josh ward

Come one, come all, to Birmingham…

All the great tours start in great cities. That’s just a simple fact of rock and roll. It might be the Enormodome, Memphis, or the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, or New York’s Madison Square Gardens.

This tour, on the other hand, begins in Birmingham.

But you gotta start somewhere, eh?!

Tomorrow morning at 11am, Josh’s Band (featuring Chris and George Lightyear) will be premiering at the Birmingham Bullring in an attempt to get the good people of the UK singing the song we wrote last week in a studio in St John’s Wood. It’s called “Come With Me” and it’s invitingly simple to play and sing (click here for lyrics and chords; click here for recording and sheet music).

If you possess even just a modicum of musical talent or inclination, come join us and you could end up starring in a T-Mobile advert. It’s going to be exactly like the video for “All You Need Is Love”… except, you know, in a shopping centre.

Visit Josh’s Myspace page to find out more.

LYs write song for T-Mobile ad campaign

Last week we were asked by T-Mobile and Josh Ward (the face of their recent “free texts for life” adverts) to write a song for their new campaign that would inspire thousands of people across the country to “Join Josh’s Superband”. We were up against a number of other musicians and songwriters but we’re excited to announce that T-Mobile have chosen our song!

The track is called “Come With Me” and a basic recording can be heard here. The idea is that, over time, loads of musicians and singers will add their voices and instruments to the track to create a joyous, ramshackle, ‘superband’ sound.

Click here to read the lyrics and learn the chords (it’s very straighforward!).

The other development from the past week is that George and I, along with the superb Mike Glozier on drums, have been recruited for Josh’s core band. The band will be touring around the country over the coming month and teaching “Come With Me” to as many people as possible. Visit Josh’s Myspace for details.

Where the project will go from there, only time will tell…

Visit the BLOG page to read about our experiences so far.

Come With Me (written for the T-Mobile ad campaign)

*Check out the music video for this song here*

(Russell, Owens, Ward, Glozier)

I pack my case in the night
You tell me I’ll be alright
I call up all of my friends
I hold my breath, count of ten, then you

Come to me, we go together and you
Stay with me, we stay together and you
Come with me, we go together and we
Run

First light and we’re on our way
I say all I have to say
You stand with all of my friends
I run and run and run and run and then you

Come to me, we go together and you
Stay with me, we stay together and you
Come with me, we go together and we
Run

Come with me
Stay with me
Come with me
Stay with me

Come to me, we go together and you
Stay with me, we stay together and you
Come with me, we go together and we
Run

Chord Sequence (repeated throughout):

One bar of A followed by half a bar of D and half a bar of E
|  A   A   A   A  |  D   D   E   E  |

Our song in a national ad campaign…!

Here’s the news – T-Mobile have selected our song “Come With Me” to be the signature song for their upcoming ad campaign. On top of this, George and Chris have now officially joined Josh Ward (the face of the ad campaign) and virtuoso drummer Mike Glozier to form the core band for the tour. This means that we’ll be bombing up and down the country over the next month or so performing the song and teaching it to – hopefully – thousands of people.

Click here to view the latest episode of Josh’s Superband Saga – featuring The Lightyears in the studio, working on “Come With Me”.

This whole campaign has grown organically and it’s impossible to say what will happen next… but there’s a good chance you’ll be hearing more about it soon, whether it’s in the paper, on the TV or in your hometown. Whether you’re musical or not, Josh wants you to Join His Band. And you should. He’s a lovely chap, you know.

You can read the lyrics for our song “Come With Me” on the LYRICS page.

You can here “Come With Me” on Josh’s Myspace page by clicking here.

Writing a song for T-Mobile…

Our involvement with the new T-Mobile ad campaign is now beginning to get exciting. Friends and family have been spotting us all over the UK on TV ads, billboards, bus-stops and train station big screens…. and today we were brought in to write the campaign’s flagship song.

We were invited to the famous Rak Studios in St John’s Wood, which is where Radiohead recorded The Bends. Our brief was to write a song that would provide the basis for the next leg of the campaign – travelling around the country and inspiring mass nationwide sing-alongs. No pressure then.

