Artist

Johnny Foreigner

Birmingham, United Kingdom • Formed 2005

Johnny Foreigner is a music group from Birmingham, United Kingdom, active since 2005. Their discography on Gatefold includes 7 records.

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7

Albums tracked

4

In collections

2005

Since

Biography

Johnny Foreigner is an indie rock band from Digbeth, Birmingham. As of 2012, the current line-up consists of guitarists Alexei Berrow and Lewes Herriot, bassist Kelly Parker (née Southern) and drummer Junior Elvis Washington Laidley. Before the band formed in late 2005, Berrow played in various projects including Panda Love Unit and Autolight, and Parker played in Twist and Baxxter. Other projects members of the band are involved in include: Fridge Poetry

The Arc of Johnny Foreigner

The pivots — what forced Johnny Foreigner to reinvent.

  1. The Brooklyn Session Blast

    Flying to Hoboken to record with Machine, a producer known for heavy metal acts like Clutch and Lamb of God, was a wild gamble that defined their early sound. He pushed their guitars into redline territory and compressed the drums until they sounded like firecrackers. You can hear the physical exhaustion on Waited Up 'Til It Was Light, where the band sounds like they are running out of breath on every single track. This era established their signature template of manic, overlapping male-female vocal lines and jagged, mathy guitar riffs.

  2. The Alcopop! DIY Trench Run

    After parting ways with Best Before, the band found a permanent home on Alcopop! Records, leaning hard into the UK indie-punk underground. This shift culminated in 2011's Vs Everything and 2014's You Can Do Better, records made with tight budgets and zero commercial expectations. The production got grittier, the song structures got weirder, and they started embracing their status as a cult touring band. The addition of Lewes Herriot on guitar expanded their live sound, turning their chaotic three-piece racket into a more wall-of-sound guitar assault.

  3. The Long Hiatus and the 2024 Reset

    Following 2016's Mono No Aware, the band went quiet for nearly eight years, a stretch that looked like a permanent split to anyone paying attention. They broke the silence in 2024 with How To Be Hopeful, tracking the record with longtime collaborator Dom Mitchison at Brighton's Brighton Electric. The album retained the classic JoFo speed but added a weathered, triumphant perspective to Berrow's lyrics. It was a self-funded, fiercely independent return that proved their chemistry was indestructible.

Influences

  • Los Campesinos! — The band toured extensively with them during the late 2000s UK indie boom and shared a mutual love for chaotic, multi-vocalist indie pop. You hear this influence in the frantic, conversational vocal hand-offs between Alexei Berrow and Kelly Parker. It is the blueprint for their entire lyrical style.
  • Pavement — Alexei Berrow has repeatedly cited Stephen Malkmus as a primary guitar influence, specifically his loose, erratic soloing style. This slack, detuned guitar work is splattered all over Arcs Across the City and their early EPs. It kept their pop sensibilities from sounding too polished or commercial.
  • Pretty Girls Make Graves — The dual-gender vocal dynamic and angular post-punk basslines of this Seattle band directly informed Johnny Foreigner's early structure. You can hear this in how Kelly Parker's bass drives the melody on tracks like 'Our Bipolar Friends' while the guitars screech around her. It is the exact same tension PGMG mastered on The New Romance.
  • The Blood Brothers — Before they were writing indie-pop hooks, the band members were obsessive fans of early 2000s post-hardcore and screamo. The jarring, split-second vocal shifts on Waited Up 'Til It Was Light mimic the dual-vocal panic of Jordan Blilie and Johnny Whitney. It is pop music played with hardcore punk intensity.
  • Mclusky — The cynical, sharp-tongued British wit and abrasive guitar tones of Andy Falkous paved the way for Johnny Foreigner's lyrical cynicism. Berrow's habit of writing venomous, self-deprecating lyrics about the music industry is a direct descendant of Cardiff's finest noise-rock trio. You hear it in the jagged riffs and bitter humor of 'Every Cloakroom Ever'.

Discography

Their records — most-collected first.

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