The Liverpool trio HAARM were born in 2016 at 4am, over a drink in El Bandito, a cool underground tequila bar nestled amongst some of Liverpool’s finest studios and live music venues. Chris McIntosh explains, "We were mutual fans of each other's projects and writing, we're all from songwriting backgrounds and we had no schedule to release anything so there was no pressure." The trio compose of Chris McIntosh on guitar/vocals, Jen Davies on keys/vocals and Olly Gorman on drums they and began to work immediately on writing and recording a set of songs with a strong emphasis on melody and groove, all centered around Jen and Chris’ dual lush vocals.
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| In the studio |
Their debut single 'Foxglove' was followed by a second release, in October 2016, 'In the Wild', in between which saw them garnering 400,000 streams on Spotify, which led to multiple plays on BBC Radio 1 (Huw Stephens/Phil Taggart) and being added to the Xposure Playlist at Radio X. They supported 'Bloc Party' during their February tour in 2017, culminating with two dates at the esteemed London venue The Roundhouse. In May 2017, the band were selected by BBC Introducing to play Radio 1's Big Weekend in Hull and were introduced onstage by Huw Stephens. Over the first 2 years the band’s string of stand-alone singles, 'Love You In A Different Way', 'Valentine', 'Foxglove', 'In The Wild' and 'Endangered Species' picked up support from the likes of The Independent, Q Magazine, Clash, DIY, Indie Shuffle, The Skinny and more, with a whole host of radio spins for both from Phil Taggart and Huw Stephens on BBC Radio 1. In fact, 'In The Wild' was made Radio X Single of the Week, added to the Amazing Radio daytime playlist and racked up over 300,000 streams on Spotify. Their music so far has been synced to events including The Champions League, Europa Cup, Rugby World Cup and several other BT Sport shows, as well as national TV soaps Hollyoaks and Emmerdale.
Their 2018 single 'Box of Bones' was selected as the soundtrack for Sky Atlantic promo in the summer of 2018 which was broadcast across the Sky TV network, and in August 2018 the band were chosen as the sound of BT Sport’s 2018/19 Premiership Football coverage with their version of Manchester band 'Everything Everything's' song, 'I Believe It Now'. Autumn 2018 saw the release of the band’s heart-wrenching single, 'Better Friend', which received support from Nemone on the BBC6 Music Breakfast show, with the official music video directed by acclaimed film director, Daniel Fitzsimmons. Since then things have continued to go from strength to strength for them with the band landing a high profile sync on Netflix Japan reality TV show Terrace House, and in January 2020 their version of 'The Meters' 'Hand Clapping Song' was selected by BT Sport to soundtrack their Premier League Tonight show.
Their next single 'Take Me Away' was released on Friday the 17th of April 2020 and was a little different to their previous releases. Previously renowned for dark sombre pop tunes, this time around they went for a more upbeat vibe. Jen Davis explained the change in style: "We’ve predominantly written more melancholy songs in the past. Our lyrics are usually centred around themes of isolation, self-destruction, failed relationship, all a little too close to home at the moment. 'Take Me Away' is intended as a moment of euphoria; a release from those thoughts. Of course, we wrote it several months ago now, but it feels more important than ever to have written something uplifting in the current situation." 'Take Me Away' is an absolutely pleasure on the ears and is just over four mins of beautiful breezy feel good pop, that will take you to the beach, the club, the mountains or wherever you want to go. On Twitter they announced, "Our new single, Bang Goes The Gun, comes out on the 6th March! It's directly inspired by 'The Night' by Franki Valli, which might just be the greatest song ever written. Then on Facebook they posted, "Our brand new single, 'Bang Goes The Gun', is now available to stream on all platforms!!
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