For almost 1,500 years, Europeans used the supposedly mythical black swan as a metaphor for something which could not exist. Imagine their surprise, then, when a late 17th Century explorer spotted one, paddling down a river in Australia. "Millions of people had looked at the world in a certain way for so long," says Athlete frontman Joel Pott "But it only took one sighting to blow it all apart."
That, in a nutshell, is the Black Swan Theory, from which Athlete's majestic fourth album takes its title. "We read an article about Nassim Nicholas Taleb and his book The Black Swan," explains Joel. "He was saying that our lives are made up of a handful of significant shocks, good or bad. That's exactly how our journey has been over the last six years. We've had lots of unexpected highs and lows, as a band and as people." It's those experiences which power 'Black Swan'. Well, those and some of the best tunes the band have ever written.
Athlete are an Ivor Novello Award winning English indie rock band formed in Deptford, London, comprising Joel Pott (lead vocals and guitar), Carey Willetts (bass and backing vocals), Stephen Roberts (drums and backing vocals) and Tim Wanstall (keyboards and backing vocals). Recently, the quartet have recruited Jonny Pilcher of Weevil as a live guitarist.
Friends since the age of fourteen, Athlete took their wide ranging influences such as Grandaddy and The Flaming Lips and started jamming and practising in the basement of The Bear, a pub which was converted into a church and sandwich bar, on Deptford High Street in 1999. They began recording there, before sending demos out.
