BIKE | BAND

"Wicked in ways, I don't know how many ways, the circus kids have come to our town".
Something wicked this way comes, indeed, as Andrew Brough's Ray Bradbury-inspired lyric kicks off this brilliant single.

Circus Kids brings Andrew Brough's classic touch once more to a song based around his angelic voice, chiming guitars and a truly spine-chilling chorus. If Bike's 1996 debut single Save My Life, or Straitjacket Fits' timeless hit Down In Splendour didn't have you convinced already, Circus Kids shows Andrew Brough to be our premier writer of majestic guitar pop.

The three-piece sound of Bike is the perfect vehicle. Andrew formed Bike in Auckland in 1995 to work on songs written in the two-year hiatus since he had left Straitjacket Fits. He wanted a band that combined simplicity and power, that would drive these new songs along in the same way he had enjoyed in the Straitjackets and, before that, the Orange.

Bike recorded Save My Life and three other songs to make up an EP in 1995. York Street studio producer Malcolm Welsford (Shihad, Supergroove) was at the controls and Andrew found a real chemistry with Malcolm as they built Bike's studio sound into a huge wall of guitars, especially spectacular on Old & Blue.

Save My Life was a finalist for APRA's Silver Scroll songwriting award for 1996, and also earned Bike a nomination as Most Promising New Band at the NZ Music Awards. Bike's performance of that song at the televised Music Awards was considered by many a highlight of the evening.

Bike and Malcolm Welsford reunited at York Street at the end of 1996 to record the band's debut full-length album. As the first indicator of those sessions, Circus Kids is fully convincing with its spell-binding, world-class sound. Neil Finn, a regular visitor to York St, heard this song and commented that it's "Proof again that Andrew Brough writes a damn good tune".