A call to arms… help us hit the charts!

Today, Monday 11 January, marks the date of our first major label release - the song "Come With Me", which we wrote for the Josh's Band project. We're hoping that, with your help, we'll be able to reach the UK Top 40 Chart on Sunday. You guys have supported us loyally for years now and we truly appreciate it - a band without a fanbase is, after all, just four blokes sat in a room eating crisps and arguing about whether ...

Help us hit the Top 40

The single "Come With Me", which we wrote at the end of last year for the Josh's Band ad campaign, is being released on Universal Records on Monday 11 January. If we sell enough copies, we might even make it into the Top 40. Watch this space for details of how to download your copy! CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE MUSIC VIDEO. The track was produced by Bacon & Quarmby (David Bowie, Ian Brown, Finley Quaye) at London's Rak Studios and, ...

Our Top 20 Moments Of 2009

Christmas Time is here again and there’s enormous excitement in the air. There’s an outside chance that Rage Against The Machine will beat the X Factor to Number One on Sunday and the weather-man says that snow’s a-coming. Things literally couldn’t be any better. We thought we’d add to the general feeling of goodwill and festivity by recounting our favourite and most memorable experiences from the past year. Most of them - whether in London, Cape Town or the USA - ...

Kate Nash & Her Famous Rabbit

Last night we went back into the studio to finish the lead vocal track for "Come With Me", the song we wrote for the new T-Mobile ad campaign. The record is being produced by Jonathan Quarmby, whose past work includes Finley Quaye's seminal album Maverick A Strike. George and I both lent our voices to the lead vocal track along with an awesome, honey-voiced female singer called Obenwa. The track is being ...

LYs starring in two TV ads – out now!

Over the past month, The Lightyears have been touring around the country with Josh's Band as part of a series of enormous jamming sessions in five of the UK's major cities. These gigs have been turned into two T-Mobile adverts, both of which are now airing on primetime television. After writing the song "Come With Me" - which became the soundtrack for the campaign - Chris and George joined Josh's core band on ...

Setting the record straight

Yesterday afternoon we gathered at Rak Studios in St John's Wood to put the finishing touches to the track we wrote for Josh's Band, "Come With Me". Awesome turns were made by, amongst others, a rather talented tuba player, several trumpeters and the inimitable Russell Ward on the squeezebox. One perennial truth of being in the studio is that you spend 10% of your time making records and 90% of your time hanging about. It's vitally important that, during this 90% majority period, you ...

The Lightyears on your telly-box

So... the inaugural nationwide tour of Josh's Band is now over. We've been to Birmingham, Bristol, London, Edinburgh and Manchester and played to (and with!) over 1,100 people. It's been an incredible experience to be part of Josh's core band and the general consensus is that all of this is merely the beginning. Work on the track we wrote for the campaign - "Come With Me" - continues apace and it is due for release on a major record label in January. The final recording will feature hundreds of musicians and singers ...

Lightyears Christmas party – this Friday night

Your last chance to see The Lightyears live in 2009 is this Friday night (4 December) at The Troubadour in Earls Court. We're throwing an enormous, super-shiny Christmas party to usher in the festive season and promise to lavish all kinds of delectable rock treats upon everybody present. Tickets are selling fast so it's advisable to buy in advance by clicking here or turn up early! Doors are ...

Look out Manchester – Josh’s Band is a-coming…

Since I last blogged, Josh's Band has jammed in Bristol, London and Edinburgh. We've played with pipers, melodised with melodica players and harmonised with hurdy-gurdyists (don't be fooled by the elaborate alliteration - all of this is true). Plus our mates are starting to get in contact to say they've heard us on the radio tonight - so the word is spreading... It's been an awesome journey so far and ...

Thank you Wembley… and hello Bristol!

