The Thrills

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Biography

The Thrills were an Irish Rock music|rock band, formed in 2001 in Dublin , Republic of Ireland|Ireland . The band was founded by lead vocalist Conor Deasy and guitarist Daniel Ryan, guitarist and bass player Padraic McMahon, pianist Kevin Horan and drummer Ben Carrigan. Their big break came with their debut album, So Much for the City , which became an Irish chart-topper|number one and charted at number 3 in the UK Album Chart|UK . The band's sound has been described as "inspired by classic American pop of the late '60s and early '70s" by MTV.com and "an ocean-soaked, harmony-heavy homage to California's dreamy dreams, shaking ground, and unrelenting sunshine" by Pitchfork Media .

Early History

The Thrills were formed in the Dublin suburb of Blackrock, Dublin|Blackrock in the mid-1990s, when neighbors Conor Deasy and Daniel Ryan formed the Cheating Housewives with friends Kevin Horan, Padraic McMahon and Ben Carrigan. Several of the members attended primary school together at Hollypark Boys School in Foxrock. In 1999, the band spent four months living in San Diego , during which time they wrote several of the tracks that would eventually appear on their debut album So Much for the City (such as "One Horse Town"). Upon returning to Dublin, they began writing and demoing more material, hoping to secure a record deal - which they soon did with local label Supremo Records, home of fellow Irish band Chicks. However the relationship with Supremo produced no releases and was short-lived; when they were dropped by the label several months later, the band members pointedly chose not to inform their parents.

During a trip to San Francisco in 2001, the band decided to change their name to The Thrills. Later that year they recorded six songs over the span of two demos. The second demo made a favourable impression on Johnny Davis of Bright Star Recordings and BMG Publishing. Through Davis, indie label Rough Trade Records became aware of the band and was impressed, offering the Thrills the money to record another demo. The Rough Trade demo was recorded, but by then label interest in the band had grown rapidly, with up to thirty A& R men and record personnel attending the band's next musical showcase gig. In September 2002, The Thrills signed with Virgin Records , attracted by the promise of artistic freedom and the label's decision to allow them to record their debut record in Hollywood with producer Tony Hoffer ( Beck , Air (French band)|Air ).

After releasing their debut EP in November 2002, the band flew to Los Angeles in December 2002 to record their debut album So Much for the City . So Much for the City was released in 2003, debuting at #1 in Ireland, #3 in the UK and going platinum in both the UK and Irish Album Charts. The album was nominated for the 2003 Mercury Prize but lost to Dizzee Rascal 's 'Boy in da Corner'. The album also won the 2003 Q Award for Best New Act, and Best New Act at the 2003 Irish Meteor Awards.

''Let's Bottle Bohemia

The Thrills' second album '' Let's Bottle Bohemia '' was released in September 2004. It was recorded in L.A. (where their first album had also been recorded) - this time with Dave Sardy as producer, featuring orchestration by Van Dyke Parks and a guest mandolin performance by R.E.M. 's Peter Buck. The album enjoyed similar success to the band's debut, entering the charts at number one in Ireland and number nine in the U.K. & ndash; largely on the back of the single " Whatever Happened To Corey Haim? ".

That same year, the band took part in the Band Aid 20 charity assemble, and performed the song "Santa Cruz (You're Not That Far)" at the Live 8 Edinburgh 50,000 - The Final Push charity concert, which is also featured on the DVD release of the event. The band also performed a medley with Ronnie Wood of their single "The Irish Keep Gatecrashing" and the Rod Stewart song " Maggie May " at the Irish Meteor Awards 2005.

Extended Break & Teenager

The band took an extended break after their second album, in an effort to evolve their sound. New material was written, and recording sessions took place in New York during 2006. Failing to meet the band's standards, many of these new songs were ultimately discarded, and remain unreleased.

"We were definitely striving for a new standard," Deasy said in 2007. "We were willing to scrap months of work on songs, which is one of the reasons it took so long. We recorded maybe 30 songs." During an interview with indie music magazine Under The Radar in October 2007, Deasy stated: "We wrote about 30 songs for this album, and a lot of the songs we discarded. They weren’t poor songs. They were perfectly good songs, but they were songs that could have fit on the first or the second album a little too easily."

More new material was written, including "Midnight Choir" which became the opening track for Teenager and was also released as a single. At the suggestion of R.E.M. , the five relocated to a renovated morgue (owned by Canadian musician Bryan Adams ) in inner-city Vancouver to record their third album with Tony Hoffer , who had previously produced their debut album.

