The Automatic

The Automatic
(L-R) James, Iwan, Rob, Paul
Background information
Origin	Cowbridge, Wales
Genres	Indie rock, alternative rock, post-punk revival, post-hardcore, dance-punk (early)
Years active	1998–present (on hiatus as of 2010)
Labels	Armoured,B-Unique, Polydor, Columbia
Associated acts	Yourcodenameis:milo, Decimals, Young Legionnaire, Goodtime Boys, Effort
Website	www.theautomatic.co.uk
Members	Robin Hawkins James Frost Iwan Griffiths Paul Mullen
Past members	Alex Pennie Oliver Hansen

The Automatic (also known as The Automatic Automatic in the U.S.), are a Welsh rock band. The band is composed of Robin Hawkins on vocals, bass and synthesisers, James Frost on guitar, synthesisers, backing vocals and occasional bass, Iwan Griffiths on drums and Paul Mullen on vocals, guitar and synthesiser – since 2007. Mullen joined after the departure of Alex Pennie who provided synthesiser, percussion and vocals.

Signing to a deal between B-Unique Records and Polydor Records in 2005 the band released their platinum selling début Not Accepted Anywhere in 2006, which spawned three UK top 40 singles – "Raoul", "Recover" and "Monster". The band released their second album This Is A Fix accompanied by only one single, "Steve McQueen" in 2008, which due to a dispute between the band's labels – B-Unique and Polydor – was plagued with distributional and promotional problems, The dispute led to the band withdrawing from their 5-album deal with the labels and instead formed their own label, Armoured Records, distributed through EMI.

After independently releasing their third album Tear the Signs Down in 2010 and three singles – "Interstate", "Run & Hide" and "Cannot Be Saved", the band have begun a temporary break while members concentrate on other projects, with James Frost playing guitar in Effort and Paul Mullen providing vocals and guitar in Young Legionnaire.