Last night we played to 46,000 people at Wembley Stadium and who should turn up to join the crowd but that bloke off the telly, Josh Ward! Seriously though, we had an awesome night and it was great to see so many LYs fans there. We took the opportunity to do a little onstage camera piece with Josh ahead of our trip to Bristol tonight - the next stop on Josh's Band's T-Mobile tour. I studied at Bristol University so I have a special affection for the place... ...

Josh’s Band hits the road…

Well... Birmingham was awesome. Nobody knew quite what to expect from the first date on Josh's Band's tour but what we got was a mass singalong in the Bullring, just enough decent weather to perform outside and about 200 screaming fans! Josh, it seems, has become a minor celebrity overnight and his mere presence now sparks mass hysteria amongst his devoted groupies. Our song, "Come With Me", went down really well ...

Come one, come all, to Birmingham…

All the great tours start in great cities. That's just a simple fact of rock and roll. It might be the Enormodome, Memphis, or the Shepherd's Bush Empire, or New York's Madison Square Gardens. This tour, on the other hand, begins in Birmingham. But you gotta start somewhere, eh?! Tomorrow morning at 11am, Josh's Band (featuring Chris and George Lightyear) will be premiering at the Birmingham Bullring in an attempt to get the good people of the UK singing the song ...

Tate Modern, here we come…

Over the past few weeks I've been spotting my face all over bus stops, underground stations and bins (no, really) as part of the new T-Mobile ad campaign. I know what you're thinking - if a man sees his face on too many shopping centre bins then, eventually, he's going to develop an intolerable ego. Well, true to form, the ego is burgeoning and well and truly on its way. But that's not all. Not only have ...

LYs write song for T-Mobile ad campaign

Last week we were asked by T-Mobile and Josh Ward (the face of their recent "free texts for life" adverts) to write a song for their new campaign that would inspire thousands of people across the country to "Join Josh's Superband". We were up against a number of other musicians and songwriters but we're excited to announce that T-Mobile have chosen our song! The track is called "Come With Me" and a basic recording can be heard ...

Come With Me (written for the T-Mobile ad campaign)

This House Will Burn 2 July 2007 · Print This Article (Russell, Owens) You left me nothing to lose Falling out of my skin...

Our song in a national ad campaign…!

Here's the news - T-Mobile have selected our song "Come With Me" to be the signature song for their upcoming ad campaign. On top of this, George and Chris have now officially joined Josh Ward (the face of the ad campaign) and virtuoso drummer Mike Glozier to form the core band for the tour. This means that we'll be bombing up and down the country over the next month or so ...

Writing a song for T-Mobile…

Our involvement with the new T-Mobile ad campaign is now beginning to get exciting. Friends and family have been spotting us all over the UK on TV ads, billboards, bus-stops and train station big screens.... and today we were brought in to write the campaign's flagship song. We were invited to the famous Rak Studios in St John's Wood, which is where Radiohead recorded The Bends. Our brief was to write a song that would provide the ...

LYs to appear in national ad campaign

***UPDATE: check out the T-Mobile East London Jam feat. The Lightyears! Click here*** The Lightyears are appearing in several T-Mobile adverts broadcast nationwide over the coming weeks. If you've seen any of the company's recent campaign - "What Would You Do With Free Texts For Life?" - you'll probably have noticed the one where the curly-haired chap vows to start a superband (watch it ...

Jamming on an open-top bus!

OK, so it's Week Three and yet again I found myself gathering up an instrument and heading off to a slightly unconventional jamming session for the new T-Mobile ad campaign. I was on guitar rather than piano today because the session was taking place on a vintage open-top bus driving through the centre of London. I know. This was rock and roll in its purest form. George is out-of-town at the moment so I took my kid brother Shaun with me, who is a stunning musician ...

The Piano Orchestra

OK - latest developments in the T-Mobile Superband Bonanza... Today Josh asked us to come and join him and bunch of other musicians in the Half Moon pub in Oxford to jam a new song that had been written for the campaign called "I Wanna Feel You Move". It was a small pub and full to the brim with guitarists, singers, percussionists and pianists. I was rather delighted to find myself ...

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