Babybird

Babybird is a British indie band from Sheffield, United Kingdom. It forms around singer-songwriter Stephen Jones, and it is active from 1995 to the present. The group is associated with britpop, indie rock and post-britpop.

Origins and early releases

Jones begins writing songs and recording home demos while involved with an experimental theatre group in Sheffield. A set of these recordings is released in 1995 as I Was Born a Man under the name Baby Bird. After the record receives a positive critical response, Jones assembles a touring band with Huw Chadbourne on keyboards, Robert Gregory on drums, John Pedder on bass and Luke Scott on guitar.

During 1995, Baby Bird releases two more demo albums, Bad Shave and Fatherhood, followed in 1996 by The Happiest Man Alive and Dying Happy. These early albums circulate in limited one-off pressings and help build a small but committed following.

Breakthrough singles and studio albums

The band signs to Echo Records, part of the Chrysalis Group. Its first full-band single, Goodnight, appears in 1996 and becomes a minor UK chart hit. Later that year, You’re Gorgeous reaches number 3 in the UK and becomes the group’s best-known song, with chart success in several countries. It also brings a more commercial profile than Jones’s earlier work.

Ugly Beautiful follows and is well received, though it does not match the level of critical expectation around the band’s first studio-recorded album. The record yields further hit singles, Candy Girl and Cornershop.

Later line-ups and releases

Babybird returns in 1998, without Huw Chadbourne, with the album There’s Something Going On. The single Bad Old Man precedes it, and the album is followed by minor hits If You’ll Be Mine and Back Together.

In 2000, a line-up of Stephen Jones, Luke Scott and Matt Hay records Bugged. The album is critically well received but sells poorly. Its singles include The F-Word, later used as the theme tune to a UK television cookery show of the same name, and Out of Sight. A third single, Fireflies, appears on Animal Noise Records. The band is dropped by its label and later splits.

Stephen Jones and later activity

After the split, Stephen Jones writes fiction, releases solo material under his own name and as Baby Bird, and scores the 2004 film Blessed. In 2005, Babybird reforms as a three-piece with Jones, Luke Scott and Robert Gregory. The group releases Between My Ears There’s Nothing But Music in 2006.

Jones also launches an online Babybird community in 2009 and continues to post there regularly. Later in 2009, Babybird tours the UK with Jones, Scott and Gregory, promoting Ex-Maniac. Johnny Depp appears on that album as guitarist on the single Unloveable.