Luke Haines

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Luke Haines bigraphy, stories - English musician and songwriter

Luke Haines : biography

7 October 1967 –

Luke Michael Haines (born 7 October 1967) is an English musician, songwriter and author, who has recorded music under various names and with various bands, including The Auteurs, Baader Meinhof and Black Box Recorder.

Discography

Studio Albums

  • New Wave, 1993 (The Auteurs)
  • Now I’m a Cowboy, 1994 (The Auteurs)
  • After Murder Park, 1996 (The Auteurs)
  • Baader Meinhof, 1996 (Baader Meinhof)
  • England Made Me, 1999 (Black Box Recorder)
  • How I Learned to Love the Bootboys, 1999 (The Auteurs)
  • The Facts of Life, 2000 (Black Box Recorder)
  • Christie Malry’s Own Double Entry OST, 2001 (Luke Haines)
  • The Oliver Twist Manifesto, 2001 (Luke Haines)
  • The Worst of Black Box Recorder, 2001 (Black Box Recorder)
  • Passionoia, 2003 (Black Box Recorder)
  • Das Capital, 2003 (Luke Haines)
  • Luke Haines is Dead, 2005 (Luke Haines)
  • Off My Rocker at the Art School Bop, 2006 (Luke Haines)
  • 21st Century Man/Achtung Mutha, 2009 (Luke Haines)
  • 9½ Psychedelic Meditations on British Wrestling of the 1970s and early ’80s, 2011 (Luke Haines)
  • Outsider/In: The Collection, 2012 (Luke Haines)
  • The North Sea Scrolls, 2012 (Luke Haines, Cathal Coughlan, Andrew Meuller)

Singles/EPs

  • Showgirl, 1992 (The Auteurs)
  • How Could I Be Wrong, 1993 (The Auteurs)
  • Housebreaker, 1993 (The Auteurs)
  • New French Girlfriend, 1993 (The Auteurs)
  • Lenny Valentino, 1993 (The Auteurs)
  • Chinese Bakery, 1994 (The Auteurs)
  • The Auteurs vs Mu-Ziq EP (remixes), 1994 (The Auteurs/Mu-Ziq)
  • Back With the Killer EP, 1995 (The Auteurs)
  • Kid’s Issue, 1996 (The Auteurs)
  • Light Aircraft on Fire, 1996 (The Auteurs)
  • Child Psychology, 1998 (Black Box Recorder)
  • England Made Me, 1998 (Black Box Recorder)
  • The Rubettes, 1999 (The Auteurs)
  • The Facts of Life, 2000 (Black Box Recorder)
  • The Art of Driving, 2000 (Black Box Recorder)
  • These Are the Things, 2003 (Black Box Recorder)
  • The School Song, 2003 (Black Box Recorder)
  • Off My Rocker at the Art School Bop, 2006 (Luke Haines)
  • Christmas Number One, 2007 (The Black Arts – collaboration between Black Box Recorder and Art Brut)
  • Leeds United EP, 2007 (Luke Haines)

History

‘New Wave’

Haines formed numerous bands when he was at school. At college he joined The Servants who recorded two commercially unsuccessful albums. It was only when Haines formed The Auteurs with his girlfriend Alice Readman (who had also been drafted into The Servants from time to time) and Glenn Collins in 1990 that he began to achieve some success.

Regular gigging in the London area and an NME sponsored gig brought them to the attention of Hut Records. They released their first single, "Showgirl" in 1992, and their debut album New Wave a month later. Haines was later to claim that this was the album that started Britpop, though he later showed disdain towards the movement, stating in a 2003 interview that Britpop consisted of "a bunch of bands who weren’t good enough to exist in their own right, like music’s equivalent of the Bloomsbury Group." Certainly it was ahead of its time in turning back from the acid house then popular to more traditional songwriting in the vein of The Kinks or The Small Faces. It is arguable that more commercially successful bands (such as Suede) owed much to Haines’ vision. In any case, the album sold only 12,000 copies but was nominated for a Mercury Prize although the eventual winners were Suede

The band toured the UK and the USA, gaining generally good reviews: however it is the opinion of the NME that the band were better in the studio than live.