Manchester Orchestra

Manchester Orchestra’s beginnings lie in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, where songwriter Andy Hull decided to home school himself at age 16 and put all of his focus into writing and recording. Heartened by all the positive feedback, Hull took the advice and spent his senior year in the studio. Freed from traditional school, Hull delved deep into creating the characters and stories that were to make up the ambitious concept album that was to be Manchester Orchestra’s debut.

As time passed and the band’s evolving line-up began to solidify, the feel of Hull’s songwriting began to change. Emboldened by longtime friend, and band-mate Jonathan Corley (bass) and the addition of Jeremiah Edmond (drums) into the group, Manchester Orchestra’s musicianship began to take new flight. It soon became clear that this was the sound of a different band. Not content with forsaking all of their hard work, the revitalized group decided to pare the album Nobody Sings Anymore down to an EP entitled You Brainstorm, I Brainstorm, But Brilliance Needs A Good Editor, which they released on their own label, Favorite Gentlemen, and get out on the road. According to Hull the decision to champion chemistry over concept was easily made.

After Brainstorm’s release, the band focused on touring the southeast. During this period, another one of Hull’s close friends, keyboardist Chris Freeman, entered the fold. Manchester Orchestra’s musical direction was now solidified and the band began writing songs for their full-length, follow-up.

These new songs, which would become I’m Like A Virgin Losing A Child, were powerful, compact rockers that battered away at one structure before taking an abrupt turn into the next. The effect is akin to getting lost on purpose: Just as the layout makes sense – even familiar – it’s the unexpected detours that maintain the thrill.

Though Manchester Orchestra’s new songs were decidedly not going to comprise a concept album per se, Hull still found that his lyrical voice was best spoken through characters rather than personal experience. “I think that a lot of the time music should be like movies,” says Hull. “Whether or not the songs are from characters’ perspective they’re still characters in my brain. So they’re different parts of my personality saying whatever it is that that person’s feeling. When you’re in a band when your seventeen there’s a big difference between nineteen and twenty. We’ve always taken our band very seriously but we didn’t know what to take seriously. These songs are a whole lot more ‘this is what our band sounds like and this is what we wanna write.’”
After months of writing, rehearsing and touring on their new materia,l the band decided that the next album should reflect the same energy as their creative process. When the band entered the recording studio with producer Dan Hannon in the summer of 2006, they played everything live – passionately bashing their songs out together in the same room. Manchester Orchestra’s full-length debut, I Am Like A Virgin Losing A Child, was born. Along the way they found a new comrade in studio intern Robert McDowell who would later become a full-fledged member of the band.

The strength of I’m Like A Virgin Losing A Child coupled with the band’s gift for giving powerful performances has caught the attention of many including Rolling Stone Magazine who raved about the band in their recent “10 Artists to Watch” feature. The New York Times said, "This is a fundamentally immodest album: music to swoon to."  Hull is keeping pragmatic: “I think we need to play as many shows as we possibly can and just continue to have fun but maintain as much control as we can over our destiny and try to grow our band organically.”

In September 2008, the band announced they had begun recording their second LP entitled Mean Everything to Nothing.  It is to be released on April 21, 2009.

From Lastfm:

Manchester Orchestra is an American indie rock band which formed in Atlanta, Georgia in 2004. The group is currently composed of rhythm guitarist, singer/songwriter Andy Hull, lead guitarist Robert McDowell, keyboardist and percussionist Chris Freeman, bassist Jonathan Corley and drummer Tim Very. Former drummer Jeremiah Edmond parted ways with the band in January 2010 to focus on his family as well as running the band's record label, Favorite Gentlemen. The band has released three albums - 2006's I'm Like A Virgin Losing A Child, 2009's Mean Everything To Nothing and 2011's Simple Math.

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From Wikipedia:

Manchester Orchestra is an American indie rock band from Atlanta, Georgia, formed in 2005. The group is made up of rhythm guitarist-singer-songwriter Andy Hull, lead guitarist Robert McDowell, keyboardist and percussionist Chris Freeman, bassist Jonathan Corley and, currently, replacement drummer Len Clark. Former drummer Jeremiah Edmond parted ways with the band in January 2010 to focus on his family as well as running the band's record label, Favorite Gentlemen. To date they have released several extended plays and two studio albums to critical praise - I'm Like a Virgin Losing a Child (2006) and Mean Everything to Nothing (2009). They are currently signed to independent record label Favorite Gentlemen Recordings which is distributed through Sony Music Entertainment.