Warner Bros. Records have set a February 19, 2013 release date for Atlas Genius' debut album, When It Was Now.The group will wrap up their 2012 touring with a sold-out headlining show at Los Angeles' Troubadour on December 11.
While in L.A., the band will perform on KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic" on December 10 and make their U.S. television debut, performing the hit song "Trojans" on Jimmy Kimmel Live on December 12.
The band wrote, recorded and produced When It Was Now themselves at a studio they built in their hometown of Adelaide, Australia. It was mixed by Michael Brauer at Electric Lady Studios in New York City.
Once their studio was built, the first song that Atlas Genius finished was "Trojans." After spending weeks tweaking it, they put "Trojans" on SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes and Australia's Triple J Unearthed website. Then, they pretty much forgot about it.
"We began to think that music was a pipedream and we had all gone back to university to pursue more realistic careers," says lead singer Keith Jeffery. But as they crammed for their fall semester final exams, the blog Neon Gold discovered "Trojans" on the Triple J Unearthed site and wrote a post praising the song as sure to "invade your head, all dressed up in a clever disguise of earnest vocals riding a hooky riff." Checking the band's email account for the first time in over a month, they found their inbox being barraged by fans, record labels, booking agents and management companies from all over the world.
The band continued to write and record new songs in relative isolation in their studio as word on "Trojans" spread organically across the internet, with blog support leading to the song charting #1 on both Hype Machine and the We Are Hunted "Emerging Artist" Chart. SiriusXM Alt Nation found the song on a blog and started spinning "Trojans." The song spent four straight weeks as the #1 requested track on their listener generated Alt-18 countdown in early 2012. "Trojans" began to sell over 1,000 tracks per week in the States and soon climbed to 45,000 downloads sold - all with zero promotional efforts from the still-unsigned band.
Atlas Genius signed to Warner Bros. Records in the spring of 2012 and quickly released the three-song EP Through The Glass in June, featuring new songs "Back Seat" and "Symptoms."
December 2012
1 - Chicago, IL: Q87.7 The Night We Stole Christmas @ Aragon Ballroom
6 - San Francisco, CA: Live105 Not So Silent Night @ Mezzanine
8 - Portland, OR: 94.7 A December to Remember @ Crystal Ballroom - SOLD OUT
11 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Troubadour - SOLD OUT