‘Handcuffed Man Shoots Himself’ is the second single from Invaderband’s forthcoming second album, ‘Peter Gabriel’, following up March’s single ‘I Won’t Remember You’ which was featured on The Thin Air (‘Irish Tracks Of The Week’), GoldenPlec (‘Songs You Need To Hear’), Chordblossom (“Will have you reaching for the repeat button. Two minutes just isn’t enough”), The Irish News (“a cracking new single … a catchy garage pop nugget”), extensive radio play on Today FM, BBC Radio Ulster, RTE2, RTE RNag, etc. and a spot on the BBC Music NI Where Music Matters Playlist for March.
Suggesting an unlikely pairing of The Stranglers’ belligerence and the darker storytelling of The Kinks’ Ray Davies, ‘Handcuffed Man Shoots Himself’ is a muscular postpunk anti-anthem on police brutality. Featuring minimal synth layers, brutish guitars, a pulverizing rhythm section and a singular voice, the track is cut from a strain of intelligent punk rock musique vérité, à la Gang of Four, Swell Maps, the aforementioned Stranglers and more recently, Blur. Tough in sound and attitude, the song is pointed social reportage based on a true story.
Songwriter and frontman Adam Leonard says: “The song title is taken directly from a headline I saw. Always a good starting point for a song. A 21-year old guy called Chavis Carter was arrested, handcuffed and placed in the back of police patrol car. This was in Arkansas a few years ago. He was searched twice for a weapon and none was found. When the dashcam was (conveniently) switched off the detainee somehow managed to obtain a gun and fatally shoot himself in the head, all whilst cuffed with his hands behind his back…. or so the police officers claimed. Disturbing stuff.”
When asked who was on the single’s sleeve, Adam said “That’s Derek Chauvin, the policeman who killed George Floyd. The same kind of story, a ‘one-off incident’ which just keeps happening again and again … and again.”
Invaderband are a garage/art rock band assembled in Derry, Northern Ireland by Mancunian singer, guitarist and songwriter Adam Leonard, who enlisted local musicians to voltage-enhance his dystopian postpunk songs.
After the release of their debut single ‘The Implausible Man’ and follow-up ‘Attack Of The Pod People’, their self-titled debut album arrived in 2017 and was met with radio play throughout the UK & Ireland on BBC Radio 6Music (Steve Lamacq, Gideon Coe & Tom Robinson), BBC Radio Ulster, BBC Radio Foyle, RTE 2FM, RTE 2XM, RTE RNAG & Today FM, receiving widespread critical acclaim and a shortlist in the Northern Ireland Music Prize for Album of the Year 2017.
The quartet have played shows all over Ireland and Northern Ireland including Other Voices, and their singles have been selected for Steve Lamacq’s 6Music Recommends show twice.
The new album ‘Peter Gabriel’ is scheduled for release by Tectona Grandis in September.
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