly this felt like a band with a new lease of life. A band ready to take on the world all over again.

You can hear all this in new single ‘Want You To Know’. Winding together chiming, uplifting guitars and a lyric that balances self-doubt with belief and resolve. It feels like a new beginning; the sound of a band using their past experiences to make something pure, honest and real.

“Our first stuff was angry, punky – about life in a small town, struggling in the recession,” says Danny. “The new stuff is about looking inside yourself, questioning yourself. They’re about growing up in Bradford but looking outside of that, trying to better yourself. They’re songs of hope, really.”

The single was recorded in sessions at Voltaire Road in Clapham and Black Dog Studios in Cheam, with producer Sean Genockey, best known for his work with Manic Street Preachers, Starsailor and Suede.