ABOUT US

Patch William are a London based four-piece consisting of brothers Will and Ed Adlard, and friends George Eddy and Ali Digby. Since their first gig at Bristol University in the summer of 2007, the band’s unique and crafted sound has seen them receive a host of acclaim.
Patch William are about to release their debut, eponymously titled album. As fan Stephen Fry suggested on his twitter page, “Might Patch William be the next big thing? They seem rather wonderful to me.”
Andrew Harrison of The Word wrote “The middle of a venn diagram composed of Nick Drake, Jamie T, Jimi Hendrix, and Talking Heads would be an odd place but this is where you find youthful London four-piece Patch William. The sound is spare but the melodies dreamy, and the performances assured”.

Their song “The Last Bus” has just been nominated for an Ivor Novello Award in the “Best Song Musically and Lyrically” category. Needless to say the band are thrilled to be recognised at this early stage of their career.

6 Music presenter and Ivor Novello committee member Tom Robinson commenting at the announcement ceremony said that the list of artists this year is a good gauge as to where the music industry is heading: “Unknown artists are creeping onto the radar, not people supported by big record companies.
Patch William, a band that I played on Introducing two years ago, long before anybody had heard of them”, he explained, “the Ivor Novellos are recognising that and it’s the start of a sea change”.

The band evolved out of Will and Ed’s Jimi Hendrix inspired jams in the attic of their house age 12 and 15. When Will started to write songs a few years later, having fallen in love with the works of Jeff Buckley, Bob Dylan, and with the blues, Ed started to write drum parts and soon they were recording homemade demos. Ed had played in a band at school with friend and guitarist George Eddy, who, when he got word that Ed’s brother was writing songs and in need of such a talent, jumped straight on the proverbial band wagon. For a year or so the band played small gigs, creating a buzz around London and also in Bristol and Leeds where the brothers were at university.

A series of coincidences would find Patch William under the guidance of producer Steve Levine who quickly signed the band to his label, Hubris records. A matter of weeks later they began recording the first five tracks for their debut album. Whilst recording overdubs on “The Last Bus” Levine suggested that there should be a cello part, and George said he could get his cellist friend and god-sister Ali to do the parts. He also suggested that she could do some singing as she had a great voice. When Ali came to the studio, her voice worked so beautifully together with Will’s that she ended up putting vocals on all the songs on the album, at which point she was asked to join the band permanently.

The band have moved from strength to strength playing regular gigs in London, a filmed Maida Vale session for BBC Introducing. Increasing radio play and sessions including XFM playlist, Radio 2, Radio 1 and BBC 6 Music