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It all began for The Last Army in the summer of 2007.....
In July and August two best friends Rebekah and Micky recorded some demos - the drums and violins in a studio, the rest in a bedroom. They then recruited some of their friends and formed The Last Army. After a couple of practices, they played their first gig at The Truck Festival in September.
Then, after having their demos discovered on Myspace by enthusiastic Hispanic DJ Julio Ruiz, garnered much national radio play in Spain. So they flew over towards the end of the year and got interviewed live on aforementioned national radio (Radio Nacional de España). They followed this by playing a mini-tour, starting with Madrid.
After that particular gig (their second) they were offered a record deal with Spanish indie label Liliput. This pleased them.
Their whirlwind start was all good and well but they took some time out at Christmas (about 3 days).
In January they started getting played on smaller radio stations in the US and caught the interest of an American manager. They were also played on Mexican radio on student station UABC.
In February they became the weekly featured artist on Myspace Australia. And momentum kept growing elsewhere...France, Spain, America (iacmusic.com - big 50 chart top 20 for both ‘Dead' and ‘Submit to the Chemical', UNU radio, KXLU Playlist for CMJ New World Music Chart). XFM DJ Marsha Shandur stumbled upon them and said to her listeners - ‘They're really good and therefore should be known about'.
In March they played a packed gig in Punk, Soho and Jimmy Pursey (formerly of Sham 69) joined them onstage - enthusiastically proclaiming "I love this lot!". They were also approached by an eager video director who could accommodate them with their not-even-a-shoestring budget.
In April they shot said music video for the song ‘Dead' - with one camera and no crew. They also recorded a cover of Je t'aime (moi non plus) - a duet with Rebekah and Art Brut's Eddie Argos.
In June they were interviewed live and their first single (self-release, no budget or plugger, digital only) ‘Dead' was played on Steve Lamacq's BBC6 show.
In July Tom Robinson and Gideon Coe also played ‘Dead' on BBC6. Then TLA took some time out to write some new songs.
In August they got their first live UK live review - in The Fly, and it sung their praises. They were reviewed and hailed as ‘best unsigned band' in London Lite magazine and this was followed by radio play on BBC London as their ‘record of the week'. At the end of the month they were the CMU Daily (insider industry magazine) big tip, described as ‘Utterly brilliant. They have an impressive arsenal of hook-laden indie songs... the best band-fronting team you're likely to find'.
Amidst the rumblings of far greater things that they're not currently at liberty to divulge, this is how they took their first tentative steps into the world.
And so began their story ....
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