The band formed in 2007 by frontman Chris Pate with his friend and bass player Lee Dummett. Chris and Lee went to the same school and shared a common love for music at an early age. Chris, aged 17 and heavily influenced by the grunge age of Nirvana and Alice In Chains, already had a vast repertoire of bedroom recordings and so introduced Lee to the bass guitar. Lee picked the instrument up very quickly and the songs gained another dimension, breathing life into the dream of attaining more members and becoming a real rock band. So this is what they did: together they formed “Silverchild”. Fresh-sounding, hard-edged and full of energy. Something Liverpool had been lacking at the time.
Chris’ writing evolved over the next year as the thirst for music and learning meandered towards the 60s and the “golden years”. Silverchild’s sound took on another dynamic with drummer Andrew “Length” Long. He was a huge bulk of a man who enjoyed an eclectic spectrum of music from Avenged Sevenfold to Kelly Clarkson.
A year later they added another crucial element that generically made up the 4-piece rock band and assembled with youngster guitarist Dylan Cassin the final line-up you see today. Dylan opened up doors to a whole new world of talent. He was grade 6 on the piano, could play harmonica, and was an astonishing guitarist. He also shared a similar love for the 60s and the grunge scene. He was a diverse lover of music, sharing the same infatuations as the rest of the band: the Beatles, Zep, the Stones. Plus the new-age heroes found in Oasis, Wolfmother, Muse, Q.O.T.S.A, and anything Jack White had already blessed the world with at the time. Dylan later gave up a place at L.I.P.A, Paul McCartney’s school of music, so that he could join the band on their Benelux tour.
The line-up was now sublime. Everything felt fresh and right, and this called for a new beginning. The band decided to scrap the name “Silverchild” and come up with a new concept, which they found in a strange place. Lee: “I would love to tell you that there’s a deep meaning behind our band name, but the truth is we picked up a dictionary, saw the word Arcane, liked it, changed the letter ‘c’ to a ‘k’, and that was that.”
The Arkanes was born.
The band’s small successes began early, with their track ‘Crash And Burn’ reaching into the number 1 slot of a Los Angeles download chart, where it stayed for almost nine months.
Gigging mercilessly and touring endlessly, the band struck gold and where selected to be the first British band ever to ascertain a slot on the NACA University/College circuit in America.
Their debut E.P ‘Don’t Act Like You Know Me’ was a neat success and granted them access to the shores of Germany, Switzerland and the surrounding terrains.
In 2009, The Arkanes where nominated for a People’s Music Award (rock/indie/metal genre) with their single ”Sharpshooter”, voted for by listeners the globe over. From this point, the band’s successes ran far and wide, appearing on BBC Radio Live, SWR 3, Eldoradio, TV Berlin, Harvard/MIT university radio (Boston) and NRW TV, amongst others, supporting bands such as Florence And The Machine and The Automatic and the debut single “Don’t Act Like You Know Me” reaching number 10 in Germany’s Most Requested Song of the Week and number 8 in the “Most Downloaded Single” in early 2011. All of these successes are proud achievements and silver trophies to the band, however, with a still un-quenched thirst for success, nothing had quite yet measured up to the golden ambitions within the minds of the band itself.
Finally in 2013, following a short tour with Jim Kroft, the band signed a deal with SPV Records, to whom they are signed to date. Their forthcoming debut album “W.A.R.” is expected in early 2014 and is eagerly awaited by their army of fans.