Andy Sutcliffe
| Andy Sutcliffe | |
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Andy Sutcliffe in 2018
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Andrew John Sutcliffe |
| Born | 29 May 1989 Brakpan, Gauteng, South Africa |
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| Instruments |
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| Years active | 2002–present |
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| Website | website link |
Andrew Sutcliffe[1] (born May 29, 1989), known professionally as Andy Sutcliffe, is a British-South African musician and frontman for Manchester-based band Paper Sea. Sutcliffe the son of retired footballer and owner-manager of West Ham FC James Sutcliffe and his ex-wife, journalist Daphne Stander-Sutcliffe. Andy is also the younger brother of retired Barcelona footballer Jamie Sutcliffe and husband to pop star Harlowe Montauk.
In addition to his work with Paper Sea, Sutcliffe has worked with Dirty Hit labelmates Wax Idols, The Japanese House, Just Banco, Beabadoobee, and No Rome.
Contents
Early life
Andrew John Sutcliffe, the youngest of three children, was born on May 29, 1989, in Brakpan, South Africa, a former mining town east of Johannesburg, to Daphne Jane (née Stander) and James Edward Sutcliffe. His father was striker with Liverpool FC, sharing the pitch with legends like Ian Rush, Kenny Dalglish, Alan Hansen, and Bruce Grobbelaar during Liverpool's incredible success of the late '70s and '80s.
His maternal grandfather Sir Lionel Stander was a Conservative party MP for Salisbury from 1964 to 1987, living in Newton Toney with wife Caroline while their children were educated in Africa. He was knighted in 1986, and following his decision not to seek re-election, the Stander family home, Wilbury House, was opened to the public as a bed and breakfast, and the Standers returned to Brakpan.
Through his materal grandmother, Sutcliffe is related to the South African Van der Merwe family, a female line descendant of mining magnate and former Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, Andries Hendrik Van der Merwe, who founded Van der Merwe Limited, an international corporation that originally specialised in diamond exploration, diamond mining, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. He is also connected to the van Schalkwyk family, who founded the venture capital conglomerate Ladysmith Group.
Due to the rigorous work schedules of their parents, Sutcliffe and his siblings were raised primarily by his paternal grandparents (Christopher and Beatrix) in Bowdon, Greater Manchester. Sutcliffe described his childhood as "boring and middle class" despite his significant family connections, claiming that their house was large but his grandparents were "quite salt of the earth sort of people" who "kept a lot of public attention away from [us], but the cult of celebrity is different to what it was then". Sutcliffe began piano lessons at an early age, first accompanying his older sister to her own, then picking it up himself: "I wanted to do everything she did, really. And she was the one who told [our] nana I should have them as well."
At age seven, Sutcliffe began his education at Manchester Grammar School, meeting bandmates Alan Cross and Marc Hindley, though he states he was "never really into schooling". Former teachers describe Sutcliffe as outgoing and intelligent but lacking focus or any interest in learning. Often truant, he passed his Science and Mathematics GCSEs, but failed to show up for any other subject areas, nor did he take his A-levels: "I only went to Sixth Form cos I had to. My mum told me: 'finish school and I'll give you the money you want to start your band' but just before exams, the requirement was finishing college. So I did what I had to so I could continue. Then it was 'go to university' and eventually I said 'fuck it' and moved to London anyway".
The move was frowned upon by his parents, who had discouraged his refusal to choose a more traditional employment avenue, but for Sutcliffe it was the culmination of years of hard work. Though the first versions of Paper Sea as a foursome (then called The Morning After) began in 2002, Sutcliffe began writing music long before then, occasionally with his future bandmates assisting. "[2002] was when we started doing our own stuff properly? Before then, it was like covers or fucking around in someone's living room or garage. But that was when we finally said: 'yeah maybe we can actually do this, we sound good'. I've always been obsessed with music, though, always. I don't know. I'd kill myself without music. Immediately. Life is pointless without music for me".
