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Fightstar were a British Rock music band from London that formed in 2003. The band is composed of lead vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Charlie Simpson, guitarist and co-vocalist Alex Westaway, bassist Dan Haigh and drummer Omar Abidi. Generally considered a post-hardcore band as a whole, Fightstar are known to incorporate metal, alternative rock and other genres into their sound. Their 2005 debut Extended play, They Liked You Better When You Were Dead, was released in 2005 and was a critical success.
The band released their debut studio album, Grand Unification, the following year; Kerrang! editor Paul Brannigan called it "one of the best British rock albums of the last decade". Fightstar received a nomination for Best British Band at the 2006 Kerrang! Awards before releasing their second album, One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours, in 2007. A compilation album including B-sides and rarities, Alternate Endings, was released the following year. The band self-funded and co-produced their third album, Be Human (2009), which featured orchestral and choral elements. It was their highest-charting album, peaking at number 20 on the UK Albums Chart.
Fightstar went on hiatus in 2010, allowing its members to concentrate on other projects. Fightstar reunited in 2014 and released their fourth studio album, Behind the Devil's Back, the following year. The record added electronic elements to their eclectic sound. All of their four studio albums charted in the top 40 and received critical praise. In November 2015, Fightstar once again went on hiatus.
On 6 November 2023, Fightstar announced they would be returning for a one-off headline show at Wembley Arena in March 2024 to mark the band's twenty year anniversary.
Simpson was becoming increasingly frustrated with Busted's music because he could not explore his own creative desires. The music he wrote did not fit Busted's established pop style. Simpson's time with Fightstar reportedly caused tension in Busted, which was amplified when Fightstar announced a 14-date UK tour. Simpson told Busted's manager in December 2004 over the phone that he was leaving the pop trio to focus on Fightstar, and wanted to do something his "heart was in". At a press conference at the Soho Hotel in London on 14 January 2005, Busted's record label announced that the band had split up after Simpson's departure several weeks earlier.
They Liked You Better When You Were Dead, released on 28 February 2005 after a brief UK promotional tour. It was a critical success, though Punknews.org reviewed it negatively. Alex Westaway, the band's lead guitarist and co-lyricist, drew its artwork (based on Edward Norton) for the booklet; the EP's lead single, "Palahniuk's Laughter", was inspired by David Fincher's film Fight Club (1999), which in turn was based on the novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk. "Palahniuk's Laughter" received heavy rotation on music-video channels and spent many weeks on charts based on video and radio requests. The track, originally entitled "Out Swimming in the Flood", was renamed after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The EP's UK version contained five tracks (including a sixth hidden track), and was ineligible for the UK Singles Chart. It was released the following year in North America as an extended mini-album by Deep Elm Records. The release was praised by critics, despite initial scepticism due to Simpson's former pop career with Busted.
Grand Unification was released in the UK on 13 March 2006 by Island Records, preceded by the single releases of "Paint Your Target", "Grand Unification Pt. I" and "Waste a Moment". The album debuted at number 28 on the UK Albums Chart, and its first single ("Paint Your Target") reached number nine on the Singles Chart. That month, Fightstar were listed by the US rock magazine Alternative Press as one of 100 bands to watch in 2006 and Kerrang! editor Paul Brannigan called the album "one of the best British rock albums of the last decade". The band played at the Download Festival at Donington Park, and followed Biffy Clyro and Funeral for a Friend at the Full Ponty festival in Wales. Fightstar toured several countries, including Australia, Japan and the UK, with Funeral for a Friend for three months in 2006. The band released Grand Unification in North America on 17 April 2007 on Trustkill Records. This version was different from the British and Japanese versions because it features "Fight For Us" (the B-side of the fourth single "Hazy Eyes") as a bonus track.
To promote the album, Fightstar initially released the free downloadable single "99" in May 2007. The track, about being haunted by the loss of a loved one, was made available on the band's microsite with a music video. Its first official single, "We Apologise for Nothing", was released in September and reached number 63 on the UK Singles Chart. The third single, "Deathcar", was the first official UK VinylDisc release. The song, inspired by a harrowing documentary about Chinese and the end of Simpson's romantic relationship, produced a low-fi music video which cost £500 to make. The VinylDisc single reached number 92 on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number two on the Indie and Rock Charts in its first week. The fourth single, "Floods", was released the following March. The band wrote it amid growing concern about global warming after they saw Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Fightstar performed the song on Colin Murray's BBC Radio 1 live sessions. The band went on a 10-date UK tour in May 2008, supported by the London four-piece Brigade. The tour included dates at the Leeds Slam Dunk Festival on 25 May and Carling Academy Islington on 29 May. One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours last single, "I Am The Message", was released on 16 June 2008 as a double A side single; the other side was a cover of The Flaming Lips' "Waitin' for a Superman", recorded for the Colin Murray Radio 1 show.
