Sea Power

SP are based in Brighton; the band members live in Sussex, Kendal and on the Isle Of Skye. Sea Power’s music has won them some remarkable admirers – Lou Reed, David Bowie and London’s National Maritime Museum. Indeed, the BSP fanbase now includes Doctor Who, Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes. Peter Capaldi is a confirmed BSP fan. “A band of stark originality,” he wrote in his foreword for the reissue of the band’s 2003 debut album, The Decline Of British Sea Power. “BSP’s songs bring you the bite of the wind, the fury of the sea, and music that is simply exhilarating.” Daniel Radcliffe has talked in detail about his plan to get a BSP tattoo (featuring the 2002 T-shirt slogan Bravery Already Exists). Benedict Cumberbatch is also an admirer of the band. Sea Power have played atop the Great Wall Of China, at the CERN atom-research labs and beside the diplodocus skeleton at London’s Natural History Museum.

They’ve played at London’s Czech Embassy and beneath the big astronomical dish at Jodrell Bank. They’ve played on ships at sea, deep inside Cornish slate mines and at the Chelsea Flower Show. The intensity and invention of the band’s shows made them Time Out magazine’s Live Band Of The Year in 2004. SP have toured giant American stadiums with old friends The Killers, and have played forests and arenas as specially requested guests of The Flaming Lips, The Strokes and Pulp. But BSP also stage remarkable events in remote Sussex pubs and Lake District village halls, where their own support acts have included birds of prey and The Copper Family, a clan of Sussex folk singers who’ve been going for two centuries. British Sea Power formed at the close of the 20th century. From the English Lake District came brothers Yan Scott Wilkinson and Neil Hamilton Wilkinson, plus school friend Matthew Wood. Guitarist Martin Noble arrived from West Yorkshire. It was the band’s live performances that defined their early years. When BSP played the 2002 Reading Festival, Rolling Stone indicated that the entirety of the weekend’s bill paled before them: “Fuck this puerile drivel, we’re going to see British Sea Power… British Sea Power rule!” The band's distinctive approach to live shows has included their own micro-festival at the Tan Hill Inn, the most elevated pub in Britain, high up on the North Yorkshire dales. It’s the only place you're likely to see the Arctic Monkeys getting boozed up between husky races and falconry displays. When invited by the late Poet Laureate’s family to play at the John Betjeman Centenary Gala in 2006, BSP performed alongside Ronnie Corbett, Nick Cave and The Prince Of Wales.