The Levellers (band)

Levellers
Levellers, 21 August 2007
Background information
Origin	Brighton, England
Genres	Alternative rock, folk punk, English folk
Years active	1988–present
Labels	Musidisc, China, Eagle
Members	Mark Chadwick Jeremy Cunningham Charlie Heather Jonathan Sevink Simon Friend Matt Savage
Past members	David Buckmeister Alan Miles

Levellers are an English rock band, founded in 1988 and based in Brighton, England.

The name of the band is drawn from the Levellers, a 17th-century radical democracy movement founded in England during the English Civil War.

The band was formed with Mark Chadwick on guitar and lead vocals, Jeremy Cunningham on bass guitar, and Charlie Heather on drums. Jon Sevink, the brother of Chadwick's girlfriend, was brought in to play the fiddle. Chadwick's flatmate "Bucky" was brought in to play the guitar, but lost interest after a few months.

Chadwick and Cunningham composed their first recordings for the compact cassettes An Agreement of the People and All the Free Commons of England. A group of fans known as the "happy hitchers" would hitch-hike around the country, following the band while they were on tour.

Their first EP, Carry Me, was released in 1989 and contained the songs "Carry Me" and "England My Home", which received Radio 2 airplay. At that time the band recruited Alan Miles to play harmonica, guitar, and mandolin and to perform backing vocals. This lineup produced the EP Outside/Inside and toured throughout 1989 and most of 1990.

After re-releasing two EPs on their own Hag label, in 1989, the Levellers signed a contract with French record label Musidisc. Their first album A Weapon Called the Word was released in 1990 and went platinum. The first single from the album was "World Freak Show".

After an acrimonious split with Musidisc, the Levellers were discovered by Derek Green and signed to China Records.

At this point Miles became disenchanted with touring and left the band. The Levellers recruited Simon Friend who had played some acoustic support slots for the band in the past. Around this time Friend and Chadwick played a number of low-key shows as "The Levellers 2", mostly performing songs that had been in Friend's repertoire as a solo singer-songwriter.

1991 saw the release of the Levellers' second album, Levelling the Land, which entered the charts at number 14. The anthemic single "One Way", despite not reaching the Top 40, became a popular song and live favourite for years to come among the travelling and indie music community. The Levellers began to sound more of a well-rounded folk-rock band with the addition of Friend's multi-instrumental skill and the improvements in musicianship amongst other members of the band. Compared with earlier releases, Levelling the Land had a well-rounded sound including punk-rock tracks "Liberty Song" and "Battle of the Beanfield", folk ballads "The Boatman" and "The Road", and folk-rock crossover tracks like "The Riverflow" and "Another Man's Cause".