The Fratellis
The Fratellis (ital.: brothers) are a British rock band from Glasgow.
Band History
The band name comes from the birth name of bassist Barry Wallace's mother, now Barry Fratelli, and is not based on the gang of villains in Richard Donner's The Goonies. The other band members "adopted" this name as their stage name. Fittingly, Fratelli means brothers in Italian.
The trio's breakthrough came in 2006 with the single Henrietta, their first chart hit in the UK. This was followed by two top ten singles and the debut album Costello Music, which went straight to number 2 in the LP charts.
At the beginning of 2007, their album was then also released throughout Europe and entered the charts in the German-speaking countries, among others. The Fratellis became known in January through the Apple iPod-TV commercials in which the song "Flathead" was used, after which the song was also released there on an EP.
There are two T. Rex covers on the Baby Fratelli single. These are a live version of Hot Love (only on the CD single) and a studio version of Solid Gold Easy Action, but only included on the Limited Edition Shaped Vinyl.
The song Chelsea Dagger was played at the 2007 UEFA Cup Final (in Glasgow) while Sevilla FC captain Javi Navarro lifted the trophy. A DVD of the band's full concert at Brixton Academy plus bonus material was released in early October 2007.
On 6 June 2008, their second album Here We Stand was released, which was recorded in their own studio. The Fratellis performed at Rock am Ring and Rock im Park in 2007 and 2008.
The song Chelsea Dagger is the theme music for the VOX documentary Mein Restaurant. It is also the goal anthem of the football clubs Juventus Turin, 1. FC Nürnberg and SV Ried as well as the ice hockey clubs ZSC Lions from Zurich, Löwen Frankfurt and the NHL team Chicago Blackhawks. The song can also be heard in the video game Burnout Dominator. For the video game FIFA 09 they contributed the song Tell Me a Lie from the album Here We Stand.
After a hiatus that lasted nearly three years, the band announced on June 4, 2012 that they would use a concert for the Eilidh Brown Memorial Fund as an opportunity to resume working together as The Fratellis. On October 7, 2013, their third album was released under the title We need Medicine.
Style
The Fratellis' sound is more reminiscent of the London rock and punk scene that formed around and after the Libertines than of Scottish neighbors such as Franz Ferdinand. However, there is also a clear influence of British glam rock, with Slade and T. Rex in particular. It is said that Diana Lemm and Glenn Fisher, childhood friends of the Fratellis, had a lasting influence on their musical style, but this is highly debatable in connoisseur circles. According to singer John Lawler, the most dominant influences of the band are: The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Clash and Pink Floyd. He holds these traditional role models responsible for the long-term musical success of bands: "Because you can hear in most bands that they were not influenced by older, groundbreaking bands of the last decades, but by bands of the last one or two years, which are just supposed to set a current, short-lived trend. But sooner or later all that will die out."
