Biography
Matt Russell and Jai Stokes first teamed up to form Broadsword. When they invited David Brown into the band, they dropped Broadsword and became Zeus. The line-up changed sixteen times throughout the band's history. In 1996, when Dave Trimnall, the drummer for Zeus, emigrated to Australia, Stokes promptly closed the band.
Later that year, Stokes met Ian Faragher, a promising drummer, who had played with Matt in a Manchester based rock band Crazy Apartment. They decided to form a new band as a trio, by the name of I am Seven. The band first made their breakthrough when they won the Pepsi New Band of 1998. Soon afterwards, they were propelled to release their first single, the aptly named "Welcome". The song received praise from famous musical acts such as Bob Geldof, who called it "a great song". Unfortunately the video was banned, due to its graphic images of heavy drinking and smoking. They performed several acoustic radio gigs for XFM, SBN and other student based radio stations to promote the single, finishing the campaign with a 3 day residency in the Virgin Megastores Tent at Glastonbury Festival.
The band followed up the critically acclaimed first single with their second, "Better". The single became a popular hit on student radio both in London and their native Birmingham. The video, this time, was aired on terrestrial television. Following another moderate success, they released their third (and last) single "Time" early in 2001, which fared worse than the previous two singles, despite the band's appearance on Men & Motors and a small UK tour. The press, especially Kerrang, did not favour the new polished direction of the band. Soon after, the band closed for a new project ("New English Music Foundation", a group with the same members as I am Seven). However, in 2004, a greatest hits compilation album with their three singles and b-sides was released, and a comprehensive DVD spaning the entire career. Jai went on to video directing for EMI, Ian into music publishing for Sony.
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