Badly Drawn Boy

Damon Gough, the man who single handedly made tea-cosies look cool began recording under his new moniker after meeting Andy Votel at a nightclub in his home city of Manchester in the 1990’s. The two became close friends and were very much on the same wave length – so much so that they formed the Twisted Nerve label.

As Badly Drawn Boy, Gough released several singles and EPs during 1997 and 1998, including the excellent ‘It Came from the Ground’ EP – all of which have now become collector’s items. In 1997 he also appeared on Unkle’s acclaimed 'Psyence Fiction' album – which also featured guest appearances from the likes of Thom Yorke and Richard Ashcroft.

Following a spate of successful singles, including ‘Once Around the Block’, Gough released the critically-lauded ‘Hour of the Biwilderbeast’. Such is his prolific energy, Gough wrote over 120 songs for the album but had to eventually narrow it down to just over twenty. Both experimental and acoustic, the album won the Mercury Music Prize that year. Nick Hornby, the author of the book ‘About a Boy’ loved the album and asked Gough to write the soundtrack for the film adaptation in 2001 of the novel. The album featured the single ‘Silent Sigh’.

In 2002, Gough surfaced with ‘Have You Fed the Fish’ – the album was a consciously more poppy and full band sounding than his previous two releases. It was also much shorter than his debut. This was followed two years later by his least commercially successful release ‘One Plus One is One’. BDB spent the autumn of 2004 trying to crack the States.