Newton Faulkner

What’s that sound??.......it’s acoustic guitar like we’ve never heard it played before. It’s a throaty but gentle blues croon that speaks of backwoods, beaches and the badlands of, ah, Surrey and its t*u*n*e*s.

Faulkner wants to move us, and himself, with his music. It’s his inventiveness that made this 21-year-old one of the most buzzed-about DIY artists of 2006. With no promotion and bugger-all money his first release, last spring’s Full Fat EP, reached Number One on Amazon’s singles chart. The shuffling beats; the laidback scat singing; the ‘tapping’ of strings have struck a chord with anyone who has stumbled across his shows, causing the low-key release to sell-out its 3000 copies.

He spent his teenage afternoons teaching himself the guitar after picking one up for the first time aged 13, and at 16 he won a place at the prestigious Academy Of Contemporary Music in Guildford. ‘It was Rock School,’ . After stints in a couple of teenage wannabe punk, metal bands petered out Faulkner started writing and gigging on his own. A publishing deal and a record deal quickly followed.

His second release, the UFO EP, came out at the end of last year. The lead track, a co-write with his brother, is a rippling, infectious tune that had earned him a standing ovation at one of Jo Whiley’s recent Little Noise gigs (sharing the Union Chapel stage with the likes of Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Lily Allen & The Automatic).

Official Bio