The Flying Pickets

The History... The Flying Pickets was first formed in 1982 by members of the 7:84 Theatre group, a socialist fringe theatre group who used acappella singing in a production called One Big Blow, the story of the 1972 miner's strike in the UK, from the miner's point of view. They enjoyed the singing so much that they started to work around the pubs and clubs of London, at a time when nobody else in the UK was performing pop/rock based acappella, and found immediate success. The first recording was a live show 'Live at the Albany Empire' on the group's own label, which sold so well that they soon came to the attention of Virgin Records, who signed the group in 1983. The very first single with Virgin, "Only You", a cover of a song by Yazoo, went straight to number 1 in the UK charts and was to remain there for five weeks over the Christmas of 1983 before going on to repeat the success throughout Europe. This was soon followed by the band's first studio album, 'Lost Boys' (1984). More albums followed - 'Flying Pickets Live' (1986) and 'Waiting For Trains' (1988). In 1989 the group were commissioned to write a musical theatre production for the Theatre Royal Stratford in London, a whole show based on songs about the working life, which they performed for a successful season. Around the same time, the group also performed the musical score on the BBC TV series Porterhouse Blue, which won a BAFTA TV award for Best Original Music. In 1991 the group recorded the 'Blue Money' album, which had huge success throughout Europe, and continued through the nineties with the albums 'The Warning' (1994), 'Politics Of Need' (1996) and 'Vox Pop' (1998). The group continued to tour, and in 2003 the album 'Live in Hamburg' was released; and the group made their first visits to Asia with 2 tours of Taiwan. 2005 saw the release of the album 'Everyday', produced by the Pickets' then bass singer Andrea Figallo. The group celebrated their 25th anniversary with a new stageshow 'Changing Times', featuring one song from every year of the band's existence, and which toured from October 2006 to December 2007. In 2008 the album 'Big Mouth' was released and accompanied the Big Mouth Tour. 2010 saw the Pickets travel to the USA to work on a Christmas themed collection of covers and original material. The resulting album, 'Only Yule', was produced by Grammy Award winner Bill Hare, and was extremely well received on both sides of the Atlantic. The Pickets' 2015 album, 'Strike Again', was produced by band members Andy Laycock and Simon Foster, and proved a surprise hit with audiences. The group have just released their latest album 'Only Human' (again produced by band members Andy Laycock, Simon Foster & Henrik Wager), and are currently still on tour, celebrating the band's 40th Anniversary.