Bad Charlotte

Starting Date: 2005/02/19.
Members: Kristen Farley, Charlotte Situnayake and Filip Hermar.
Homecity: Amsterdam.
Core Market Cities: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Glasgow, Helsinki, Istanbul, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Mexico City, Moscow, New York, Paris, Rome, Seattle, Stockholm, Toronto, Tromsø.
Genre: multi.

• Performed at Popmundo Festival III at Gorky Park.
  
• The only artist to have been revived after it was empty for 2 full years.
• Granted a special goodbye concert in the Vondelpark. The option to invite bands to play at a park out of competition was only open for a few days.

Get ready for an art riot…

Early 2005, February 17th to be precise, Filip Hermar (AKA The Patriarch) and Charlotte Situnayake (bassplayer of Tanya-Taze) met up at a bar in Stockholm where Filip used to work. They had a drink and ended up in a conversation about music and musicindustry, both feeling there wasn't much originality and guts to try something different to be found in the musicbusiness at the time. They started jamming a bit together and immediately felt a musical click. That evening they decided to form a band that would be different from everything else. A band that would stretch the boundaries of the ruling perception of music and art. A band too that wouldn't follow set rules for genres, a band with a statement. Bad Charlotte was born!

Charlotte left Tanya-Taze two days later while Filip had to finish some things with his soloact The Patriarch first before he could join, one of which was a commitment to play at the second Live Aid festival in Melbourne. In the meantime Charlotte did some publicity work for Bad Charlotte, arranged an audition for a drummer who became Kristen Farley and started with some try-outs to get the name spread across the public.
Shortly after his guest appearance at Live Aid Filip joined the band. Filip quit his soloact just before BC went on stage in Amsterdam on the 26th of April. This marked the official start of Bad Charlotte, while not much later singer Luuk Bouazra was added to the band.

Slowly but surely they drew their plans against the world. Their name rose quickly and soon everyone knew this band. Not the least because of their big mouthed motto: 'Get ready for an art riot that will change punk rock forever!' They had great success with their first EP and with about every single and album they released after that, and had many hitsongs. An appearance on the official Popmundo Festival in Moscow was the logical result and underlined their importance in the musicindustry of those days.
After a year though problems began to rise. Life on the road and being in the center of attention everyday took its toll on the band. Filip and Charlotte had a big difference about the artistic path they wanted to walk. Filip and Luuk thought it was time to let go of their DIY attitude to reach an even greater audience, while Charlotte and Kristen thought they would be sellouts if they signed with another, big label. Luuk and Filip also felt the need to spend more time with their respective families, because they hardly saw them while being on tour all the time. It was bound to happen that the band would break up sooner or later. When Filip decided to sign for the famous Prophecy label (biggest punk rock label at that time) without Charlotte's consent, the bomb exploded. The fight that broke out was fought out en publique and they decided to quit shortly after. They planned a goodbye tour but never finished it; during the Live Aid III concert in Stockholm, Charlotte freestyled a song meant to insult Filip and Filip immediately kicked her out of the band, a week before their Popmundo Festival preliminary show! Before that Live Aid show they were granted an exclusive and honourable goodbyeshow (id: 727725) by the city of Amsterdam at the Vondelpark. This show on day 4 year 24 marked the end of the Bad Charlotte era. It appeared to be their last show together and after the embarrassing Live Aid performance all members went separate ways. Charlotte formed Puppies! Turned to Roadkill with her youth-friend Virginia Lopes, while Filip joined his wife's Filippa Fiona, who was one of the biggest R&B artists at the time. Biggest success though had Kristen, who was asked to become drummer in the band of ex-kniggit Des Swink. With Ze evil Gnömes she made another appearance on the official Popmundo Festival, this time in Mexico City.
The four rejoined many years later as Good Filip, where they continued to revolutionise popmusic while remaining loyal to their multigenre origins. Cindy Taylor was added to the band to make it a 5-piece. Soon after Cindy joined the band, great tragedy struck them when Luuk Bouazra committed suicide after a longtime depression. Even though Anders Satan filled in Luuk's vacant position not long after his tragic death, they could never reach the success they had with Bad Charlotte, even though critics claim Good Filip was artistically much better than Bad Charlotte. Expectations were high and when the band didn't seem to be able to live up to them, frictions in the band started to rise. Anders was fired from the band after a serious incident and the band decided to have a sabbatical after finishing their Rock/Modern Rock tour. It would never be the same again after. During their Giant's Modern Rock world-tour, band members often didn't show up and rumours were going that the band would cease to exist after the tour.
These rumours appeared to become true indeed when the opportunity came to revive Bad Charlotte. They didn't hesitate and decided to quit Good Filip to reunite Bad Charlotte in their original lineup minus Luuk, meaning Cindy had to leave too. A tribute to Will Acosta Live Aid festival at the same Vondelpark was ironically chosen as the location to both end the Good Filip (id: 13203321) era as well to mark the official comeback (id: 13405513) of Bad Charlotte on day 33 of year 39.

Bad Charlotte has been successful in the past with an appearance on Popmundo Festival III in Gorky Park and had smashing hits as:

De Laatste Reis (#1 hit in World Music)
Turn Away (#1 in Rock)
and numerous other big hits in various genres, including Heavy Metal, Pop, Reggae and Modern Rock.

Now they're back and ready to rock in every genre again!

Bad Charlotte is:

Charlotte Situnayake bass guitar and bagpipes
Filip Hermar lead vocals and guitar
Kristen Farley drums and backup vocals
Luuk Bouazra guiding spirit

R.I.P. Luuk Bouazra, we love you!

Studios Brain Muncher Records (BMR), Prophecy Studios (PS), Radio-Aktiv Yak Records (RAYR), SEXPLOITATION RECORDS (SR)

Tourbus: 18 wheeler luxury rig

Equipment:

Instruments:

• Bad Charlotte Artist Page
• Good Filip Artist Page
• Gig-o-graphy and discography