"Suburban Knights" is the first single from British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 band Hard-Fi

HARD-Fi

Hard-Fi are an English indie rock band formed in Staines, Surrey in 2003. The band's members are Richard Archer , Ross Phillips , Kai Stephens and Steve Kemp .They achieved chart success with their third single, "Hard to Beat" and then followed by other successful singles such as...

's second album Once Upon a Time in the West

Once Upon a Time in the West (album)

Once Upon a Time in the West is the second studio album by English indie rock band Hard-Fi. It was released on 3 September 2007 on Necessary/Atlantic and Warner Music UK. It reached #1 in the UK Album Chart in the first week of its release, unlike its predecessor Stars of CCTV, which took around...

. The physical format of the single

Single (music)

In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

 was released on 20 August 2007, the digital version was released on 6 August 2007. It reached #7 on 26 August 2007, becoming the band's most successful single in the UK Charts.

The song received its first airplay on Soccer AM

Soccer AM

Soccer AM is a British Saturday-morning football-based comedy/talk show, predominantly based around the Premier League...

 on May 19 when the band appeared on the show. Only about 15 seconds of the intro of the song was played however. Later, the single received its first radio play on June 20, featuring on Zane Lowe

Zane Lowe

Zane Lowe also known as 'Zipper', is a radio DJ and television presenter. He was born in New Zealand and grew up in Auckland, where he was a presenter on the local music station Max TV, before moving to England...

's Radio One show. The song was nominated for best track at the 2007 Q Awards.

In Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

, "Suburban Knights" reached #5, while the next single "Can't Get Along (Without You)

Can't Get Along (Without You)

"Can't Get Along " is a single from indie band Hard-Fi, taken from their second album Once Upon a Time in the West. It was released on 4 November 2007. Richard Archer has said that he thought it to be one of his best songs and TV presenter Tim Lovejoy said that it was one of the best records he had...

" did even better in the same chart, hitting #1.

This song has been played on popular teen programs Hollyoaks

Hollyoaks

Hollyoaks is a long-running British television soap opera, first broadcast on Channel 4 on 23 October 1995. It was originally devised by Phil Redmond, who has also devised shows including Brookside and Grange Hill...

 and Waterloo Road

Waterloo Road (TV series)

Waterloo Road is an award-winning British television drama series, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 9 March 2006. Set in a troubled comprehensive school in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, the series focuses on the lives of the school's teacher and students, and confronts social...

. This song was also featured on the Network Ten

Network Ten

Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...

 sports show Sports Tonight

Sports Tonight

Sports Tonight was an Australian sports information program broadcast on Network Ten . The program was broadcast on Weeknights at 10.30 pm; at 11.00pm , Fridays at 12.00am , and on Sunday from 7:30pm AEDT Sports Tonight was an Australian sports information program broadcast on Network Ten (and on...

 in Australia. Suburban Knights also features in the soundtrack of Turn 10's Xbox 360 racing game, Forza Motorsport 3.

History

It began as a rough demo that had already been created by the time Stars of CCTV

Stars of CCTV

Stars of CCTV is the debut album by English indie rock band Hard-Fi. It was first released on 4 July 2005 on Necessary/Atlantic and Warner Music UK...

had been released and is also one of the older tracks on the album Once Upon a Time in the West

Once Upon a Time in the West (album)

Once Upon a Time in the West is the second studio album by English indie rock band Hard-Fi. It was released on 3 September 2007 on Necessary/Atlantic and Warner Music UK. It reached #1 in the UK Album Chart in the first week of its release, unlike its predecessor Stars of CCTV, which took around...

. Richard Archer

Richard Archer

Richard John "Rich" Archer is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is the lead vocalist, guitarist, principal songwriter and main composer of indie rock band Hard-Fi. Hard-Fi have produced several top 10 hits and two #1 albums. The influence of Archer's hometown of Staines is often...

 says that it began as just the chorus and the backing vocals. The band started working on it while on tour and played it live a couple of times. "We never said it has to be the first single, we just felt like it was a nice bridge between the first and second albums" Archer tells the NME

NME

The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

. Variations of the track were performed live, sounding slightly different from what became the final version.

Archer describes it as being about various things and having your head in lots of places at once.

It's about being felt left out and degraded, people looking down on others, journalists slagging off people from suburban areas and dreams being out of reach among other things such as having nothing to do and having no money. There's not much in suburban towns so you have to be creative. We've toured the world and have met many people much like ourselves, from suburban areas, we were always told to celebrate where we're from and fight back. Suburban Knights is just made to celebrate the amazing people who live in the real world. You have to be creative living in suburbia and we wanted to celebrate that.

Music video

The music video directed by Ben Crook features the band playing in front of many satellite dishes being filmed by a video camera. This is then broadcast on to many television sets around the UK and eventually around the world. It ends with Richard Archer switching off the transmission with a television remote control.

The video was first broadcast in the UK on 11 July at 11:30 pm on Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

 and has been featured in the top 10 UK airplay. When discussing the making of the music video the band said

"Our fave part of the video was when it finished. Videos are really long days, so the best bits are the make up artists, the catering and going home at the end."

Track listings

CD single

1. "Suburban Knights"
2. "Suburban Knights" (Steve Angello
   Steve Angello
   Steve Angello is a Greek-Swedish DJ, producer, and record label owner. He is part of a three person group dubbed the Swedish House Mafia.- Background :...
   
    & Sebastian Ingrosso
   Sebastian Ingrosso
   Sebastian Ingrosso is a Swedish DJ and producer of Italian descent. Born in Grahamstown, South Africa but raised in Solna, Sweden. Sebastian spent his teenage years in his fathers studio learning how to make music, with his first official remix released on Mega Records in 1999...
   
    Mix)

7" single 1

1. "Suburban Knights"
2. "You And Me"

7" single 2

1. "Suburban Knights"
2. "Suburban Knights" (DJ Wrong Tom's Delight Mix)

Charts

"Suburban Knights" has been listed for 9 weeks on the UK Singles Chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

, 9 weeks in the Irish Top 50, 3 weeks in the Germany Singles Top 100. On 19 August 2007, it became Hard-Fi's sixth UK Top 20 single, entering the UK Singles Chart at #12 via download sales alone. On August 26, 2007, the single marked their second UK Top 10 hit as well as their highest charting single to date, peaking at #7.

Chart (2007)	Peak position
UK Singles Chart	7
Ireland Singles Top 50	15
Germany Singles Top 100	79