Loud and Queer

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The internationally renowned (and completely adorable) vocal group, BLAKE, gear up for their debut US release through Merovee Records. Get ready to heat up those iTunes!

For those of you not in the know… Blake are a classical vocal quartet, comprising Ollie Baines, Humphrey Berney, Jules Knight and Stephen Bowman. They are widely known as the group who formed on Facebook. (Why not, that is where I meet all my tricks!)

They released their debut album “Blake” in 2007, which won the Album of the Year Award at the Classical BRIT Awards in 2008.^[ The album contains covers of popular classical songs and themes from the movies, to create a more commercial classical-pop crossover sound.

They sang for Shirley Bassey at her 70th birthday party, and performed in front of 80,000 football fans at Wembley Stadium. In the summer of 2007 their version of the ‘Swing Low’ was chosen as the Official Anthem of the England rugby team for the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

In 2009, baritone Dominic Tighe ditched the boys to return to acting. So, they once again used  social media to recruit, looking for a new member on Twitter! After two weeks, and 55,000 subscribing to their “tweets”, Humphrey Berney (better known as “Barney”) joined the gang. (Evidently, the fact that I couldn’t sing was not enough for them. )

Legendary songwriter, Diane Warren, penned the majority of the songs on their new record, lending to the band a new and captivating sound. Members of Michael Buble’s backing band were also on board, as well as veteran producers Marc Swersky and Steve Greenwell. To date, the boys of BLAKE have achieved acclaimed success overseas selling over one million records with 3 international releases; two were nominated for Album of the Year in the UK, one is a Classical Brit Award winner. The natural evolution and growth of the band can be heard on the album’s first single “Start Over“ (available via itunes now! Buy it you whore! )