Teenager (The Thrills album)|Teenager was released in Republic of Ireland|Ireland on 22 July 2007 and Central Europe on 25 July 2007. It failed to light up the British and Irish charts, but received mixed reviews, getting a Metacritic score of 71, positive reviews from the BBC 7/10 from the NME, a 6.9/10 from Pitchfork and a 2/5 review from the Guardian UK. A special CD/DVD edition of Teenager - which contained a film-length documentary about the band entitled The Thrills: The End of Innocence - was given limited release in the UK only.

Post- Teenager

The band was dropped by EMI in 2008 after the poor performance of their Teenager album, which only charted at #48 in the UK.

In an August 2010 interview with the Irish Times, Ben Carrigan confirmed that the Thrills remain on indefinite hiatus. At the time, Carrigan was working on his debut solo record entitled The Greatest Narrators , which was released on 23 September 2011. The first single from this album ("You Knew It All Along") was released on 19 August 2011.

While promoting his album in September 2011, Carrigan said of the Thrills: "We’re just on a hiatus. We haven’t done anything since 2008, when we toured Australia. We never split up, but we're all working on other projects. In time, I'm sure we'll get back together. It just got a bit crazy for a while because we were away from home, so we needed to take a break." During an interview with Hot Press in late October 2011 Carrigan stated: "It's like a past life now, the whole Thrills thing, to be honest. Which is kind of nice because it’s good to always feel like you’re moving forward as opposed to looking back and wondering what might have been."

On 22 August 2011, Virgin Records (the Thrills' former label) released a 'Best Of' compilation entitled 2002–2007 . The compilation contained no previously-unreleased or bonus material; all the tracks had been previously released in the Thrills' first three studio albums. To date, 2002-2007 has not been released in stores; the disc is only available through Amazon's UK site. However a digital-only edition is available on Amazon's US site.

Discography

Studio albums

Year	Album	UK	IRE cite book	author=Steffen Hung	FRA	url=http:/ / acharts.us/ album/ 16366	NED	NOR	SWE	USA Billboard Heatseekers	USA Billboard Top 200
2003	So Much for the City	3	1	—	100	47	75	28	23	14	—
2004	'' Let's Bottle Bohemia	9	1	79	183	—	85	—	—	6	152
2007	Teenager	48	24cite web	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—

EPs

Year	Title
2007	The Thrills Bite Size

Singles

Year	Single	UK	url=http:/ / acharts.us/ song/ 1117	author=Steffen Hung	Album
2002	" Santa Cruz (You're Not That Far) "	—	—	—	So Much for the City
2003	One Horse Town "	18	7	—
	Big Sur "	17	9	55
	Santa Cruz (You're Not That Far) (Re-Issue) "	33	17	—
	" Don't Steal Our Sun "	45	38	—
2004	" Whatever Happened To Corey Haim? "	22	17	—	'' Let's Bottle Bohemia
2004	" Not for All the Love in the World "	39	38	—
2005	" The Irish Keep Gate-crashing "	48	44	—
2007	" Nothing Changes Around Here "	40	—	—	Teenager (The Thrills album)
2007	" The Midnight Choir "	—	—	—	Teenager (The Thrills album)

Other contributions

WFUV: City Folk Live VII (2004) – "Santa Cruz"

Music from the OC: Mix 2 (2004, Warner Bros. /Wea) – "Big Sur"

Eklektikos Live (2005) – "Say it Ain't So"

The Acoustic Album (compilation)|The Acoustic Album (2006, Virgin Records|Virgin ) – "Santa Cruz"

In media

"Big Sur" from So Much for the City features in commercials on French television, for the Midi-Pyrénées tourism center.

"One Horse Town" from So Much for the City was used as the theme music|title music for the second and third series of the BBC sketch comedy series Tittybangbang , and also features in commercials for Volvo .

Adam Brody , who played Seth Cohen on The O.C. , is a fan of The Thrills. Their music featured in two episodes of The O.C. including a guest appearance by the band members themselves on the second season episode " The Ex-Factor ", where they played "Saturday Night", "Not For All the Love in the World" and "The Curse of Comfort".

"Big Sur" appears on the soundtrack and compilation album , Music from the OC: Mix 2 .

"There's Joy to Be Found/The Boy Who Caught All the Breaks" featured in the 17 October 2007 episode of Private Practice (TV series)|Private Practice .

"Midnight Choir" is used in the background for many scenes in Season 2 of the French television drama Clara Sheller.

KD lang included a cover of "Hollywood Kids" as a bonus track on her 2011 album with the Siss Bam Boom Sing It Loud .

Copyright Citations

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