Upcoming Gigs

Formed in Manchester, I Am Kloot made their live debut at the city’s Night and Day venue in the summer of 1999 and were quickly snapped up by local impresario Guy Lovelady. He pressed up 1,000 copies in a brown-bag sleeve - hand stamped by the band - of debut single ‘Titanic’/‘To You’ on his fledging Uglyman label. "It was an easy decision," explains Lovelady. "They were the first band I'd seen in years who actually had something to say, something to really express. They're a contradiction, combative yet charming, punchy yet embracing."

Uglyman released a second single ’86 TV’s’ / ‘Twist’ in February 2000, but soon after the band signed to Wall Of Sound’s new offshoot We Love You and in March 2001 they released their debut album ‘Natural History’. Critically recognised as one of the finest debut albums of the year, it more than confirmed their early promise as one of the best new bands around. "When we started I'd just hit upon a vein of songwriting that had grown from stuff by Brecht, like 'Mack The Knife'" explains Bramwell. "Songs that I felt a part of myself, like a thief, scavenger or scallywag come to the fore, whispered and snarled at the same time. I wanted to take music that came from some obscure tradition and whack it straight into the present day. Carrying a club, a gun or a brickbat. These songs would come at you on crutches, with leg braces or in wheelchairs, an early review called me a club footed Gene Vincent, I fucking love that". Signing to The Echo Label in 2002 they released their eponymously titled second long player in September 2003 which coincided with a triumphant sold out show at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire, the bands biggest UK show to date.

April 2005 and ‘Gods And Monsters’ represented a fuller, more expansive chapter in I Am Kloot’s musical autobiography. Recorded in Stockport's Moolah Rouge with producer Joe Robinson, its thirteen songs were without doubt the trio's strongest and most ambitious to date. Of that period, Johnny Bramwell said "Something clicked and I felt as if the band had just begun, as if we'd sprung from the head of Zeus in full body armour. The first album reminded me of ‘Columbo.’ This one makes me think of ‘Richard III. Okay, there's a huge difference, but you can feel the thread in my head… there's a connection, you know. Both outsiders - Columbo the goodie and Richard the baddie…can you feel it?"

The band set off on their first tour of America in March 2005 to coincide with the release of the 'I Am Kloot' album, their first stateside release. The US dates were the first of what was more or less a world tour through 2005. It's a way of life the band had already become accustomed to, having toured extensively through the UK and Europe, playing every major festival from Glastonbury to Benicassim along the way.

“I Am Kloot is a little universe we’ve created I Am Kloot is not a band, it’s a world. It’s an enigmatic one because it’s both brutal and charming. It’s ruthless and endearing, it’s full of contradictions and – it shifts across the sky like the weather.”

The core I Am Kloot line up of Johnny Bramwell (voice and guitar), Peter Jobson (bass) and Andrew Hargreaves (drums) also been worked with director Danny Boyle on the soundtrack of his latest sci-fi feature ‘Sunshine’. This is not the band’s first foray into film as they also appear on the soundtrack to ‘Snow Cake’ (starring Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver) and feature on ‘Middle Of Nowhere’, an Australian film which was drelease in 2007.

Towards the end of 2006 the band embarked on a string of hugely successful dates for their core fans to playing sold out two night stands in London, Manchester and Amsterdam. 2007 has seen the band visit Turkey and Italy, and John Bramwell has now completed his third sold out gig as part of a monthly residency at Islington's Bar Academy.