How Facebook formed the Blake band

MANILA, Philippines - With the help of Facebook, a group of music-loving friends reunited and formed a classical pop quartet called Blake, which originally just wanted to perform for fun during weekends. However, things quite changed for the better when the group was asked to perform for executives of Universal Records, who were looking for a new singing group.

Blake’s impressive harmonized rendition of Moon River paved the way for the record label bosses to offer them a $1.5M, five-album contract straight away.

Blake is composed of four talented, good-looking singers Stephen Bowman, Jules Knight, Humphrey Burney and Ollie Baines.

“Blake’s story started more than five years ago,” says Stephen. “What a thrilling ride it was for all of us since that time we performed Moon River for Universal.”

Now, with over a million albums sold worldwide, Blake is all set to conquer the Philippines with the release of its Together album under Universal Records. The group will serenade Filipino audience on March 22 at Greenbelt and March 23 at Trinoma.

Jules pleads, “We really hope you can grab a copy of our newest album Together. It has our versions of some of the most romantic songs.”

Together boasts of having an interesting mix of traditional songs and more modern pop tracks, carefully chosen to further highlight the immense talent of the group. It includes U2’s With or Without You, Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water, Elvis Costello’s She, among others.

The group members consider their friendship, love for music, and same brand of humor as secrets to their success. They also admit being excited to perform for the Filipinos because of their love for romantic ditties.

When asked what song he wants to perform for Blake fans in the country, Humphrey quips, “Up Where We Belong because it’s a great classic. I know you guys love to sing and you would know the words to this song.”