The band introduced "A City on Fire" during Fearne Cotton's Radio 1 show on 19 October; its video, directed by Sitcom Soldiers, premiered on 24 October. The single was released as a music download on 20 December and peaked at numbers four and ten on the UK Rock and Indie charts, respectively. Fightstar released a deluxe edition of Be Human on 1 March 2010 with five new tracks, including "A City on Fire" and a live cover of Jordin Sparks' "Battlefield" on the iTunes edition.
He said that Fightstar would record another album, but he first planned to record another solo album while Westaway and Haigh worked with Gunship. In a December 2012 Digital Spy interview, Simpson confirmed his plan to finish writing (and record) the second solo album in February 2013. After an intended US release and tour in the summer of 2013 promoting the album, he planned that Fightstar would reunite and begin writing for their fourth album. Simpson's second solo album, Long Road Home, was released in August 2014.
On 12 May 2015, Simpson posted on Instagram that Fightstar had returned to the studio to work on new material with producer Carl Bown and began using Twitter for updates on the progress of the album. Charlie Simpson - Recording first guitar parts for new Fightstar album Twitter.com. Retrieved 3 June 2015 On 22 July it was announced that the band would release Behind The Devil's Back on 16 October, with a string of UK dates promoting the album to follow. On 26 July the BBC Radio 1 Rock Show introduced "Animal", the band's first new song in five years which was released digitally on iTunes on 7 August.
On 10 November 2015 Simpson reunited with Busted to record new music and tour, saying that Fightstar would continue to tour and release music as a "passion project" for its members. Some music journalists, such as Team Rock's Tom Bryant, speculated that it was due to Fightstar never being particularly financially successful (while Busted remained profitable), but in a Newsbeat interview, Simpson stated that he was swayed due to the chemistry in the studio.
In an interview in April 2019, Simpson confirmed that Fightstar will return at some point in the future, and that he'd also been writing some material for it recently.
On 6 November 2023, Fightstar announced they would be returning for a headline show at Wembley Arena in London on 22 March 2024. Their return marks the band's twenty year anniversary.
Though the band have been labelled emo, they have tried to avoid writing in that fashion. Grand Unification and One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours themes were apocalyptic, and subsequent work varied from patriotism ("The English Way") to self-loathing ("Damocles" and "Animal"). Fightstar have been influenced by the works of author Chuck Palahniuk, as well as films and comics such as the Neon Genesis Evangelion series.
In his review of Grand Unification (2006), Vik Bansal of musicOMH wrote about their varied dynamics: "Where others are happy to be one-dimensional, Fightstar are not content unless a song moves fluidly through seemingly incongruous but ultimately coherent moods and musical dynamics. The interspersion of thoroughly heavy metal sections within the otherwise widescreen rock of 'Grand Unification Pt I' and 'Sleep Well Tonight' encapsulates this perfectly". One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours showed the band expanding their sound and pushing further into both lighter and heavier territories, with a mixture of more melodic soundscapes and heavier metallic styles. According to Q magazine, "The intricate instrumental passages, multi-tracked vocal harmonies and pounding riffs hint at Muse-scale ambition and intellect".
Fightstar's third album, Be Human (2009), featured choral and orchestral elements. Emma Johnston of Kerrang! emphasised this in her review: "Fightstar throw as many orchestral and choral flourishes at their muscular, solemnly heavy rock as it could take without drowning". Anton Djamoos of AbsolutePunk wrote that the album has a "certain symphonic rock quality" which is "a departure from the general body of work we've seen in the past. They break from their own norm with several orchestral elements to make the album sound more full and let the music hit even harder". Matt Shoemaker of 411mania.com described the album as typical Fightstar ("a range from pure metal to alternative rock to bordering on emo at times"), influenced by progressive rock, acoustic music and country pop in addition to its orchestral and choral elements.
Behind the Devil's Back (2015) was noted for a heavier use of electronics than in the past, said by some critics to be reminiscent of Westaway and Haigh's side project Gunship. The Edge and Rocksins.com reviewers remarked in particular the album's 1980s-style synths, while NE:MM writer David Smith drew comparisons to American alternative rock supergroup Angels & Airwaves.
Fightstar have said that they are influenced by a variety of music (particularly film scores), citing Nirvana, Deftones, Radiohead, Silverchair, Pantera, Thrice, Mono, Explosions in the Sky, Elliott Smith, Funeral for a Friend, The Cure and Jeff Buckley as inspirations. Abidi called Deftones the band with whom he would most like to perform: "If I got to play with (them), that'd be it, you could stick a fork in me."
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