Joined by Josh on bass and the amazing Mike Glozier on the drums, George and I wrote a song called “Come With Me” – an uplifting, quirky, catchy pop number about gathering together everyone you know and going on a massive road trip (you can read the lyrics here). Various different songwriters and groups of musicians have been asked to contribute material to T-Mobile’s cause and it’s not clear yet which song the ad execs at Saatchi & Saatchi will choose. Fingers crossed – we find out tomorrow…

ps. If you’ve seen The Lightyears on a billboard or bus-stop, send us a picture of yourself with the advert (preferably with your thumbs-up – it’s the only respectable way to be photographed) and we’ll publish it on the website.

LYs to appear in national ad campaign

***UPDATE: check out the T-Mobile East London Jam feat. The Lightyears! Click here***

The Lightyears are appearing in several T-Mobile adverts broadcast nationwide over the coming weeks.

If you’ve seen any of the company’s recent campaign – “What Would You Do With Free Texts For Life?” – you’ll probably have noticed the one where the curly-haired chap vows to start a superband (watch it here). Well, it turns out that we’re in that superband.

So far this has involved jamming with thirty other musicians in a warehouse loft, kicking up a storm in a pub in Oxford and cruising round central London in an open-top bus with cellists, trumpeters, saxophonists, singers, guitarists, bass players, drummers, percussionists and cheerleaders and performing to crowds of startled onlookers in Piccadilly Circus, Mayfair and Soho. You can check out some photos from the bus-tour here.

The first adverts were recently aired during primetime commercial breaks on ITV1. Keep your eyes peeled!

Jamming on an open-top bus!

OK, so it’s Week Three and yet again I found myself gathering up an instrument and heading off to a slightly unconventional jamming session for the new T-Mobile ad campaign. I was on guitar rather than piano today because the session was taking place on a vintage open-top bus driving through the centre of London. I know. This was rock and roll in its purest form.

George is out-of-town at the moment so I took my kid brother Shaun with me, who is a stunning musician and, not that surprisingly, looks almost exactly like me (see picture above for evidence). We started early – 9am to be precise – and spent almost the entire day driving through London’s busiest streets singing to the masses. True to form, Josh had gathered together a motley crew of musicians and vocalists, not to mention a battalion of enthusiastic cheerleaders (complete with pom-poms) to entertain the people of Oxford Street, Soho and Mayfair.

We were a genuine spectacle, cruising through Piccadilly Circus singing and playing and generally causing a ruccus. Tourists stood open-mouthed. Builders whooped and cheered. Hearts were lifted, boundaries were crossed. The superband is growing…

If you’re a musician, you should get involved. Contact Josh via his Myspace page.

The Piano Orchestra

OK – latest developments in the T-Mobile Superband Bonanza…

Today Josh asked us to come and join him and bunch of other musicians in the Half Moon pub in Oxford to jam a new song that had been written for the campaign called “I Wanna Feel You Move”. It was a small pub and full to the brim with guitarists, singers, percussionists and pianists. I was rather delighted to find myself part of a frankly formidable Piano Orchestra (OK, there were only three of us – but that constitutes an orchestra in my opinion). Afterwards, George and I were filmed walking along the street texting friends as if on the way to the jam. Luckily I have a degree in Drama and the skills I learnt whilst at university meant that I was able to very convincingly “text” my “friend” – even though, in reality, I wasn’t actually writing anything at all.

For the second time in a row, the jam was attended by a harpist. Most impressed by this. Harpists are practically an endangered species these days.

Think the first ad will start airing soon…..

The Lightyears join a superband

A couple of weeks ago, a curly-haired musician named Josh Ward (who we’ve played with a few times in the past and who has been known to wake up on our kitchen floor after Lightyears parties in a sticky puddle of champagne dressed like a sheep) was stopped in the street and asked by a camera crew what he would do if he was given free text messages for life.

Josh’s reply was simple: “I’d text all my musician friends and form a superband”.

Today, readers, The Lightyears joined that superband.

Earlier this evening we took part in an enormous jamming session in a warehouse in East London with around 40 other musicians. It was filmed by T-Mobile as part of their new ad campaign and will soon be appearing on television screens across the country.

As I happened to be the person who wrote the jam that was filmed for the final advert, I’m likely to feature in the advert quite a lot. Just as well I dressed up for the occasion eh?! You’ll probably recognise me if you see the ad because I’ll be wearing the same outfit I donned for our recent performance at Wembley Stadium (the one Danny quipped made me look like I was “out of My Chemical Romance”).

Nobody really seems to know which direction this whole “superband” idea is heading in, but I have a feeling it’s going to keep on getting bigger…. stay tuned for more!

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