My Vitriol are Ravi Kesavaram (Drums), Som Wijay-Wardner (Vocals, Guitar & Lyrics), Seth Taylor (Guitar) and Carolyn Bannister (Bass & Backing Vocals). Ravi and Som met at university, where a friend of their’s undertook to record them a demo as a project for his studio-engineering course. Ravi played the drums and Som the rest of the instruments and they put together an EP called "Delusions of Grandeur" in the space of just two days, using every free studio session they could find in the uni!
The name they chose for their band was that of "My Vitriol", not because of its literal meaning of "bitterness", but as a reference to a book called "Brighton Rock" by Graham Greene. In the story, the main character has a bottle of vitriol, which acts as his security when confronted by rivals and is used by him to commit suicide.
About 250 CDR copies of "Delusions Of Grandeur" were pressed, but only about 30 actually worked due to technical reasons! However, one of these were handed to Radio One DJ Steve Lamacq at a gig. Within days Lamacq had broadcast a track on the Session Unsigned slot, which lead to greater publicity for the band in the form of tracks from the EP being used on compilations. This resulted in great A&R interest, but the band decided to concentrate on their studies, despite this distraction.
Once exams were finished, though, Ravi and Som needed to complete the line up of the band, to give them a fuller sound. They met guitarist Seth Taylor at a Mint 400 gig and discovered Carolyn Bannister playing bass at another gig. The band soon released their debut, double A-side single "Always Your Way"/"Pieces", on Org Records on the 6th of December 1999. It received a lot of aiplay and even made the Radio One playlist. The single was also well received by the music press, gaining Single of the Month and Single of the Week in various publications (including Kerrang, Front, The Fly, Rocksound).
A record deal was obviously forthcoming after this exposure and, in the last week of 1999, the band signed a deal with Infectious/ Mushroom, home to other acts such as Ash and Garbage. Their first single under the new label was "Losing Touch", released in April 2000, and the second was "Cemented Shoes" which made number 65 in July of the same year.
Their third single, "Pieces", charted at 56, but the fourth, "Always Your Way", was the first to reach the Top 40, peaking at number 31. Soon after this, the band’s debut album, "Finelines" was released and it made number 24 in early March 2001. Over 50,000 copies of "Finelines" have now been sold worldwide, and to follow this up the band plan to appear at many festivals around Europe and Japan this summer, but not before their next single comes out, which is going to be "Grounded", taken from "Finelines".