Renegades (band)

Renegades
Renegades playing a live gig at the Electric Ballroom in Camden; 22 April 2010 (2010-04-22)
Background information
Origin	London, United Kingdom
Genres	Alternative rock, grunge
Years active	2009-2010
Labels	Big Teeth Music
Associated acts	Feeder Ben's Brother
Website	http://www.feederweb.com
Past members	Grant Nicholas Taka Hirose Karl Brazil

Renegades were a British rock band (not to be confused with the sixties band The Renegades), which started out as a side-project from two members of the band Feeder, featuring guitarist Grant Nicholas and bassist Taka Hirose, before becoming a pseudonym name for Feeder themselves. Nicholas formed Renegades alongside Hirose with Karl Brazil from Ben's Brother, who completed the group and a 4-track EP was then recorded. Soon later, Renegades became an alternative name for Feeder at various concerts where they would play an entire show pretending not to be Feeder, but a different band with the same members. If Feeder songs released before the Renegades album were to be played, the band would announce that they're covering Feeder songs. Grant Nicholas once introduced "Tangerine" as "A cover of a song from a band we know".

The idea was created when Feeder parted company with drummer Mark Richardson who returned to his previous band Skunk Anansie. Brazil was initially contracted with the band to assist them on their June dates playing various university events, before then playing the UK leg of the Sonisphere Festival. He was however recording with the band alongside Mexicolas drummer Tim Trotter, before the idea came about to use a selection of the tracks for the 'Renegades' project. The tracks originally intended for the side-project were soon used for the seventh Feeder album Renegades. The side-project was as a result used as a method to promote the Renegades album at live shows where they would mainly play the new songs, thus avoiding having to play any of their hits if they played as Feeder.

On the first of January 2010, a four-day countdown timer was added to the band's official website. As the countdown was completed on 6 January 2010, the title-track for the EP, "Renegades" was released as a free download as well as a package containing the limited edition EP, Renegades shirt, badge set and an e-ticket for one of the six shows available. The Renegades EP was the first release on the band's own record label, before being followed-up by a second EP. Feeder also used the Renegades name for their Sonisphere 2010 appearance, which was their last show using this name and also their tour of Japan in July of the same year. The track "Renegades" was re-released, but this time as a Feeder single instead of Renegades and was also on vinyl and download only. As Renegades was technically a separate band from Feeder, Renegades became the first ever British band in history to sell out at least one gig without releasing any material commercially.