Mohair are an English rock band, formed in 1998 in
Watford
Watford () is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, 15 miles northwest of Central London, on the River Colne.
Initially a small market town, the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, a ...
,
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...
. The band is composed of drummer Pete Baker, vocalist/guitarist Tom Billington, keyboardist Alex Lee-Richards and bassist Tim Slade.
[Wilson, MacKenzie]
Mohair Biography
, Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
. Retrieved 6 March 2016 The members of Mohair had played in various bands since their early teens.
The band initially split in 2007, but in January 2019 they announced they would be reforming for a one-off show at London's Borderline club in the June of that year.
Early years
Tom Billington is quoted in an early press release about the band's formation:
''"We were all in bands, together and separately, from the age of about 12. Pete and I went to the same primary school and he met Tim at 'big' school when they started their first blues band. I had a band with my brother and sister playing covers stuff, while Alex was lurking away the other side of the county playing classical concerts and in the church choir!
''Tim joined my band when we were about 15 then Pete came in on trumpet. I met Alex at a musical theatre show we were both involved in a year or so later. This evolved into a 10-piece soul band (doing weddings and the like) until I left school and went traveling in India for a year – where I started to write songs.
''When I got back, it was just the 4 of us left. Everyone else had gone to university or got jobs…and that was it really...it all started from there. And that's when we knew there was no other way for us to live."''
The band started gigging locally in 1998 as Trooper. By 2001, they had attracted the attention of a small indie label, M1 records and changed their name to Mohair (due to a Canadian band already having the name Trooper).
After signing with M1 Records in October 2001, Mohair spent much of the next 3 years touring throughout the UK. In March 2002 the band made their USA debut with performances at The Cat Club and The Roxy in Los Angeles – and by summer 2004 the band had played over 300 gigs and appeared at many major UK festivals.
However, their first 2 'official' single releases (discounting their promo CD "Octopus Chunks") arrived to little fanfare, resulting in the group parting ways with M1 Records in June 2004.
Small Talk
Mohair went on to form their own Ear Candy imprint in 2005, and released singles "End of the Line" and "Stranded (in the Middle of Nowhere)" that year.
In spring 2006, Mohair performed several shows at the annual
South By Southwest
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...
Convention in
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...
,
followed by shows in Chicago and New York.
Their debut album, ''Small Talk'' (produced by Mark Wallis and Dave Ruffy) was released in the UK on 24 April 2006 on the Ear Candy label,
[MacNeil, Jason]
''Small Talk'' Review
, Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
. Retrieved 6 March 2016 promoted by an appearance on ''
The Album Chart Show
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' on
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
in the UK. The album was received favourably by
Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
, with Jason MacNeil giving it four stars and calling it "an album that should have a lot of people talking", while Michael Deacon of the ''
Daily Telegraph
Daily or The Daily may refer to:
Journalism
* Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks
* ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times''
* ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...
'' called the songs "simple and predictable" with "almost teeth-grinding tunefulness".
The US version of the album was released on Grunion Records on 19 September 2006 (supported by a 9-week tour of the East coast of America). Upon returning to the UK, Mohair toured as the support act for
Boy Kill Boy on their December 2006 UK tour.
In 2007 they supported
Razorlight
Razorlight are an English indie rock band, formed in 2002 in London by lead singer and guitarist Johnny Borrell. Along with Borrell, the current line-up of the band is composed of founding members Björn Ågren on guitar and bassist Carl Delemo ...
on their February - April 2007 US and UK tours. They also co-headlined with
The Holloways
The Holloways are an English four-piece indie rock band from North London. Their single "Generator" reached number 14 in the UK Singles Chart on 11 June 2007. They have had five No.1 singles on the UK Indie Chart and several Top 40 singles. The ...
on a tour of Germany in May of that year.
Split
On 31 August 2007, Mohair announced that after nine years they were to split up. They played a handful of dates throughout the UK as part of a 'farewell' tour, finishing with a show at The Horn Reborn, St Albans on 28 September 2007. This would be their final show until their 2019 reunion.
2007 - 2019
Pete Baker went on to play with
Emmy The Great
Emma-Lee Moss (born 4 November 1983), known by her stage name Emmy the Great, is an English singer-songwriter. She has released four studio albums, ''First Love (Emmy the Great album), First Love'', Virtue (Emmy the Great album), ''Virtue'', ...
and fellow Watford band
The Staves
The Staves are an English indie folk trio of sisters Emily, Jessica and Camilla Staveley-Taylor from Watford, Hertfordshire, England.
Career
The Staves began performing together at open-mic nights in Watford hosted by a local pub, The Horns. ...
. Baker now plays drums for several acts including
Younghusband.
[Welch, Andy (2013)]
Radar Band of the Week: Younghusband
, ''NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
'', 9 September 2013. Retrieved 6 March 2016
In 2010, Tom Billington recorded his first solo album, ''Make No Bones'', released on 24 May of that year. The follow-up ''As Luck Would Have It'' was released on 13 February 2012. He has since gone on to work with
Sinead Quinn in country duo Billington & Quinn, as well as spearheading musical charity Electric Umbrella.
Alex Lee-Richards toured with
The Bluetones
The Bluetones are an English indie rock band, formed in Hounslow, Greater London, in 1993. The band's members are Mark Morriss on vocals, Adam Devlin on guitar, Mark's brother Scott Morriss on bass guitar, and Eds Chesters on drums. A fifth me ...
from 2008 to 2018, also playing on their final studio album
''A New Athens''. Along with
Andy Lewis, he went on to form the short-lived Acid Jazz project
The Red Inspectors. Lee-Richards has gone on to perform and record with
Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Sophie Michelle Ellis-Bextor (born 10 April 1979) is an English singer and songwriter. She first came to prominence in the late 1990s as the lead singer of the indie rock band Theaudience. After the group disbanded Ellis-Bextor went solo and ach ...
,
Joan Armatrading
Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading, (, born 9 December 1950) is a Kittitian-English singer-songwriter and guitarist.
A three-time Grammy Award nominee, Armatrading has also been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist. She received ...
and Indie/Folk outfit In The Forest.
Tim Slade now works as a TV composer and freelance bass player - most notably for
Fields Of The Nephilim
Fields of the Nephilim are an English gothic rock band formed in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, in 1984. The band's name refers to a Biblical race of angel-human hybrids known as the Nephilim.
Career Early years (1984–1991)
Fields of the Nep ...
and
Gary Numan
Gary Anthony James Webb (born 8 March 1958), known professionally as Gary Numan, is an English musician. He entered the music industry as frontman of the new wave band Tubeway Army. After releasing two albums with the band, he released his d ...
. Tim Slade and Pete Baker currently play together in The Bluefingers.
Reunion
In January 2018, Mohair released the limited edition box-set ''Almost Everything Ever'' which was a collection of all CD and vinyl releases, together with original photos, setlists and other memorabilia - each package being unique to the recipient. The box-sets sold out in under a week, sparking a renewed interest in the band to the possibility of playing live again.
Mohair reformed for a one-off performance at The Borderline, London on 14 June 2019. Regarding the reunion, Tom Billington was quoted: "''We went through a lot together but we've all been through so much more since. Children, marriages, near death experiences….it's going to be amazing to see what that adds up to when we play together again.''"
The band followed their sold-out reunion in London with a 'homecoming' show at O'Neill's, Watford on 19 December 2019.
Since 2020, Billington and Lee-Richards have performed as an acoustic duo version of Mohair.
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
References
External links
Mohair at MySpace
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mohair
English rock music groups
Musical groups established in 1998
Musical groups disestablished in 2007