The Royal We

Sporting the sort of "anti-fashion" nerdy boys and geeky girls look and the fondness for dorky self-inflicted nicknames that always end up looking far more manufactured than anything else they could have done, Glasgow's The Royal We are, more or less, Bis for a new generation of U.K. indie kids. They even have a similar mix of scrappy punk spirit and dance-rock suss as their fake-D.I.Y. progenitors, and to be fair, Bis were at their best a heck of a lot of fun. Importantly, The Royal We appear to be aiming for a similar lack of profundity. The Royal We started when singer Jihae Simmons and lead guitarist Roxanne Clifford first thought of the truly excellent band name and then decided to form a group around it in 2005. Adding second guitarist Patrick Doyle, violinist Joan Sweeney, multi-instrumentalist Graeme Ronald (who is also a part-time touring member of post-rock icons Mogwai), and drummer Colin Kearney (also one-third of the sprightly indie outfit Bricolage), The Royal We started playing locally around Glasgow, but first gained widespread notice online, when the band's MySpace page debuted its glam-influenced dance-rocker "All the Rage," which became quite the buzz in online music-geek circles. The band signed to the Scottish indie Geographic Records in 2006 and began recording its debut album for release the following year. By the time the self-titled album was released in late 2007, the band had already decided to split. Simmons moved back to America and the rest of the band carried on in a variety of quite worthy musical projects. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide