Editors

Stafford to Birmingham

The band met while studying music technology at Staffordshire University and settled in Moseley, Birmingham. They played their first show as Pilot in 2002, became The Pride when that name turned out to be taken, and then Snowfield, under which they self-released a demo EP in 2003. Ed Lay replaced the original drummer, Geraint Owen. In October 2004 they signed to Kitchenware Records and took the name Editors.

Two number ones

The debut single, Bullets, came out in January 2005, and The Back Room followed that July, produced mostly by Jim Abbiss at studios in Lincolnshire, London and Wolverhampton. NME heard it swing from hopelessness to hopefulness, often inside a single chorus. It entered the UK chart at 13 and climbed to two after a reissue of Munich, went platinum and was shortlisted for the 2006 Mercury Prize. Critics split from the start over comparisons with Echo & the Bunnymen, Interpol and Joy Division. An End Has a Start (2007), made with Jacknife Lee, sold 59,405 copies in its first week and went to number one, and in 2008 the band were nominated for the Brit award for best British group.

That summer they introduced a new piano song, No Sound but the Wind, playing it at a warm-up show in Frome the night before their set on Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage.

In this light

For the third album the band wanted out of what Smith saw as a formula; he told Clash they had grown bored of being a rock band. They wrote on a Juno synthesizer, talked about the Terminator theme and Blade Runner, and chose Flood as producer for his work with Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode. Flood had them play together in a room until the parts were nailed. About twenty songs were cut to nine. In This Light and on This Evening entered the UK chart at number one in October 2009 and fell to 13 a week later, tying the record for the shortest run of any UK number one album. Reviews ran from bold to bombastic.

Four days later the New Moon soundtrack put No Sound but the Wind in front of a far larger audience. A live recording from Rock Werchter in July 2010 became a single in Belgium and went to number one in Flanders, the band's second Belgian number one after Papillon. In 2011 the Unedited box set gathered the first three albums with B-sides and rarities.

A new band

Urbanowicz left in April 2012, a decision the band said was about future musical direction, and Justin Lockey and Elliott Williams joined. The Weight of Your Love (2013) was recorded at Blackbird Studio in Nashville and topped the charts in Flanders and the Netherlands. In Dream (2015), their first self-produced record, was made in the Western Highlands of Scotland with Rachel Goswell of Slowdive on four tracks. Violence (2018), produced with Leo Abrahams and with additional production from Benjamin John Power of Blanck Mass, finally gave No Sound but the Wind a new studio recording.

Power became a full member in April 2022, and EBM, named for Editors plus Blanck Mass, followed that September. In 2019 the best-of Black Gold added three new songs produced by Jacknife Lee, and in 2020 four digital sets, You Are Fading I to IV, opened up the rarities. Smith also had a side project, Smith & Burrows, with Andy Burrows. In 2026 the band announced their eighth album, Surface, Echo & Sound, recorded in Tetbury and produced by Lockey with the band, for release on 30 October, trailed by the singles Call It In, The Rush and Seriously, with a European and UK tour booked into 2027. Belgium and the Netherlands remain their strongest audience, and setlist.fm logs more than 1,100 of their shows, with Munich the song they have played most.