Bloc Party

Kele Okereke and Russell Lissack both grew up in Essex and knew each other from school days but met up again at the 1999 Reading Festival where they first discussed forming a band. They recruited Gordon Moakes on bass from an advertisement in the NME and, after a long search Matt Tong was added as drummer. They released debut single She's Hearing Voices on the Trash Aesthetics label and, grabbing his opportunity while playing a concert with Franz Ferdinand, Kele Okereke gave a copy of the track to Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq, who called it "genius" and invited them to play a session on his show. Bloc Party's spiky guitar and edgy lyrics quickly made them one of the UK's top new bands. Debut album Silent Alarm was voted NME's album of the year in 2005, producing the hit singles So Here We Are/Positive Tension and Banquet and subsequent albums A Weekend In The City (2007) and Intimacy (2008) proved equally popular.