hi5 - Groups - (+44) - Plus Forty Four

(+44) - Plus Forty Four

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Category:	Music
Created:	Jul 4, 2007
Type:	Public
Members:	61
Owner:	himynameisjosh
Language:	English
Country:	United States of America

Mark Hoppus,Travis Barker,Shane Gallagher,Craig Fairbaugh.

The next step after blink-182 with 2 halfs of blink, it cant get any better than that.

+44 (pronounced "Plus Forty Four", also known as (+44) or Plus-44) is a band formed by former Blink-182 members Mark Hoppus (bass guitar and vocals) and Travis Barker (drums and keyboards). +44 is a super group that consists of former Transplants touring guitarist Craig Fairbaugh and the lead guitarist of The Nervous Return, Shane Gallagher. The band's debut album, When Your Heart Stops Beating, was released on November 14, 2006. According to Hoppus, the band's name, +44, refers to the international dialing code of the United Kingdom, the country where Hoppus and Barker first discussed the project.

After the Blink-182 "indefinite hiatus" in February 2005, former members, Hoppus and Barker wanted to continue working on music. The duo began to collaborate which resulted in writing and recording new songs together in a friend's (Chirs Conklin) basement. Originally, electronic drums, keyboards, and direct computer recordings were used in the majority of recordings. Barker later stated that the whole electronic element of the band was derived from "155", the first song he and Hoppus wrote as a band.

As work continued on the demos, Get the Girl vocalist Carol Heller was invited, by Hoppus and Barker, to try out her vocals. Heller's performance was agreeable enough to the band and as a result the three kept working on more songs together. The band's formation changed again early 2006, with the addition of guitarist Andrew Giacco who left shortly due to unknown reasons. In order to progress with their demos, Barker and Hoppus acquired a studio, a move which marked a "turning point for +44." The band began working solely in the studio they had purchased, playing live drums, guitars and vocals. The band's sound had started with an electronic element which became less evident, but still remained a key feature. As a result, Heller found she wasn't compatible with the band's direction, and with the addition of her wish to start a family, she left the band. The vocal work that Heller contributed is still present in the songs "Make You Smile", "Weatherman", and the "No, It Isn't" demo. After this, Hoppus and Barker were left to find a new guitarist. Shane Gallagher then joined the band.

Work continued on the band's first record, with members, Hoppus, Barker, and Gallagher, until three quarters of the recording had been done. At this point a new member joined (Fairbaugh) who was to play second guitar and backup vocals.

As the projected release date started to draw in, speculation on the title of the band's debut album began to circulate. At first, it was believed that the album would be called "A Little Death Makes Life More Meaningful," which was later changed to "Little Death." Hoppus finaly settled on "When Your Heart Stops Beating". A song, entitled "Lycanthrope" was released on the +44 website in early September 2006. This was only the second song that fans had heard other than "No, It Isn't" and had more of a "punk" feel to it.

Later in September 2006, KROQ radio played the title track of the forthcoming album after a message from Mark Hoppus through his MySpace blog, alerting fans to this fact. The band played their first gig on the September 7, 2006 at the Roxy Theatre in Hollywood; Hoppus stated it was the first show he had performed in two years. The audience received free shirts that say "THE FIRST SHOW SEPTEMBER 7, 2006 LOS ANGELES, CA THE ROXY THEATRE" or "BORN IN LONDON AND RAISED IN LOS ANGELES" (referring to the band being created during a conversation between Hoppus and Barker in London and the band writing/recording their record in Los Angeles). The band, followed this up by their second ever gig and first ever UK gig in London at the Astoria. Both gigs were met with very encouraging reactions from fans, considering that at that time, only one completely recorded and mastered song, "When Your Heart Stops Beating" had been heard.

A music video for "When Your Heart Stops Beating" was shot in a factory in LA shortly after their first gig. Fans were invited along to feature in the video if they were over the age of 18. The video debuted in the US on TRL in late September 2006. During the shooting of the video, Travis Barker injured his arm, which was discovered weeks later after playing a whole European promo tour. Fans can hear parts of this through Mark's podcast, Hi My Name Is Mark. This left the band with no option but to postpone part of its US tour, originally scheduled for October 2006, to December of the same year.

