introducing the band

Pete Davies (musician): Every band wants to change the world.

I remember it well; ah, yes, very well. Being in school, learning how to play guitar, practicing your Mick Jagger poses in the mirror and thinking you were very cool, thinking you were going to be able to get all the girls – but no, no, it wasn't about girls, it was about the music, the expression, and you were going to start a band and be just so – so brilliant that you'd be playing the Albert Hall and there would be fans screaming and fainting around you. And you'd be very nonchalant, signing autographs on people's T-shirts and riding around in your limousine drinking scotch with ice, that sort of thing.

I think all four of us—myself, Dean, Patrick, and Jim—we all went into the Blood Roses feeling that way. We had a sort of vaguely formed idea that we were going to write the next "Bohemian Rhapsody", the next "Love, Reign O'er Me"—and by the by, I always thought Quadrophenia was much better than Tommy but anyhow—we were going to write this brilliant song and change people's lives when they heard it. We didn't think it would be "Sarah Jean", but I'm still very pleased that we did get one Number One at least, and got to go on Top of the Pops and all that, and in the end we weren't the band that changed the world, we were just four blokes messing about and enjoying ourselves but I suppose that didn't matter to us anymore. And when we all went our separate ways it was sort of mutually agreed that we were ready, and maybe we'd do a reunion tour one day if anyone even cared or remembered.

I guess I should really say that every truly good band goes into it wanting to change the world.

Which is more or less how I figured out that Knave of Hearts were worth my time. I mean, the demo tape—all right, it wasn't a tape, it was a CD, but you see I'm still very old fashioned. I once got a demo on one of those UBS sticks—UBS? Is that right?—and I had to get my son to pull it up on the computer for me. Anyway, I got this demo tape in the post, in an envelope covered in hand-drawn leopard print and inside the envelope was a CD and a bit of paper. And on the bit of paper was...I don't even know how to describe it. Perhaps I'd call it a manifesto.

Alan Léonin (lyrics and rhythm guitar, Knave of Hearts), reading from the Knave of Hearts Manifesto: We believe that every work of art exists ultimately through the eye of the viewer and that context detracts from the ability of the art to explain itself or to be shocking.

However, we also believe that it would be rude not to introduce ourselves.

We are four English kids, young enough to still be angry and stubborn enough to refuse to channel our anger through boredom or violence. Instead we have decided to make music, and lucky you, now you get to hear it.

We believe that beauty is the only thing polite society is still afraid of. We believe that the best way to say something ugly is to say it in lipstick. We believe that there are no absolute truths, but that we are always absolutely right. We want you to fall in love with us, we want you to hate us.

Listen! We finally vanquished the past, so why is rock and roll still mourning it? We can't predict the future, so why do we spend so much time planning it? We believe the most important thing is now, and we believe that now is the time for action. Every artist is given a loudspeaker to the world. Why does no one have opinions? We have something to say. Do you remember how to listen?

When we discovered rock and roll we knew we could be saved. We hope you'll like our noise.

Emily Alexander (band manager, Knave of Hearts): It was Pete who first sent me the Knave of Hearts demos, and I guess on first listen I thought they sounded like a pretty average rock'n'roll thing. I dunno, kind of derivative? (laugh) I feel awful saying this now, but it's true! I guess it was only after I started looking at the lyrics that I realized there was something really interesting about this band. They were always extremely intelligent. A lot of social commentary, a lot of introspection. And then I found myself dancing around the kitchen humming one of their songs and I knew I had to meet them.

Natalie Leonard (student and musician): I don't really know how to express it in a few words, but I really feel like without Knave I probably always would have been the same girl I was when I was fifteen, utterly alone, and hating my life. It's just, like, there's something so positive about what they're doing as a band—they're saying, if you're frustrated with the world, why not get out there and make a statement? Live your life, you know?

And their music is just incredible. I think they're one of the greatest bands in the past fifteen years. Maybe they're even one of the greatest bands ever to exist. Without them, I would have never started making music myself, and now that's the most important thing in my life along with Damaged Goods, which is my fanzine if you don't know. I mean, there are some articles in there that might explain it better, but—I'm not going to lie to you, Knave of Hearts seriously changed my life.

Madeleine Marx (schoolteacher): It's a lot of noise, isn't it? And I'm not sure I'd want my class to be listening to the words too closely. It's a bit naughty, bit of a laugh. And a lot of swearing, certainly not the sort of thing I'd allow in my house!

Brian St. Helens (journalist): I'm actually amazed by what they were able to accomplish seeing as none of them had any formal training or really knew how to play except the drummer! Can you believe that? But I guess there have always been a lot of kids who felt that same sort of frustration that they did, and somehow the glam rock thing worked out for them. I think it is because it's still very shocking, even after your David Bowies and your Brian Molkos and your Nicky Wires, to have that whole image of male beauty that Alan Léonin has, and yet they're not this very masculine band in any sense because there's two girls to balance out the two boys. And Emma Marx-Hall is a very strong female, she puts herself out there really. A lot of young girls are really looking for a role model like that.

Emily Alexander, reading from press clippings: It's In The Cards: Four London kids find their destiny among the stars. Mind The Income Gap: Knave of Hearts have a bone to pick with the aristocracy. Brave of Hearts: They want to tell their truth and they don't care if you agree.

Tom Thorogood (drummer, Knave of Hearts): Ooh, 'Brave of Hearts'. That's really awful, that.

Vanessa RK (DJ): I was really amazed at how quickly the kids who were coming to our club nights picked up Knave. I thought that on the surface, they might appear to people to be a repetition of something that had been done before many times, at least since glam rock in the 1970's, but maybe it's cyclical; maybe people get tired of the usual rock and roll posturing that you see in most of the bands that have crossed over to the dance scene.

It's also probably to do with the economy. I know it's such a cliché, but it definitely showed with the revival of disco in late 2008, people looking for something that was really upbeat and positive when the rest of English music is so dark and brooding. Now, Knave are actually fairly dark and brooding, but what they are is they're very decadent, perhaps more in image than in reality, but I think there's a call for it when decadence feels like something hat no one can afford anymore.

I mean, I'd been playing stuff like Patrick Wolf, stuff that also encapsulated that image, so maybe I should have known Knave were going to catch on. I'm just not sure I really could have predicted that all of a sudden—out of bloody nowhere—people were going to be showing up in droves wearing Knave of Hearts T-shirts and knowing every word to every song. And they weren't exactly easy words to learn either. I mean, who puts words like, misandry, pedants, nuance, into a song?

Emma Marx-Hall (lead vocals and guitar, Knave of Hearts): I always said that there are three parts to love. The first is physical attraction, the second is having things in common, and the third part is fucking magic, because it's absolutely impossible to explain. And you know what else that applies to? It applies to why some bands are successful and others aren't.

Lane Kennedy (bassist, Knave of Hearts): We had a kind of unity that a lot of bands don't. We were really good friends, and we understood each other—I like to think we understood each other. And we worked very hard because we wanted it.

Alan Léonin: At the exact moment of the band's conception, I knew that there was some purpose we had to fulfill, and that purpose might be bigger than any of us.

Emma Marx-Hall: I didn't know it was going to end the way it did when we started. It even says right there in the manifesto that the most important thing is now, not the past or the future. So we weren't thinking about where we were going to be in five years, a year, a month. We would just wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and ask ourselves, what are you going to do today?