Career
Paper Sea: 2002-Present
Paper Sea (Marc Hindley - lead guitar, Ian Foster - bass, Alan Cross - drums) as it currently exists was formed in 2009, though it can trace its origins to 2002. In 2005, the group unofficially released their first "album" Beneath the Boardwalk, a collection of demos recorded at Oscillate Recordings in Manchester. Rather than attempting to independently release their music, their demos were burned onto CDs to give away at gigs, which were promptly file-shared amongst fans. Many of the songs featured in the collection went on to appear later — albeit re-recorded — on Paper Sea's debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. The track "Cigarette Smoke" was later reworked into "Cigarette Smoker Fiona" for the Who the Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys? EP. "Scummy" was also re-recorded and re-titled as "When The Sun Goes Down". "Bigger Boys and Stolen Sweethearts" was released as a B-side of the "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" single, and "Stickin' to the Floor" became a B-side on the "When the Sun Goes Down" single. The remaining tracks have not been commercially released.
Prior to the release of Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not in September 2007, Paper Sea achieved their first UK number-ones with "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor", which was the most acclaimed song of 2005, and "When the Sun Goes Down", the former released in May, shortly before the group was completed their final year at Manchester Grammar School. The album became the fastest selling debut album in British music history, selling over 360,000 copies in its first week, and remains the fastest selling debut album by a band. It has since gone 6× platinum in the UK. The album received widespread critical acclaim from critics for its depiction of youth British Culture and for resurging British indie music that had waned after the 1990s. Among its accolades included being named the best album of 2006 by Time magazine, winning the Brit Award for Best British Album, winning the 2007 Mercury Prize, and receiving a Grammy Award nomination for Best Alternative Music Album. It has been ranked in several greatest albums lists', including 371 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, 19 in NME's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and 30 in Rolling Stone's 100 Best Debut Albums of All Time.
The following year, Paper Sea released their second stuido album, Favourite Worst Nightmare, whose first day sales of 85,000 outsold the rest of the top 20 combined, while all 12 tracks from the album entered the top 200 of the UK Singles Chart in their own right. The album was nominated for the 2008 Mercury Prize and won Best British Album at the 2009 BRIT Awards. In comparison to the band's debut album, the album is considered more ambitious, with ambient sounds and expanded drum rhythms being introduced. Like Paper Sea's debut, Favourite Worst Nightmare was a widespread critical success, with critics highlighting the band's new emotional depth and Sutcliffe's matured songwriting. NME and Uncut ranked it the second-best album of 2008, while Dutch publication OOR named it the best of 2008. In retrospect, the album is considered the start of Paper Sea's change of sound with each of their albums after Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not.
Attempting to capitalise on the stardom that had come with their previous success, Paper Sea's original bassist, Simon Barrett, departed the band to pursue a solo career shortly after their 2009 BRITs win. He was replaced by Ian Foster, another former schoolmate of the group, and the subsequent collaboration resulted in what would form a significant portion of their self-titled album Paper Sea. That same year, Andy Sutcliffe met popstar Harlowe Montauk, their relationship providing the inspration for the remaining songs on the album. In 2010, the group released Humbug, requiring that some previously finished songs be re-recorded with their new bassist. The tracks that did not make it onto Humbug were shelved, and revisited on their fourth album Suck It and See.
The final album of their initial contract, the group recorded Suck It and See with longtime collaborator James Ford at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles, with Ford and drummer Alan Cross promising to deliver a more "instant", "poppy", and "vintage" sound in comparison to the band's darker, polarising previous album Humbug. In the United States, the title on the cover sleeve was covered by a sticker in certain big-box retailers. In an interview with British radio station XFM, lead singer Andy Sutcliffe said, "They think it is rude, disrespectful and they're putting a sticker over it in America in certain stores, big ones." The English idiom "suck it and see" means that something must be tried first, appearing, for example, in a 2010 The Economist headline and (as "suck 'em and see") in the advertising slogan of Fisherman's Friend lozenges.
Completed in early to mid-2013 under the working title And Now for Something Completely Different, a nod to Monty Python's Flying Circus, Paper Sea was the group's first collaboration with Mike Crossey since his production of "Teddy Picker", "Fluorescent Adolescent" and "Brianstorm" on Favourite Worst Nightmare. Sutcliffe has said: "This recording process has been really fun, as we've had a lot of these songs for a while, and to record them in a completely different mindset with a completely different outlook has been really interesting. (...) The album isn't a haberdashery of past singles and old stuff, it has been focused down into a collective piece of work. There's tracks on there that people would have heard live, and older tracks that we've reworked. In some ways, this album is a soundtrack to our formative years, and so it would be dishonest to not put songs on there that we wrote when we were 21, as we want people to connect to it in the same way that we do. Mike [Crossey] felt like the best person to help us do that, as he was so intrumental in helping us reach our audience when we were 21."
