Currently - The band are done with the old and in with the new. A new record label means all the independently recorded, and their currently working on their first real debut album. Information at the moment however is limited, but expect to hear more in the upcoming weeks.

Ian & The Lips are a new, small, upcoming band from Manchester, England. The band originated from a small town where each member lived, and began performing together from a very young age with the exception of Ian. The band struggle to define their own genre of music in fact, and generally stick with calling themselves a 'rocknroll' band. However a more accurate description would be a kind of Punk/Grunge/Psychedelic crossover.

Ian
Ian grew up in a fairly well off household from a small town outside of Manchester. His father owned a large chain of successful catering companies, and his youth was filled with meeting rock superstars. As a result he is bold and outgoing, and doesn't shy away from attention. He once got a kiss on the cheek from Stephanie Fierce on his 15th birthday, something he proudly tells whenever he can. However growing up in a world of glitz and glamour had it's downsides. Ian's father was often away on work during school times, and on holidays Ian would accompany his father to various gigs. At a young age, this inspired him, however for his sixteenth birthday he witnessed his father having an affair. This ruined their relationship, and Ian grew more and more depressed with having the pressure of his fathers lies on his shoulders whilst having to live with his mother. When Ian was 17, his mother was told she had bone marrow cancer. She endured months of grueling treatment, yet Ian simply could not bring himself to tell his mother what had happened. His mother grew more and more ill, and eventually succumbed to the disease when Ian was 18. When his mother died something in Ian clicked. He threw everything his father had given him out of his bedroom window and proceeded to wreck their house when his father was out. When his father returned, he found a note reading 'Fuck you.', and his house completely ruined. Ian then traveled to the city of Manchester, hoping to get away from his fathers grips and start a life for himself. Once in Manchester, he worked in a club as a barman. He developed a cocaine addiction. It was working in a bar that he met the rest of the band.

The Lips
The Lips all come from Salford, but moved to the City of Manchester when they were in there late teens. The band began doing small gig's around the city but often argued and broke up a total of 24 times during their first three year run due to these arguments. However, being great friends they overcame their vast disagreements and joined together again in 2009, and since they've greatly improved, only breaking up 9 times in the last year. However, what really changed the band completely was the introduction of Ian Sargent. The Lips originally was fronted by Jessica, a soulful vocalist who could easily of carried the band herself but their turbulent relationships within the band restricted the band from being signed. And so the introduction of Ian as a leader and focal point expanded the bands potential hugely.

Background

The band have been around as Ian & The Lips for around a year now, and after releasing an album of their favorite EP's and Demo tracks, and a number of small singles independently they eventually signed to Black/White Records.

Edited by user 28 July 2011 19:16:38(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

ooc: Yeah haha, I really need to catch up to speed with everything. But this should be an interesting story to tell to get me back into the swing of things.

NEWSINGLENEWSINGLENEWSINGLENEWSINGLENEWSINGLENEWSINGLENEWSINGLE

Today we released a little teaser of our new album. The single features two song's from the album, called 'Shelter' and 'Cheeks', and another song that was on our original album that appeared on the EP 'UNTITLED', way back over a year ago called 'Numb'

SHELTER
Shelter was written by Ian and Jessica collectively, and features both of their vocals. Lyrically, the song is about a young girl, who works the streets at night. Jessica sings her harsh, tormented choruses, whilst Ian sings a slightly more soft, mellow tale of the father of the girl. Lyrically the song is touching whilst being supported by an ebbing and flowing sound created by harsh, crunching guitars flowing into acoustic melodies and back again. An ambitious track, with a kind of grunge focus that still holds onto it's raw emotion with brilliantly crafted music accompanied with poetic lyrics.

Thanks man that's really cool to here from a guy like yourself! At the moment we're really trying to get to grips with working with a label, it's so different to my basement haha, but hopefully everyone likes it I guess we'll see won't we!

-IAN

Lily: The artwork is very creative and creepy so I love it :) Looking forward to your music.

Charts

Just a little update on how our new single 'Shelters' been doing. It's highest point in the UK charts was number 7 which we're fucking ecstatic about, this whole things just crazy like a fucking dream man. Can't believe it, we haven't seen much money from it though so not all rockstar lifestyle just yet! It also did pretty well in the states, reaching 57th at it's peak. Also interestingly was the 212th most bought song in the world? We thought that was pretty cool but at the same time sobered us up and realised there's still 211 other fuckers to take down before we're at the top!

Overall the singles sold 182,136 copies, something we're proud of and hope that the album carries on this well! Also thanks for the really good feedback on the single cover, Ian designed it whilst eating spaghetti and we think he's going to be the man to design all our covers from now on!

In other news, we're doing an interview VERY soon with Rolling Stone so be sure to check that right out, we're post snippits here and a link to the interview which you can check out in it's entirety!

Thanks!

- JESS