The release date for the album was confirmed to be November 14, 2006 for North America, November 13, 2006 for Europe, and November 11, 2006 for Australia. The band released two singles to support the album release. "When Your Heart Stops Beating" was released in the US whereas in the UK, "Lycanthrope" was released as a 7" vinyl on November 8, 2006. On November 13, 2006, a day before the release, during the show at the 9:30 Club, the album was sold early, with a free pink "Cliffdiving" 7".

Upon ordering a t-shirt from +44, fans were randomly chosen to receive a limited edition CD that contains the demo of the song "No, It Isn't". The packaging states that there are only 500 of these discs.

A brand new electronic remix of "When Your Heart Stops Beating" was added to the band's official website, as well as their MySpace on October 23, 2006. The song "Lycanthrope" is on the soundtrack of the video game Tony Hawk's Project 8, in which Travis Barker is an unlockable character.

Regarding the lyrical content of the album, Hoppus stated that "the +44 album is by far the most lyrically personal music I have ever written. The words are everything I have inside me put on a CD. This is the most personal album any of us have ever written. You want to know who we are, what we think, or how we feel? Listen to the +44 CD." The album refers to the break-up of blink-182, and "the ugly feelings that were left over afterwards," according to Hoppus. The song "No It Isn't", released on Tom Delonge's birthday, December 13, is primarily directed towards DeLonge's departure from blink-182.

The band appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman on November 15, 2006, playing "When Your Heart Stops Beating", as well as Jimmy Kimmel Live on December 19, 2006.

The band then appeared on UK TV music show "The Rock Hour" describing the reasons of forming +44.

+44 did a cover of the Descendents' song, "Christmas Vacation" for KROQ's Kevin & Bean's Christmas album, and on tour in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at First Avenue. Later they did a cover of Berlin's song, The Metro, for their second European Tour. They also covered Black Flag's Nervous Breakdown on their Japan tour. All vocals were sang by Craig. They have studio recorded a cover of The Smashing Pumpkins' I Am One. This will be on the smashing pumpkins tribute project CD. A new remix of their song "Little Death" is being released soon. It is a mash-up of Little Death and Weatherman which is being mixed by Chris Holmes. This was confirmed on the himynameismark podcast #31.

+44's When Your Heart Stops Beating was ranked number 2 in Maxim's top 10 music for 2006.

The second UK single is "When Your Heart Stops Beating" to coincide with their tour in Europe. It was released on February 12, 2007. It was released on 7" vinyl containing the title track and an electronic mix of the title track. The CD version contains the title track and "Baby Come On". The single's music video premiered on Kerrang TV on January 11, 2007. The video is also available to select from the Kerrang Playlist. It can be seen on Scuzz, MTV 2 and The Box as well.

To date, sales of the album have been a bit less than expected with limited radio airplay in the U.S.

The second planned single in the USA was "Baby Come On" according to Mark Hoppus' blog, http://himynameismark.com/. A promotional cd was released for the song in the US, but the song has so far failed to chart.

Due to his arm injury, Travis Barker pulled out of going on tour with +44 in Europe and Australia. Gil Sharone was filling in for him during the 2 tours. Barker returned in the summer of 2007 with Fall Out Boy, The Academy Is..., Paul Wall, and Cobra Starship on the 2007 Honda Civic Tour.

Recently, according to Mark's blog, they have started to play What's My Age Again on the Honda Civic Tour because "Travis and I love our history with blink-182, and it seems a shame to let those songs sit dormant forever because of what happened two years ago." They first covered the song in Minneapolis, Minnesota whilst supporting Fall Out Boy at the Honda Civic tour on May 16th, 2007. They have also covered The Rock Show and Dammit on the same tour.

During their Honda Civic Tour, +44 recruited Victoria Asher from Cobra Starship to perform the vocals of "Make You Smile" which was originally sung by ex-member Carol Heller.

On May 22, 2007 the song "Guten Tag" was released on iTunes. It is an English cover of a song originally by the German band Wir Sind Helden which has covered the song When Your Heart Stops Beating by +44. Wir Sind Helden's cover song was released on May 29.

On June 4th 2007 at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, (+44) played Blink-182's "Dammit". Before the band started playing Mark said "Well I guess this is growing up." This marked the first time 'Dammit' was covered by (+44), as other Blink-182 favorites "The Rock Show" and "What's My Age Again?" have also been covered on the Honda Civic Tour.