Joel Stoker (vocals), Lucas Crowther (guitar), Rob Pyne (bass), and Grant Marsh (drums) create the jaunty garage rock sound of the Rifles. With their Jam-like swagger and matched playfulness to the Kooks, the Rifles came together in London in 2003. They made their performance debut a year later and earned praise from NME and BBC Radio 1’s Zane Lowe, who quickly championed the Rifles’ boyish rock & roll fun. Their debut, “When I’m Alone,” arrived in May 2005 and did moderately well among their growing fan base, but it was “Local Boy” that gave the Rifles their first U.K. Top 40 hit that fall. Other chart hits, such as the Strokes-like “Repeat Offender” and “She’s Got Standards,” added to the band’s heightened popularity in 2006. Produced by Ian Broudie (the Coral, the Subways, I Am Kloot), No Love Lost marked the Rifles’ debut full-length in July. Additional U.K. club shows and appearances at the annual V Festival in Chelmsford and Staffordshire followed in August. Three years later, in 2009, the band returned with their sophomore record, Great Escape. Shortly after it was released, Marsh and Pyne bid farewell to the Rifles. Undeterred by lineup changes, the band released three further albums, culminating in 2016’s Big Life.
TUESDAY 02 MAY
THEKLA BRISTOL The Grove, Bristol BS1 4RB Doors 7:00pm Ages 14+
2014 was a full decade since their first ever gig. The venue at which it took place – the Bull & Gate in Kentish Town – is no longer with us: just like so, so many of the bands who began their journey around the same time. Most of those bands enjoyed a couple of months of hype, managed to get an album or at least a single out, then felt the hype die down and the magazines, blogs and radio lose interest, and so packed it in.
The Rifles did not. Because they were never in it for any of the above things, and still aren’t. The radio doesn’t play them, people don’t write about them, but they’re still after all of this time making a very powerful connection with a certain type of person.
“It’s our fanbase that’s kept us going, totally,” says bassist/singer/songwriter Joel Stoker. “We can still play to like, a couple of thousand people in London, and all around the country. We’re almost like a cult band: to our fans we’re “their” band.”
“We’re a bit older now, and we’ve got kids and all that,” Lucas notes. “And it’s been hard for us at certain times, but it’s like now we’ve just gone, ‘Fuck it!’ and we’re just doing it to make music that we love. I still feel we’ve got it in us to do a perfect song that people just will not be able to ignore.”
2015 saw the band mark the ten year anniversary of their debut album ‘No Love Lost’ with 4 triumphant sold out Electric Ballroom shows in London and 2016 will see the release of their 5th album.
WEDNESDAY 24 FEBUARY
THEKLA BRISTOL The Grove, Bristol BS1 4RB Doors 7:00pm Ages 14+
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