Codeine Velvet Club Inactive

In 2008, while touring the Fratellis second album Here We Stand, Jon originally said he wanted to release a solo album to keep himself busy for a while. Eventually it became clear that the Fratellis were going to be wrapping things up for a while after their touring commitments were finished, with their final show being a headline slot at the Hop Farm Festival in July 2009. It was later discovered that Jon was working with singer/songwriter Lou Hickey on an album and the project was originally reported to have the name “Codeine Breakfast Club” but Jon went on to say that the name wouldn’t work out as “John Hughes owns copyright on anything to do with the name the Breakfast Club”.

Eventually, the Fratellis website revealed the band was to be called Codeine Velvet Club and would be releasing their eponymous debut album in November 2009 with Jon and Lou sharing songwriting duties. The project came about when Lou asked Jon to help her write a song for her own album. After doing so, Jon decided he liked the direction enough to pursue a band with her and see what other songs he could create in this style.

The band unveiled a live video performance of “Vanity Kills” as the first song to be shown off from the project and their upcoming self-titled album. The band’s website debuted on 28 September 2009, and featured a free download of album track “Nevada” played acoustically. The band started to announce various live dates from September 2009, serving as showcase shows for the band for fans to see what the band would sound like.

“Vanity Kills” was the first single released from the album in November 2009, with it’s music video being a short film released around the same time. The album was also pushed back from the original release date to 28 December 2009, Jon explained that the release date was pushed back due to changes that the band wanted to make to the album (although no such changes were made as the band accidentally released the album for a few hours on it’s original release date).  The second single was announced to be “Hollywood” which was a double A-Side with the band’s unique take of The Stone Roses’ “I Am the Resurrection”. The band started 2010 with a support slot on John Mayer’s tour from 15–19 January, playing Manchester, Glasgow, London and Wolverhampton before announcing their first trip to the US to play the SXSW festival and also to play shows to support Metric on their US tour.

The band also announced their album to be released in America on 6 April 2010 on Dangerbird Records and will feature a brand new song as a bonus track called “Midnight Love Song”. This song will also be released with their re-release of “Vanity Kills” on 5 April 2010. After playing a few more live shows in the UK in early 2010, the band went away to work on their second album, but that ended up being short lived.

Jon revealed after touring commitments for Codeine Velvet Club were over that he would be leaving the band and pursuing a solo career, taking the backing band from Codeine Velvet Club with him due to their chemistry on stage. He would go on to record his solo album Psycho Jukebox with this line up before reforming the Fratellis.

Lou went back to work on her album and released her solo album True Love Ways in 2013.