Band members Kele Okereke and Russell Lissack have formed the fulcrum of these various incarnations, and were subsequently joined by bassist Gordon Moakes, and most recently drummer Matt Tong. Lissack and singer/guitarist Kele Okereke met in 1998 in Essex, where Lissack had grown up and Okereke attended school. Lissack attended Bancroft's School and Okereke attended Trinity for sixth form. They bumped into each other again in 1999 at the Reading Festival and soon after formed the band Union.

The band is currently managed by Coalition, and represented by Simon White, formerly of Britpop band Menswe@r.

It may seem Bloc Party's own variation of spiky guitar rock draws on influences such as The Cure, Sonic Youth, Pixies, Joy Division, Gang of Four and XTC, but they say that some of these bands are just comparisons. Russell had never heard of Gang Of Four before they came out with Silent Alarm.

In 2003 they changed their name from Union to Bloc Party and in November had their track 'The Marshals Are Dead' featured on a compilation CD called 'The New Cross' released by Angular Recording Corporation. Soon after they released their debut single She's Hearing Voices on the then fledgling record label Trash Aesthetics.

The band got their break after Okereke went to a Franz Ferdinand concert in 2003, and was able to thrust a copy of the single into the hands of both Franz lead singer Alex Kapranos and Radio One DJ Steve Lamacq. Lamacq subsequently played the song on his radio show, labeling the track "genius", and invited them to record a live session for the show.

The buzz generated off the back of the Trash Aesthetics single sparked some A&R interest, leading to another single Banquet, this time released by the label Moshi Moshi, and to the eventual signing with indie label Wichita Records in April 2004.

Their critically acclaimed debut album, Silent Alarm, released in February 2005 and recently voted by NME critics as the 2005 album of the year, went to #3 on UK album charts (selling platinum in the UK), with the single "So Here We Are" making the top 5. Further singles "Banquet" (which reached #13 in NME's "Top 50 singles of 2005"), "Helicopter" (which featured on the FIFA 06, Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, Project Gotham Racing 3 and Burnout Revenge game soundtracks) and "The Pioneers" (July 2005), whilst failing to repeat this success, managed to make dents in the UK top 20. The animated video for the single "The Pioneers" was number one in the NME video charts for 4 weeks and was made for a tiny budget in four weeks by the Shoreditch based Mini Vegas design agency.


Bloc Party’s Okereke and Lissack on stage in Cardiff in October 2005Even though the band was met with good reviews from critics in America, Bloc Party failed to break through to the pop or rock charts in the US, largely remaining an underground phenomenon.

Bloc Party became one of the most popular new bands of 2005, and the established electronic group The Chemical Brothers soon collaborated with Okereke for a track on the Brothers' Push the Button album.

An album of remixes of tracks from Silent Alarm was released at the end of August in the UK. This remix album, Silent Alarm Remixed, retained the album's original tracklist and includes remixes from the likes of Ladytron, M83, Death From Above 1979, Four Tet and Mogwai.

During July, they recorded two new tracks (titles were given of "Hero" and "Two More Years") with Silent Alarm producer Paul Epworth. The latter, "Two More Years" was released on October 3 to coincide with their October 2005 UK tour. The songs were released as an EP titled Two More Years, accompanied with a re-release of Silent Alarm, which included Two More Years itself along with former single Little Thoughts. The single format of Two More Years contained a remix of Banquet done by The Streets, for which a video was also recorded.

British tabloid newspaper The Sun reported that the band would be