Formed in 2011 by friends Jesse Rutherford, Jeremy Freedman, Zach Abels, Mikey Margott and Bryan Sammis, the band released two EPs, “I’m Sorry…” which contained the explosive “Sweater Weather” in 2012. Later that same year, the band released a second EP entitled “Thank You.”
By early 2013 the band released their first full-length album “I Love You” and the announcement of their performance at the Coachella music festival that year. Because of the success of their EPs, “I Love You” debuted 39th on the Billboard200 albums chart, with “Sweater Weather” reaching number one on the Billboard alternative chart by June 2013. The release of the album meant a tour; a tour that they called “The Love Collection Tour” alongside bands JMSN, Lovelife and The 1975.
Riding the success of all their successful tours and festivals, the band premiered a new song “Silver” on BBC 1 radio in December 2013, and in January released “Honest” for the Spiderman 2 soundtrack. Around the same time, they also announced the “#000000 & #FFFFFF” project (aka Black & White) to be released sometime during 2014. Despite the loss of drummer Bryan Sammis (and the consequent gain of Brandon Fried) they again set out on a world tour, “Le Tour Noir” in 2014.
The band is adamant about maintaining a certain image, having turned down television appearances that wouldn’t film in black and white. The artistic style has maintained a great importance to The Neighbourhood, and when asked about it, frontman Jesse Rutherford responds, “It’s important to stick to something. The black and white image was one defining thing for us where we were like ‘we’re gonna do that, we’re gonna keep it.”
There is honestly no better place to see The Neighbourhood than in Los Angeles. The California natives' El tour blanco was one of the most amazing shows I have ever seen in my life. Their energy never dies on stage, not even for the second they were told they had to cut the show a song short due to noise permits. They came back out and finished with the perfect attitude and performance. The music is impeccable if not better than the recordings of each of their songs and the graphics on the screen behind them match the vibe of the whole show as well. They can own an entire Victoria's Secret store with the amount of bras being thrown at them from the insane pit and their laid back attitude was shown when Jesse grabbed someone's phone from the pit and took some selfies making the entire crowd feel comfortable to be in their presence and ambitious to hear the music. Definitely a concert I didn't want to end.