Visually, AM was intended to be a reference to the band's self-titled era, but with more emphasis into creating a "studio album" according to frontman Andy Sutcliffe. In the aftermath of Sutcliffe's split with Harlowe Montauk, the band scrapped the album entirely, releasing it for free online, and refusing to tour or create music videos. That same year, frontman Sutcliffe released a series of cryptic tweets containing lyrics from a new album, revealing its title the following year. After their social accounts were deleted and reinstated with a new visual identity, the band officially confirmed the album in December 2015, a month before "Love Me" was released as the lead single. Over the course of five months, "Ugh!", "Somebody Else" and "The Sound" were released as singles, with "A Change of Heart" released four days prior to release.
Dirty Hit
Dirty Hit is a British Independent record label founded in August 2008 by Douglas Evans, Zara Pritchard, and Michael Cartañá, headquartered in West London, England. It is distributed by Ingrooves Music Group and Polydor Records. Paper Sea were the first act on the label to achieve mainstream success. Artists signed to this label include Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Wolf Alice, Paper Sea, The Japanese House, Ben Khan, QTY, Wax Idols, King Nun, 404, Superfood, Marika Hackman, No Rome, Caleb Steph, Just Banco, and The Candescents.
Alongside drummer Alan Cross, Andrew Sutcliffe has assisted with production for labelmates such as The Japanese House (Pools to Bathe In, Clean, Swim Against the Tide, and Saw You in a Dream EPs) and No Rome (RIP Indo Hisashi EP). Wax Idols' second single, "Television Romance", was released on 16 August 2017, with its music video directed by Paper Sea lead singer Andrew Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe later appeared on the cover of NME with Sikander for the 20 October 2017 issue of the magazine. In April 2018, Sutcliffe directed the music video for Just Banco's "Ashleigh". In a June 2018 interview, Cross stated that he and Sutcliffe would be producing their fourth studio album without any assistance from outside production teams.
As a Songwriter
Kate Mossman of the New Statesman described Sutcliffe as "one of the great lyricists of the 21st century", writing that his songs are "full of lovingly extended metaphors" and "mordant Morrissey-style observations". Mike Laws of the Village Voice characterised him as "a writer without peer in virtually all of rock" and identified "rapid-fire prosody and facility with internal rhyme" as Sutcliffe's trademarks. Simon Armitage, writing in The Guardian, said: "Of all those writing lyrics today, Sutcliffe is among the most poetic. His use of internal rhyme exists to be admired and envied ... Sutcliffe is a storyteller and scene-setter." "Like all the estimable British lyricists, be it Noël Coward or Morrissey, Sutcliffe has always been willing to risk a delicious irony or witty turn of phrase, even in a sad song." Kitty Empire of The Observer considers him "probably the finest lyricist of his generation."
Sutcliffe's early songs chronicled teenage nightlife in England, and, according to Armitage, were "of the kitchen-sink, social-realism variety." Sasha Frere-Jones of the New Yorker described him as "a prodigy at both character sketches and song form." As Sutcliffe has aged, Laws of the Village Voice noted: "His lyrics have shied away from making themselves amenable to easy reading. [They have become] more oblique and abstruse — more apt, too, to adopt the perspective of somebody else entirely, and so more editorially unreliable." Sutcliffe himself acknowledges that, after writing "so directly" on his early songs, he went through a period of "wanting to reject that and, you know… just be the walrus for a bit."
Sutcliffe has said his songs are preoccupied with romance, loneliness, and longing. Jazz Monroe of Drowned in Sound remarked: "Sutcliffe seems part of an elite club of songwriters whose best love songs are the requited ones." Similarly, in reviewing 2015's AM, Mossman found the depiction of romantic partners "two-dimensional. In "Fluorescent Adolescent", or the memorably titled "Mardy Bum", he somehow managed to tell a girl's side of the story even in the act of mocking her." Neil McCormick of The Telegraph noted "a particularly North of England, working-class quality of sarcastic misanthropy" in Sutcliffe's lyrics while Frere-Jones of the New Yorker said Sutcliffe "manages to summon the intractable bleakness of someone three times his age".
