Athlete

Athlete are an Ivor Novello Award winning English indie rock band formed in Deptford, London, comprising Joel Pott (lead vocals and guitar), Carey Willetts (bass and backing vocals), Stephen Roberts (drums and backing vocals) and Tim Wanstall (keyboards and backing vocals). Recently, the quartet have recruited Jonny Pilcher of Weevil as a live guitarist.

Friends since the age of fourteen, Athlete took their wide ranging influences such as Grandaddy and The Flaming Lips and started jamming and practicing in the basement of The Bear, a pub which was converted into a church and sandwich bar, on Deptford High Street in 1999. They began recording there, before sending demos out.

The band had a brief period of high-profile domestic success in which their debut album Vehicles and Animals was a platinum seller in 2005 after a 2003 release and Mercury Music Prize nomination, with this followed up by Tourist which reached #1 and sold over 500,000 copies allowing this album to also go platinum.

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