ArtistInfo

Plush

Rock and Pop
A.k.a. Liam Hayes

Plush is Liam Hayes of Chicago, and whatever rock orchestra he can pull together for a given recording project or as Hayes himself puts it "Plush is Liam Hayes. Plush is a Band. Liam Hayes is Plush. Liam Hayes is a songwriter." Chicago based vocalist, pianist, and guitarist Liam Hayes has been songwriting for his group, Plush, since the dawn of the 90s. But it wasn't until 1994 that the band recorded together, the resulting session producing in the double A-side single [u]Three-Quarters Blind Eyes[/u]. This first single garnered some surprisingly big attention from the music press.The most notably of these being the British music magazine, NME, who named the B-side "Found a Little Baby" there "Single of the Week". Despite this acclaim it was another three years, before the band created the follow-up, 1997's [u]No Education[/u]. It was a much shorter wait between releases this time, with their full-length debut coming out the following year. 1998's [u]More You Becomes You[/u] finds Hayes at the alone at the piano singing sparse, vulnerable, and romantic songs along the heartfelt lines of Carole King and Burt Bacharach ballads. This scenario is recreated in the film High Fidelity (2000), a movie about an obsessive music fan living in Chicago, where Hayes can be seen performing in the background of a bar scene. Following the album's release, the band continued together with Hayes on guitar and toured with the Japanese band Ghost and with Yo La Tengo. In 2002, the Japanese After Hours label released Hayes' next achievement, [u]Fed[/u]. This was an album as lush and ambitious as the previous one was sparse. Hayes returned in 2009 with [u]Bright Penny[/u], a lovingly constructed "ode to pop music" that was released under the moniker Liam Hayes & Plush. In 2012 Hayes resurfaced to appear in and compose the soundtrack for director Roman Coppola's independent comedy "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III".Hayes was contacted by Coppola after the director became a huge fan. Coppola told GQ (UK) “I just got so absorbed by his music,”.

Genres

• Rock
• Pop
• Folk
• World
• R&B/Soul