Sea Power: Why we dropped the word ‘British’ from our name
This week our band announced we were modifying our name from British Sea Power to just Sea Power. This announcement was soon trending on Twitter and triggered more news coverage than we imagined possible – from the Guardian and NME to the Express and Telegraph. TV interview requests came in from GB News, Russia Today, Channel 5 and Good Morning Britain, which we declined. There was broad support from our audience, alongside some disappointment and a fair bit of general flak on social media. The coverage surprised us, being a modestly successful rock group – albeit one with the occasional Top 10 album and a Mercury nomination, plus a BAFTA in 2020 for our soundtrack to the big-selling computer game Disco Elysium.
We haven’t undertaken this namechange lightly. It’s something we’ve been thinking about for years. We of course originally chose the name, circa the year 2000, because we liked it. Others did too. Elbow frontman Guy Garvey said, “Not only do British Sea Power own the best name in history, they’re fucking great.” But this name came with some fairly intricate thinking behind it. As we explained in a statement on our website: “There were at least two lines of thought behind it. There was, literally, sea power – the elementary power of the oceans. Alongside this was the historical idea of ‘British sea power’ – Britannia ruling the waves; the naval power that allowed Britain to dominate the world. When we came up with the original band name, Britain no longer ruled the seas. The name was intended with a kind of wry humour.”
In retrospect, our original name was intended with something of the spirit of 1950s situationism – turning a slogan back on itself, looking to give it new meaning. Recently, we’ve been thinking more about the name in relation to history. The idea of British sea power is almost synonymous with the British empire – many nations subjugated by one nation. Yet British sea power could clearly also be on the right side of history. Without it, Nazi occupation of these islands would’ve been much more likely. In our statement, we emphasised that we are in no way ashamed of being British: “Removing the word ‘British’ does NOT indicate any aversion to the British Isles whatsoever. We all feel immensely fortunate to have grown up in these islands. We love these lands.” Indeed, the band now live along the length of Britain – from the Sussex coast to the Inner Hebrides.
If we were called British Motorcycle Club we wouldn’t be changing our name. It was the combination of “British” and “Power” that no longer worked for us. We imagined a youngster at a European festival in the 21st century looking at the programme and seeing a band name including the word “Hungarian” or “Russian” alongside “Power”. It would likely send your mind in a certain direction – quite possibly to the isolationist, adversarial nationalism that has recently taken a hold around the world. We’ve always wanted to be an internationalist band – as heralded in our track Waving Flags, a song of panEuropean idealism.
We are in no way disowning our past – we remain proud of the British Sea Power discography. We remain proud of our soundtrack to the 2012 film From the Sea to the Land Beyond, an extended audiovisual love letter to this maritime nation. But becoming simply Sea Power feels like a new start. Now maybe we can just connect with that elemental power of the sea, something that increasingly seems both awesome and frightening. We’ve touched on climate change and green energy in the past. Our 2005 song Larsen B glancingly alighted on global warming via a love song to a collapsing Antarctic ice
If we were called British Motorcycle Club we wouldn’t be changing our name
shelf. In 2011, we played on a boat on the Thames, alongside the Houses of Parliament in aid of an environmental group lobbying for wave-generated energy – lobbying, that is, for sea power.
Some of our audience have expressed sadness at our modification of a beloved name. It has to be said, our fans are amazing – quite a few of them have seen the band over a hundred times; several have attended 400-plus concerts. We hope we can dilute any sadness here, by remaining the band they’ve so kindly invested their time and money in. We feel confident in this – we think our new album is a good one. It’s called Everything Was Forever, set for release next February. Track titles include Green Goddess and Lakeland Echo. The latter is based around the times when our two singers, brothers Hamilton and Jan, would leave their Cumbrian council home on their paperround, delivering the newspaper of the title. We really do love the places where we grew up. We really do love the British Isles – the physical beauty, our diversity, our people, our culture and much of our history. But now we are just Sea Power – staring out at the wonderful waves, a pastime this island nation understands more than most.
• Sea Power’s new single Two Fingers can be heard here.