Alex Westaway (born 1983) is the lead vocalist of

Gunship A gunship is a military aircraft armed with heavy aircraft guns, primarily intended for attacking ground targets either as airstrike or as close air support. In modern usage the term "gunship" refers to fixed-wing aircraft having laterally-mo ...

and co-vocalist and guitarist of the

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

band

Fightstar Fightstar are a British rock band from London that formed in 2003. The band is composed of lead vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Charlie Simpson, guitarist and co-vocalist Alex Westaway, bassist Dan Haigh and drummer Omar Abidi. Generally c ...

alongside

Charlie Simpson Charles Robert Simpson (born 7 June 1985) is an English singer, songwriter and musician. He is a member of multi-BRIT Award-winning rock band Busted and he is also the lead vocalist and the rhythm guitarist in the British post-hardcore band F ...

, Omar Abidi and

Dan Haigh Dan Haigh (born 5 December 1980) is an English musician, film director, video game designer, writer and visual effects artist. He is best known as co-founder of synthwave band Gunship and as the bass player in the English rock band Fightstar. ...

Early life

Westaway was born and raised in

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

and attended

Rugby School Rugby School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain. Up ...

where he met future bandmates and co founders of Horsie In The Hedge LLP, Dan Haigh and Alex Gingell. He has two younger sisters: Hannah, who is married to Dan Haigh, and Fleur, who runs the YouTube channel ''FleurDeForce''.

Fightstar

While he was at university Alex attended a party in 2003 with mutual friend Omar Abidi and the two met

which led to the formation of

. During the early years of Fightstar, Charlie was still an active member of the successful

pop-punk Pop punk (or punk pop) is a rock music genre that combines elements of punk rock with power pop or pop. It is defined for its emphasis on classic pop songcraft, as well as adolescent and anti-suburbia themes, and is distinguished from other pu ...

band Busted whose sound differed greatly from Fightstar's. However, when Charlie left Busted in January 2005, Fightstar had their first official UK tour and released their first EP ''

They Liked You Better When You Were Dead ''They Liked You Better When You Were Dead'' is the debut EP by English rock band Fightstar, released on 28 February 2005 through Sandwich Leg Records. The release proved a critical success, in spite of the cynics' initial expectations of the ...

'' in February 2005. Fightstar went on to release three albums; ''

Grand Unification A Grand Unified Theory (GUT) is a model in particle physics in which, at high energies, the three gauge interactions of the Standard Model comprising the electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces are merged into a single force. Although this ...

'', ''

One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours ''One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours'' is the second studio album by British post-hardcore band Fightstar, released on 24 September 2007 through Institute Recordings, itself a subsidiary of independent label Gut Records. Recorded in Los Angeles ...

'' and '' Be Human''. They announced a hiatus in 2010, but reformed in 2015 announcing a UK tour and the release of a new studio album, ''

Behind The Devil's Back ''Behind the Devil's Back'' is the fourth studio album by British post-hardcore band Fightstar. The album was released on 16 October 2015 via the band's own record label - distributed by Warner Music. The album was funded via a Pledge Music camp ...

'' which was released on 16 October 2015 and was their highest-charting record to date.

GUNSHIP

Alex co-founded the

synthwave Synthwave (also called outrun, retrowave, or futuresynth) is an electronic music microgenre that is based predominantly on the music associated with action, science-fiction, and horror film soundtracks of the 1980s. Other influences are drawn fr ...

band

GUNSHIP A gunship is a military aircraft armed with heavy aircraft guns, primarily intended for attacking ground targets either as airstrike or as close air support. In modern usage the term "gunship" refers to fixed-wing aircraft having laterally-mo ...

alongside Dan Haigh and Alex Gingell. The debut album was released in 2015. Alex and Dan Haigh have scored a number of short films including Grzegorz Jonkajty's The 3rd Letter along with Audrey Riley. The film picked up several awards from various film festivals across the world.

Equipment

Westaway's most commonly used guitars are: *

Fender Telecaster The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele , is an electric guitar produced by Fender. Together with its sister model the Esquire, it is the world's first mass-produced, commercially successful Les Paul had built a prototype solid bo ...

American Standard customized with single active

EMG pickups EMG, Inc. is the current legal name of a company based in Santa Rosa, California that manufactures guitar pickups and EQ accessories. Among guitar and bass accessories, the company sells active humbucker pickups, such as the EMG 81, the EMG 85 ...

. *

Fender Stratocaster The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of electric guitar designed from 1952 into 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corporation has continuously ...

American Standard *

Gibson SG The Gibson SG is a solid-body electric guitar model introduced by Gibson in 1961 as the Gibson Les Paul SG. It remains in production today in many variations of the initial design. The SG (where "SG" refers to Solid-Body Guitar) Standard is Gib ...

New Century *

Special with EMG pickups Amps: * Peavey 5150 * VHT Pitbull head Pedals: * Boss TU-2 * Boss TR-2 * MXR Smart-Gate * Boss RV-5 * Boss DD-7

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Westaway, Alex 1983 births Living people Fightstar members British rock singers People from Northamptonshire