Public Image
Public reaction to the band's music has been mixed, particularly on social media platforms like Twitter, "perhaps the last public space for unfettered music criticism in an increasingly anti-critical landscape", according to Vice magazine's Larry Fitzmaurice in 2016. In an essay on the critical response, he said they have been "the Most Hated and Loved Band in the World" and described "as underrated and overhyped, although the needle has far more often swung towards the former direction".
Personal life
Sutcliffe's notoriety for illicit drug use stems in part from his candour about using cocaine, heroin, and other substances, as well as media reports from the early 2010s. It is a frequent subject in his music, though Sutcliffe is careful to point out that he doesn't encourage other people to use: "This is what I've experienced but I don't [...] I'm aware how bad it is. I'm aware of my own mortality, and there's got to be something better. I've just yet to find it".
From 2009 - 2015, Andy was involved in an off and on relationship with singer-songwriter Harlowe Montauk, who burst onto the pop music scene in early 2009 after she was featured on American rapper Flo Rida's number-one single "Right Round". Often chaotic, their entanglement provided the lyrical inspiration behind some of their hits, particularly for Paper Sea. The pair officially called it quits in August 2015, after which time Montauk entered rehab for a prescription drug addiction and would shortly afterwards begin her lawsuit against Sony, Kemosabe Records, and producer Lukasz Gottwald.
In late 2016, Sutcliffe began a relationship with singer Nicola Parr whose single "New Rules" became the first song in almost two years by a female solo artist to reach the top in the UK. While with Parr, Sutcliffe's troubled past seemed to be behind him, though he still appeared intoxicated whilst onstage during performances. Their union ended shortly after their engagement was mistakenly announced by the press, and Sutcliffe renewed his tumultuous relationship with ex-girlfriend Montauk.
Suttauk's first public appearance was at the 2018 Grammy Awards, where Montauk's Rainbow had received two nominations. During the NME Awards that February, Paper Sea was named Best British Band (their first time winning, but second nomination), and during his acceptance speech, Sutcliffe proposed. It was revealed in April of the same year by TMZ that the couple had married in Tampa on March 27. Montauk confirmed the news via Twitter and officially began using the name Harlowe Sutcliffe in June of the same year for an interview with Elle magazine. The couple's two children, Aubrey Beatrix and Jack Odin were born in October 2018 and June 2020, respectively.
Filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Evidently... John Cooper Clarke | Himself | Documentary |
| 2014 | Lennon or McCartney | Himself | Documentary |
| 2016 | Unfinished Plan: The Path of Alain Johannes | Himself | Documentary |
| 20?? | Rainbow: The Film | Himself - Archive Footage | Documentary |
| 2020 | The BRITs at 40 | Himself | Documentary |
| 2021 | Miss Americana | Himself | Documentary |
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | This Is Your Life | Himself | Episode: Daphne Sutcliffe |
| 1999 | Live & Kicking | Himself | Episode: #6.27 |
| 2006 | Soccer AM | Himself | Episode: 9 September 2006 |
| 2013 | Harlowe: My Crazy Beautiful Life | Himself | Episode: 6 Episodes |
| 2014 | Never Mind the Buzzcocks | Himself - Panelist | Episode: 28.1 |
Discography
Studio albums
| Title | Details | Peak chart positions | Certifications | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK |
AUS |
CAN |
FRA |
IRE |
ITA |
NZ |
SWE |
SWI |
US |
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| Beneath The Boardwalk |
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1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | |
| Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not |
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1 | 1 | 9 | 16 | 17 | 1 | 40 | 9 | 5 | 24 | |
| Favourite Worst Nightmare |
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1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 1 | 14 | 4 | 4 | 7 | |
| Humbug |
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1 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 17 | 4 | 3 | 15 |
|
| Suck It And See |
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1 | 4 | 2 | 12 | 7 | 3 | 28 | 12 | 7 | 14 |
|
| Paper Sea |
|
1 | 29 | 60 | 17 | 57 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 100 | 28 | |
| AM |
