Turin Brakes consist of Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian, long time friends who are from Balham in London. The duo met at a young age and spent much of their childhood together, and although they went their separate ways when Knights went to film school and Paridjanian attempted to form a band in Toronto, Canada, they soon reunited and collaborated on what would later become their first EP, “The Door”, eventually released through Anvil Records in 1999. 2 further EPs, “The State of Things” and “Fight or Flight” were issued after signing to Source Records, before the release of debut album “The Optimist LP” in 2001, which received a nomination for the Mercury Music Prize, and produced 2 UK Top 40 singles in “Underdog (save me)” (number 39) and “Mind Over Money” (number 31).

Second album, 2003’s “Ether Song”, recorded in Los Angeles, reached number 4 on the UK Album chart, producing the singles "Pain Killer", which was their first UK Top 5 single (peaking at number 5), “Long Distance”, which charted at number 22 in the UK, and “Average Man” (number 35).

Turin Brakes’ third album, ”JackInABox”, was released in June 2005, preceded by the single "Fishing For A Dream" (which charted at number 32 in the UK) and entered the Top 10 of the UK Album chart in its first week. Later in 2005, a download-only album, “Live at the Palladium”, recorded in London, was released (it was avilable on the band’s website the day after the concert took place).

Fourth album, the Ethan Johns produced “Dark on Fire”, was released in September 2007 (preceded by a download-only single “Stalker”). In January 2008, another download-only single was released, “Something In My Eye”, whose B-side was a cover of Cat Stevens' “Here Comes My Baby”.