Gaz Brookfield | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Birth name | Gareth Brookfield |
Born | Kettering, Northamptonshire, England | 4 July 1979
Genres | Acoustic, Folk, Rock |
Occupation(s) | Singer, songwriter |
Instrument(s) | Guitar, vocals, harmonica |
Years active | 2006–present |
Labels | In My Lounge Records Land Pirate Records |
Website | http://www.gazbrookfield.com |
Gareth "Gaz" Brookfield (born 4 July 1979) is an English folk and rock musician, who is based near Swindon, England. He is usually a solo artist, playing acoustic guitar, but is regularly joined by fiddle player Ben Wain and also has a full band, the Company of Thieves.
In his early career, Brookfield played with a number of bands but moved to a solo career in 2006. [1] In 2010, he won Acoustic Magazine's Singer-Songwriter of the Year award, [2] which also won him a place on the Big Top stage at Beautiful Days Festival, where he has played a number of times since. [3] He has also played at other major festivals such as Glastonbury, [4] and supported artists such as The Levellers, New Model Army, Ferocious Dog, and Frank Turner. [5] [6] In 2011, he became the first (and to this date only) unsigned solo act to sell out the 450-capacity [7] Fleece in Bristol, [3] an achievement which he has since repeated four more times with his Christmas shows; [8] the 2014 show was also his 1,000th gig. [9] In 2017, due to demand, the Christmas show was moved to the 750-capacity [10] Bristol Bierkeller which sold out as well. [11] With the closure of the Bierkeller shortly afterwards, the 2018 show was moved again, this time to the bigger SWX venue, [12] [13] where the 2019 show was also held. The Bristol Post , naming Brookfield in their "60 Coolest People in Bristol" article, said "There aren't many musicians in Bristol who could sell out the 1,100-capacity SWX, but he does." [14]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Brookfield was forced to shield due to his Type 1 diabetes, [15] and was one of the first artists to write and publish an entire album about the pandemic which was appropriately called Lockdown and was released on 2 October 2020. While unable to tour during the pandemic, he played a weekly live stream entitled "Live from the Lockdown", [16] which celebrated its one-year anniversary with the 52nd show on 12 March 2021. [17] Brookfield released his eighth album, Idiomatic on 1 November 2021, which reached No.71 in the UK Albums Chart, and No.10 in the UK Download Charts. [18]
In August 2023, Brookfield's ninth studio album, Morning Walking Club, was released. It reached No.37 in the UK Albums Chart, and No.1 in the UK Official Folk Albums Chart. [19]
Brookfield plays semi-regular shows with a full band, the line-up of which is as follows; [20]
Brookfield has released nine original studio albums, plus four "Solo Acoustic Guy" albums with re-workings of his previous songs. He has also produced a number of live albums. [21]
Norman Quentin Cook, better known as Fatboy Slim, is an English musician who helped to popularise the big beat genre in the 1990s. In the 1980s, Cook was the bassist for the Hull-based indie rock band the Housemartins, who achieved a UK number-one single with their a cappella cover of "Caravan of Love". After the Housemartins split up, Cook formed the electronic band Beats International in Brighton, who produced the number-one single "Dub Be Good to Me". He then played in Freak Power, Pizzaman and the Mighty Dub Katz, with moderate success.
Supergrass are an English rock band formed in 1993. For the majority of the band's tenure, the line-up consisted of brothers Gaz and Rob Coombes (keyboards), Mick Quinn and Danny Goffey. Originally a three-piece, the band was officially joined by Rob Coombes in 2002.
William John Paul Gallagher is an English singer and songwriter. He is the lead singer of the rock band Oasis, which he co-founded in 1991. He fronted the rock band Beady Eye from 2010 to 2014, before starting a successful solo career in 2017.
Happy Mondays are an English rock band formed in Salford in 1980. The original line-up consisted of brothers Shaun Ryder (vocals) and Paul Ryder (bass), Gaz Whelan (drums), Paul Davis (keyboard), and Mark Day (guitar). Mark "Bez" Berry later joined the band onstage as a dancer and maracas player. Rowetta began working with the band as guest second vocalist in 1990. They were originally signed to Tony Wilson's Factory Records label.
James "Midge" Ure is a Scottish singer-songwriter and record producer. His stage name, Midge, is a phonetic reversal of Jim. Ure enjoyed particular success in the 1970s and 1980s in bands including Slik, Thin Lizzy, Rich Kids, Visage, and as the second bandleader of Ultravox after John Foxx had left, carrying the band into the high charts positions for the six following years before disbanding it. In 1984, he co-wrote and produced the charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" putting together for the occasion the supergroup Band Aid. The single has sold 3.7 million copies in the UK at first release, and has become a staple of Christmas songs compilations ever since. The song is the second-highest-selling single in UK chart history. Ure co-organised Band Aid and the events Live Aid and Live 8 with Bob Geldof. He acts as a trustee for the charity and also serves as an ambassador for Save the Children.
Ian George Brown is an English musician. He was the lead singer and the only continuous member of the alternative rock band the Stone Roses from their formation in 1983. Following the band's initial split in 1996, he began a solo career, releasing seven studio albums, a greatest hits compilation, a remix album, an 11-disc box set titled Collection, and 19 singles. He returned to singing for the Stone Roses in 2011, although this did not spell the end of his solo endeavours, releasing First World Problems through Virgin/EMI Records on 25 October 2018.
