Nine Black Alps - Biography
By Scott Feemster
Though they have only been a band since 2003, Nine Black Alps have already established themselves as a band to watch in the coming years.
The genesis of the band that would become Nine Black Alps happened when singer/guitarist Sam Forrest left his home town of York, England, and moved to Manchester, thinking he needed to either start a band or find a real job. One night, Forrest attended a show by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and made friends with another audience member, Ilana Cereza. Cereza found out that Forrest was a musician, and asked him to join her punk band. Another member of the band was guitarist David Jones. Jones and Forrest soon bonded over their love of noisy guitar bands, and though the punk band didn’t last long, the two started writing songs together. With the two guitarists and Cereza on bass, the two looked for a drummer, and eventually found James Galley, who had just left local Manchester band Safari. The new, nameless band lasted just a few weeks before Cereza announced she was moving to London. The group continued as a bass-less trio for a little while, until Jones convinced a classmate in his sound engineering class that he should join the fledgling band. Though Martin Cohen was primarily a guitarist, he liked the sound of the band, and agreed to join as the bassist. The group, with barely functioning guitars and using borrowed amps, began practicing at an old mill building rented out to bands to practice in, and at one of the practices, a local promoter heard them and liked what he heard. The promoter offered the group their first gig, but first they needed to come up with a name for their group. Taking a phrase from a poem by Sylvia Plath, the four decided that Nine Black Alps sounded suitably strange and scary.
With their first gig going down a resounding success, the band started playing around the Manchester area, and, with their thick, distorted sound reminiscent of grunge, and penchant for writing catchy songs, started getting the (rather unfortunate) tag from the music press as “the English Nirvana.” Regardless, the band was quickly building up a large following and was getting noticed by record companies. After getting wined and dined by representatives from several different labels, the group decided to sign to Island Records in 2004, mainly on the strength that PJ Harvey was also signed to the label. The group were soon on the road playing concerts and appearing at music festivals, and were later flown to Los Angeles to begin work on what would become their debut album with producer Rob Schnapf. Everything Is (Island/Universal) was released in August of 2005 to generally positive reviews, and the group spent the better part of the rest of 2005 and the early part of 2006 touring the U.K., Europe, Japan, and the United States. The group returned back home to England for a time to write some new material, but soon returned to the U.S. for more touring. The band returned home again to Manchester to play some well-attended gigs, before again returning to California to begin recording a follow-up album with producer Dave Sardy. The resulting album, 2007's Love/Hate (Island), expanded the band's sound, using a variety of different instrumentation and percussion. The album garnered favorable reviews on both sides of the Atlantic, but just a couple of months later, it was announced that Island would be dropping the band from their roster. Regardless, the band went back on the road, and played support slots for such bands as Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Biffy Clyro in the U.K. After taking a few months off to reassess where the band was going, the members of Nine Black Alps reconvened in the summer of 2008, and began work on a new album with producer Dave Eringa. Recording was completed around the end of the year, and the as yet untitled album should be released sometime in 2009 on an undisclosed label.
