Bloc Party are a British indie rock band, composed of Kele Okereke, Russell Lissack, Gordon Moakes, and Matt Tong.
The band was formed at the 1999 Reading Festival by Okereke and Lissack.
Moakes joined the band after answering an advert in NME magazine,
while Tong was picked via an audition. Bloc Party got their break by giving BBC Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq
and Franz Ferdinand's lead singer, Alex Kapranos, a copy of their demo "She's Hearing Voices".
In August, 2013, the band then began an indefinite hiatus to continue with their respective side projects.
-Wikipedia
Members:
Kele Okereke -
lead vocals, rhythm guitar, sampler
Russell Lissack -
lead guitar, sampler, programming
Gordon Moakes -
bass guitar, backing vocals, keyboards, glockenspiel
Matthew Tong -
drums, percussion, backing vocals
Name Origin:
After going through a variety of names, such as Union, The Angel Range, and Diet, the band settled on Bloc Party
in September 2003, a play on block party. The band has said that the name was not intended to be an allusion
to the Soviet Bloc or the Canadian political party Bloc Québécois.
However, Moakes said on the group's official
Internet forum that it was more a merging of the eastern "Blocs" and the western "parties", in the political sense.
He also notes that the name was not explicitly driven by politics, but rather it "looked, sounded, seemed fine
so we went with it."
From: London, England
Genre(s):
Indie rock,
post-punk revival,
post-Britpop,
alternative dance alternative rock
Active From: 2003-2013 (hiatus)
Associated Acts:
Pin Me Down,
Young Legionnaire