The Phoenix Foundation

Biography

There are two bands called The Phoenix Foundation; one from New Zealand and a lesser-known act from Finland. New Zealand's The Phoenix Foundation formed in Wellington, New Zealand by founding members Samuel Flynn Scott, Luke Buda and Conrad Wedde in 1997. They are joined by Will Ricketts (percussion), Tom Callwood (bass) and Chris O'Connor (drums). Their first full length album Horsepower was released in mid 2003 to critical acclaim, and was moderately successful. Horsepower included such sin...

There are two bands called The Phoenix Foundation; one from New Zealand and a lesser-known act from Finland.

New Zealand's The Phoenix Foundation formed in Wellington, New Zealand by founding members Samuel Flynn Scott, Luke Buda and Conrad Wedde in 1997. They are joined by Will Ricketts (percussion), Tom Callwood (bass) and Chris O'Connor (drums).

Their first full length album Horsepower was released in mid 2003 to critical acclaim, and was moderately successful. Horsepower included such singles as "This Charming Van" and "Let Me Die A Woman".

Their second album Pegasus, featuring new bass guitarist Warner Emery, was released in early 2005 and again gathered further plaudits. The album was met with some commercial success, eventually obtaining Gold status in New Zealand.

In late 2006, the Phoenix Foundation were signed by the Young American label, and Horsepower was released in the US on March 13, 2007.

Happy Ending, the band's fourth LP was released in NZ and Australia in late 2007. The singles 'Bright Grey', 'Bleaching Sun' and '40 Years' all received considerable radio and television airplay in New Zealand.

After a short hiatus where many of the band members released solo material The Phoenix Foundation returned in 2010 with Buffalo. The album debuted at #4 in the NZ album charts and stayed in the top ten for 6 weeks. It is set to be the band's first internationally released album in Jan 2011 through Memphis Industries. Two songs from Buffalo were nominated for New Zealands highest songwriting award the APRA Silver Scrolls, it went on to win 5 NZ Music Awards. Buffalo was eventually released internationally, receiving glowing reviews in the UK press (5 stars in The Guardian). In 2011 The Phoenix Foundation performed at Glastonbury and on BBC's 'Later...with Jools Holland'.

In 2010 The Phoenix Foundation released their soundtrack to the film 'Boy'. The film has had an acclaimed run at the New Zealand box office and is now the highest grossing New Zealand funded film of all time.

Their fifth album Fandango was released on April 29 by Universal in Australasia and Memphis Industries for the rest of the world.
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Finland's The Phoenix Foundation hail from Turku, Finland and play rough yet catchy punk rock in the spirit of Husker Du, Leatherface, Manifesto Jukebox and HDQ. The band, who also share a member with the amazing Finnish hardcore punk band The Stakeout (Six Weeks Records, Deranged Records), was formed in the Winter 2002 and by the Summer they had already recorded their first 7”.

Labels all around the world became interested in the band immediately after they had heard the 7”, and the band finally settled on putting their debut long player out on two great underground punk rock labels - Newest Industry in the UK, and Combat Rock Industry in Finland (who also released the 10” version).

The CD version includes extra tracks, which are the three amazing songs “Don’t Be Fooled By My Smile”, “What Can I Say?” and “Seeds” tjhat were only previously available on their debut 7”. The 9 other tracks on the CD version of the album are all brand new, recorded in March 2003 at Red House Studios.

The band's second full-length album, 'Falling', was recorded for Combat Rock Industry in 2005. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.