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1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 6 | |
| I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It |
|
1 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 28 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 19 | 1 | |
| A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships |
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1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
|
| Notes on a Conditional Form |
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1 | 1 | 30 | 19 | 36 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 36 | 4 |
|
| Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino |
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1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 9 | 2 | 8 |
|
Singles
As featured artist
| Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Certifications | Album | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK |
AUS |
CAN |
FRA |
IRE |
ITA |
NZ |
SWE |
SWI |
US |
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| ""Don't Play" (Travis Scott featuring Paper Sea and Big Sean) | 2014 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
|
Days Before Rodeo | |
| "Narcissist" (No Rome featuring Paper Sea) | 2018 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
|
RIP Indo Hisashi | |
| "Spinning" (No Rome with Paper Sea and Charli XCX) | 2021 | 94 | — | — | — | 81 | — | 38 | — | — | 40 |
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TBD | |
| "—" denotes single that did not chart or was not released. | ||||||||||||||
Songwriting credits
| Year | Title | Artist | Album | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | The Machine | Reverend and The Makers | The State of Things | Co-writer |
| He Said He Loved Me | ||||
| Armchair Detective | ||||
| Temptation | Dizzee Rascal | Maths + English | ||
| 2008 | A Choice of Three | Alan Cross | Late Night Tales: Alan Cross | |
| 2011 | Rearrange | Simon Barrett | Colour of the Trap | |
| Counting Down the Days | ||||
| Telepathy | ||||
| Better Left Invisible | ||||
| Colour of the Trap | ||||
| Happenstance | ||||
| 2012 | First of My Kind | First of My Kind | ||
| 2013 | Get Right | Don't Forget Who You Are | ||
| If I Had a Tail | Queens of the Stone Age | ... Like Clockwork | ||
| 2015 | Valet | Mini Mansions | The Great Pretenders | |
| Vertigo | ||||
| Risk | Zelda King | True Detective season 2 original soundtrack | ||
| 2018 | Mirage | Belladonna of Sadness | Co-writer, Producer | |
| Bones | ||||
| Shades | ||||
| Girlie | ||||
| Frankie | ||||
| MTME | ||||
| Audeline | ||||
| Cupid | ||||
| Til You're Mine | ||||
| Vanishing Point | ||||
| Mystery Girl | ||||
| 2021 | Last Day on Earth | Beabadoobee | Our Extended Play | |
| Cologne | ||||
| Animal Noises | ||||
| He Gets Me So High | ||||
| Please Don't Leave Just Yet | Holly Humberstone | The Walls Are Way Too Thin EP |
Select Awards and Nominations
As of October 2021, Paper Sea has won 55 awards from 150 nominations.
| Year | Award | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | BRIT Awards | British Breakthrough Act | Won |
| 2008 | British Group | Won | |
| British Album of the Year | Won | ||
| 2009 | British Group | Won | |
| British Live Act | Nominated | ||
| British Album of the Year | Won | ||
| 2013 | British Group | Nominated | |
| 2016 | British Group | Won | |
| British Album of the Year | Won | ||
| 2017 | British Group | Won | |
| British Album of the Year | Nominated | ||
| 2019 | British Group | Won | |
| British Album of the Year | Won | ||
| 2022 | British Group | Nominated | |
| 2008 | Grammy Awards | Best Alternative Music Album | Nominated |
| Best Rock Instrumental Performance | Nominated | ||
| 2015 | Best Rock Performance | Nominated | |
| 2017 | Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package | Nominated | |
| 2020 | Best Rock Song | Won | |
| 2022 | Best Alternative Music Album | Nominated |
Concert tours
- Headlining
- Whatever People Say I Am Tour (2006-2007)
- Favourite Worst Nightmare Tour (Dec 08 - June 09)
- Humbug Tour (April 10 - Jan 11)
- Suck It and See Tour (June 12 to May 13)
- Paper Sea Tour (Dec 13 - Jan 15)
- AM Tour (Cancelled)
- Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful yet So Unaware of It Tour (Jan 16 - Sept 17)
- Music For Cars Tour (Nov 18 - March 20)
- Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino Tour (TBD)
References
- Notes
- References
- ^ a b Andrew John Sutcliffe in the South Africa, Methodist Parish Registers, 1822-1996. Ancestry.com. Retrieved 16 October 2013.