James are an English rock band from Manchester, formed in 1982. They achieved popularity during the 1990s, with four top-10 hits on the UK Singles Chart and nine top-10 placings on the UK Albums Chart. The band's best-known singles include "Come Home", "Sit Down", "She's a Star" and "Laid". "Laid" also became a hit on American college radio. Following the departure of lead singer Tim Booth in 2001, the band became inactive, but members reunited in January 2007 and have since released a further seven albums. Live performance has continually remained a central part of the band's output. As of 2010, the band had sold more than 25 million albums worldwide.
Levellers are an English folk rock and anarcho-punk band formed in Brighton, East Sussex, in 1988, consisting of Mark Chadwick, Jeremy Cunningham, Charlie Heather (drums), Jon Sevink (violin), Simon Friend, Matt Savage (keyboards) and Dan Donnelly. Taking their name from the Levellers political movement, the band released their first EP in 1989 and LP in 1990, with international success following upon signing to China Records and the release of their second album Levelling the Land. The band were among the most popular indie bands in Britain in the early 1990s, and performed at the Glastonbury Festival, first in 1992, then in 1994, where they performed as the headline act on The Pyramid Stage to a record crowd of 300,000 people. They continue to record and tour.
The Killers are an American rock band formed in Las Vegas in 2001 by Brandon Flowers and Dave Keuning. After going through a number of short-term bassists and drummers in their early days, both Mark Stoermer and Ronnie Vannucci Jr. joined the band in 2002.
Lamb is an English electronic music duo from Manchester, whose music is influenced by trip hop, drum and bass and jazz. The duo consists of producer Andy Barlow and singer-songwriter Lou Rhodes. They achieved commercial success with the hit singles Górecki and Gabriel.
Hayseed Dixie is an American band formed in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2000. Their first album was A Hillbilly Tribute to AC/DC. The band performs bluegrass cover versions of hard rock songs and also original songs of a mostly satirical or absurdist nature in a self-created musical genre which the band calls "rockgrass." The band's name is a linguistic play on the name of the band AC/DC.
Reef are an English rock band from Glastonbury whose members include Gary Stringer on vocals, Amy Newton on guitar, Jack Bessant on bass, and Luke Bullen on drums.
The Fat Lady Sings were a rock band from Dublin, Ireland, fronted by singer and songwriter Nick Kelly. Almost immediately after forming in March 1986, they relocated to London, and remained there for the rest of their career. Despite this, they gained more media attention and commercial success in their native Ireland, with a series of five top 20 singles in 1990/91, than they did in the UK.
Strangelove were an English alternative rock band, formed in Bristol in 1991 comprising singer Patrick Duff, guitarists Alex Lee & Julian Poole, bassist Joe Allen and John Langley on drums. They released two EPs and three albums before disbanding in 1998.
Jake Bugg is an English singer-songwriter. His self-titled debut album, Jake Bugg, some of which was co-written with songwriter Iain Archer, was released in October 2012 and reached number one on the UK Albums Chart. His second album, Shangri La, was released in November 2013 and his third, largely self-produced album On My One, in June 2016. His fourth album Hearts That Strain, a largely acoustic effort, produced by Dan Auerbach, was released in September 2017. After a gap of four years, in August 2021, Bugg released the more pop-influenced fifth album Saturday Night, Sunday Morning.
Michael David Rosenberg, better known by his stage name Passenger, is an English indie folk singer, songwriter and musician. From 2003 to 2009, Rosenberg fronted a band by the same name; he opted to keep the Passenger moniker for his solo work after the band dissolved. Rosenberg is best known for the 2012 song "Let Her Go", which topped the charts in 16 countries and accumulated more than 3.6 billion views on YouTube. Because Rosenberg was based in Australia at the time of release, it is the most-viewed Australian YouTube video ever. In 2014, the song was nominated for the Brit Award for British Single of the Year, and he received the British Academy's Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Work.
Anna is the third studio album by British rock band Courteeners. It was released on 4 February 2013 through V2 Records and Cooperative Music. Following their second studio album Falcon (2010), the band took a break at the end of 2010. They played a few shows in 2011, spending most of the year working on their next album, debuting some new songs in the process. After frontman Liam Fray broke his ankle, he re-listened to the material they had up to that point and felt they could be improved on. Following a meeting with Joseph Cross, he was enlisted to produce the band's next album; sessions were held at 80 Hertz Studios. Anna is an indie pop album that leans more into the electronic elements found on Falcon.
George Ezra Barnett is an English musician. After releasing two EPs, Did You Hear the Rain? (2013) and Cassy O' (2014), Ezra rose to prominence with the release of his hit single "Budapest", which reached number one in several countries. His debut studio album, Wanted on Voyage, was released in June 2014, reaching number one in the UK and the top ten in seven other countries. It was also the third-best-selling album of 2014 in the UK.
Lewis Marc Capaldi is a Scottish singer-songwriter and musician. He was nominated for the Critics' Choice Award at the 2019 Brit Awards. Capaldi also won the 2020 Brit Award for Best New Artist. In March 2019, his single "Someone You Loved" (2018) topped the UK Singles Chart where it remained for seven weeks, and in November 2019, it reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100; it was nominated at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards for Song of the Year and won the 2020 Brit Award for Song of the Year. "Someone You Loved" was the bestselling single of 2019 in the UK. In May 2020, it was announced that Capaldi's song "Someone You Loved" had become the longest-running top 10 UK single of all time by a British artist.
Squid are an English post-punk band from Brighton, England. Consisting of lead singer and drummer Ollie Judge, guitarists Louis Borlase and Anton Pearson, bassist Laurie Nankivell and keyboardist Arthur Leadbetter, they are currently based in Bristol.