Youth Group Biography

Sydney band Youth Group's story-to-date reads something like a three-act play. Furthermore the YG story is exactly like the Star Wars trilogy. The first act begins in 1998 in a time long ago in a galaxy far, far away, with founding members Toby Martin (Luke Skywalker) and Danny Allen (Han Solo) forming an indie rock band and bullseying womp rats back home in a T-16. Christened Youth Group the week of their first gig - at Enmore's Warren View Hotel - by gonzo managers Pete and Andy (the bumbling but good-hearted R2D2 and C3PO respectively), YG releases its debut album 'Urban & Eastern' in 2000. Out of print since 2003, the album was re-released in July 2006 after the band discovered not only are secondhand copies going for up $90 at Redeye Records, but that they themselves no longer have copies. 'Urban & Eastern' establishes Youth Group as one of Australia's best kept underground secrets and the galaxy is saved as the Death Star is destroyed.

Cut to the second act of the play and things aren't quite as rosy. There are occasional bad gigs, money issues and day jobs -the lost battle on the ice planet Hoth, the crash landing on the swamp planet Dagobah, the hacking off of Luke's hand by Vader. Plus member-departures from Andy Cassell and Johnno Lattin - Obi Wan's death and Chewbacca's capture by the Empire - make things a little tough. Then the band is dropped by Modular in a fit of pique from Pav - Han is frozen in Carbonite by the evil Jabba the Hut - and it takes the whole of 2003 for the band to get it all together and record its second album, 'Skeleton Jar'. But what a record it turns out to be.

The release of 'Skeleton Jar' in April 2004 ushers in the third act, and marks a turning point for the heroes of our play. With the album garnering four and five star reviews, the word on Youth Group begins to spread, and listeners are transformed into true-believers by the skill and warmth of the extraordinary songwriting.

Guitarist Cameron Emerson-Elliott (ex The John Reed Club) and bassist Patrick Matthews (ex The Vines) join the cast, like Ewoks rescuing Luke on Endor, shortly after the release of 'Skeleton Jar', while world-renowned LA record label Epitaph offers the band a US/Europe deal in December 2004, even though they've never seen them play live.

Tours in the US and UK follow, with American band Death Cab For Cutie becoming fans and offering Youth Group a support slot on a leg of its sold-out US tour in October 2005. It's also thanks to Death Cab guitarist and producer Chris Walla that a copy of 'Skeleton Jar' falls into the hands of the music director of TV show 'The O.C.' Single 'Shadowland' is played on the hit drama, and the reaction is so great that Youth Group is invited by 'The O.C' to put its own stamp on the 80s hit 'Forever Young' for a crucial scene in the show.

It's at this point that the tale veers down an unexpected path. Starting out at community radio and JJJ, 'Forever Young' is then used in an O.C promo and suddenly every radio station in the country has added the track. The single goes on to reach #1 on the ARIA singles chart in the first week of April 2006 and achieve platinum sales.

Youth Group released its third LP, 'Casino Twilight Dogs', in 2006. Again produced by Wayne Connolly (You Am I, The Vines, Dallas Crane), 'Casino Twilight Dogs' is a career-making record for Youth Group.

Tracked in Sydney in December 2005 and February 2006 and with the recording completed and mixed in LA in April 2006, the album follows the examples set by many of the great recordings of the past - recorded live-to-tape wherever possible. 'Forever Young' was recorded as such, and it was this method that informed the album's concise arrangements.

Cut to 2008, and Youth Group are set to make a return to the Aussie music scene with the release of their new album The Night Is Ours.