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BIOGRAPHY

Richie Neville
	BIOGRAPHY | GALLERY | GOSSIP

RICHARD NEVILLE was born in August 1979 in Solihull, Birmingham, UK. Both his parents had been singers and so it was no surprise when he joined the church choir at age 4, and would sing and act-out with his friends. Whilst growing up, Rich musically entered a 'grunge' period: identifying with many rock bands including Smashing Pumpkins and Sound Garden, starting his own group bizarrely named 'Anal Beard', and wearing the over-sized baggy clothes and hair to match the music. Finally, the lure of the stage brought him to London, and his life-changing and totally random audition for a 'pop band with a difference'.

It was 1997 and Rich was 17 when he saw an ad in a national newspaper asking for young male singers to audition for a new group in the boy band-style but with "attitude and edge". He thought it could be a start in the music industry. At the auditions, Rich and four other unsuspecting individuals shone through and were picked to be the band. Later they would be known as Five. The rest is music history…

FIVE started with a six-album deal with BMG/RCA (Arista in the USA). The lads were packed off to Sweden in May 1997 to cut their first album. As they recorded the first tracks and listened back to them, they realised they had a unique, hot and marketable sound, as did Simon Cowell, the A&R man who signed them. The album "Five" was released in June 1998, containing the hits “Slam Dunk” (#10), “When The Lights Go Out" (#4) , "Got The Feelin'" (#3), "Everybody Get Up" (#2) and "Until The Time is Through" (#2). Their single "When The Lights Go Out" cracked the US charts, staying in the top ten for over 25 weeks! Their album went straight to number one on the UK charts. It eventually went multi-platinum around the world...FIVE had arrived!

1999 saw FIVE's popularity soaring around the world. Many awards and appearances only added to their packed schedule and hectic lives. The hits kept coming; "It's The Things You Do" (USA), "If Ya Gettin' Down" (#2) and then "Keep On Movin", their 1st UK Number One. The album "Invincible" was released in Oct 1999 in the UK. It was a supreme effort as the lads not only sang the songs, but co-wrote all of them... not usually done by most ‘boy bands’. The band won the Brit Award for Best Pop Act in 2000. Their performance at the Brits with the legendary rock group Queen was the talk of the industry and the song "We Will Rock You" became their next single & video and went straight to #1 in the UK... their second number one single in less than 9 months. It paved the way with their ‘okay to like’ cooler blend of pop music. This was all while FIVE were rehearsing and then embarking on a jam-packed World Tour from March-May 2000.

They began work on their 3rd album, ‘Kingsize’ and, in December 2000, launched their second big tour, playing at the largest arenas in the UK. In January 2001 the band played to its largest audience ever, 250,000 people at the world famous ‘Rock In Rio’ festival in Brazil. A head-line appearance at MTV's’ Five Night Stand’, and a huge concert in Israel capped off April & May 2001. Five then had to begin heavy promotion for the single “Let's Dance”, scheduling a full concert weekend at the end of August to kick off the August 27th release of "Kingsize". The single was released on August 13th and it debuted at number one in the UK.

In the background, however a string of individual personal issues, and being in an exploitive non-stop music industry for five years since their teens, was taking its toll on the band. They decided to end after deliberating hard over all the decisions to be made. On the 27th September 2001, FIVE made a surprise live appearance on MTV Select in London and announced they were 'calling it a day'. The lads had always said they would go out while they were still on top and they did just that, only two weeks after a number one single.

After all of this and aged just 21, Ritchie thought about getting his career on the go but felt that he was being pushed into areas of music that didn’t feel right, {all singing, all dancing hit factories with no musical back-bone}, and after having five years of his life that was not really his own, he cut ties with his management company and Simon Cowell and went to re-discover himself. He ‘hippyed’ out for a while. His travels took him to the summer solstice at Stonehenge, Ibiza three times in a year and many outdoor parties and raves etc. Ritchie says;

‘ Being in a band like Five was great but you were being constantly watched, ‘life in a gold fish bowl’ was our pet name for it, I just felt like I wanted to shed all the suppressed feelings I had accumulated over the years, I just wanted to dance, all the time, and not care whether people were watching or whether they had recognised me, or whether they were gonna call the papers and tell them what a state I was in, I transformed myself and regained my youth, I wanted to feel real again, it was the best feeling ever, man!’

In March 2003, Ritchie Neville was guest front man at The Blockheads concert in London and after more than a year of not being on stage, he turned a hostile crowd into a friendly one with his electric rock performance...

…after a ‘long holiday’, a complete change of management, PR, musicians, writing partners and most importantly the opportunity to write and record the type of music he has always wanted to create, Ritchie Neville has returned. ‘Pearl Jam’, was the comparison made after Ritchie’s first solo live performance in two years on 24th November 2003 at Liverpool University. With his four-piece band, Ritchie Neville rocked… and the students were shocked.

For the past twelve months Ritchie has been working on his sound. The ideas & the lyrics have been there, but it’s the sound that he’s been trying to get right. His writing with producers Riff Raff helped nail the elusive monster, with new tracks like ‘Let Me Out’, ‘Wasted’ and ‘Taste Me’ reflecting the harder edge of Ritchie Neville, and the ballads ‘Running For Miles’ and ‘Melody’ demonstrating the strong lyrical and vocal ability that he has crafted. Other collaborators have included Go West’s Richard Drummie, Phil Thornally, Kenny Thomas and Rick Wilde, but the bulk of the writing has been down to Ritchie. With the songwriting in hand, Ritchie has put together a band that equals the likes of the ‘Red Hot Chili Peppers’ or ‘Smashing Pumpkins’.

Caz, Jon, Benny & Owen make up The Band. Young, like-minded musicians all with the ability to put on one hell of a performance. This is the band that Ritchie Neville has always wanted.

In February 2004 Ritchie embarked on a University Tour, culminating in a one-off London show. In between shows, Ritchie is recording new tracks with the band which they hope to release later in 2004. FIVE is no more …there can be only one. That one is Ritchie Neville.