You can now add the British group Morning Runner to the list of bands that should have made it, but didn’t. After reading about the band on various Brit-centric publications and checking out a few tracks online, I snagged an import copy of their debut album, Wilderness Is Paradise Now. From the bombastic piano smashing “It’s Not Like Everyone’s My Friend” to the radio friendly “Be All You Want Me To Be,” it seemed like everything was in place to make these lads a pop success. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned, with their album ended up as what some called a commercial failure. With their lack of success causing their label to push them harder for hit singles, the added stress was just too much, so they have called it a day.
The band made the announcement on their MySpace page, where they said: “We’re posting this message to say that we have split up. The decision was made about 2 weeks ago.”
“The first record was obviously a relative commercial failure and heaped pressure on us to have a follow up hit record (the nature of being signed to a major record label). We decided to try and ignore this and write the songs that we wanted and move our music on which we did succeed in doing. However having been encouraged by the label to go away and experiment with what we were doing they made a u turn and decided that the music wasn’t commercially viable and that they didn’t want to put it out.”
“This wasn’t really a surprise and was understandable from their point being a corporation. We had a couple of day’s apart to think through what we wanted to do next. When we came to sit down and talk about stuff Tom and Fields came to the decision that they’d had enough. This wasn’t what Matt and Ali wanted particularly but obviously they respect their decision and came to the agreement that with the loss of Tom and Fields they should call it a day.”
Well… another good band bites the dust. If you never got a chance to check them out, peep their video for “Burning Benches” below.
