Scarlet Division

Origin : Essex, England
Genres : Rock, Britpop
Years active : 1989–2000, & 2002-2003
Labels : Sony BMG Music Entertainment

Scarlet Division were a band formed by Jamie Oliver (at age 13) and his friend Leigh Haggerwood in 1989. With Jamie on drums and Leigh on keyboards, the two friends joined forces with vocalist Louise Brannan, bassist James Bejon and guitarist Andy Baker.

They played many gigs in the United Kingdom throughout the 1990s.

In 1996, Jamie was spotted by television producer Patricia Llewellyn doing his day job — cooking at the The River Café in London, where she was shooting a documentary film.[1] He was soon offered his own TV show called The Naked Chef and the band (who were already playing the London gig circuit) were asked to perform in an episode.

Soon after, Sony Music offshoot «S2» signed them for a two single deal after hearing the band’s latest song, «Sundial». In October 2000, «Sundial» was released as a single and made position number 42 in the UK pop charts. The song was written by Leigh Haggerwood, and the video was filmed in a field in Essex. It was directed by Tom Carty, the famous Guinness and Nike advert director.

Jamie Oliver said of the video:
“ I know it looks a bit like a footballer doing a record, but we got offers when we were on the first Naked Chef and didn’t do them because it was too cheesy. They wanted us to be called The Chefs and have a cover with our faces in tomato segments. ”

Lack of radio play meant that relatively few people heard «Sundial» and the song reached chart position 42.

Sony soon discontinued their promotional efforts, and Jamie’s agents decided he should quit the band. The rest of Scarlet Division went their own ways.

Leigh Haggerwood now works on music for TV and film and in 2002 Jamie asked him to compose the theme music for his new television show, Oliver’s Twist.

The song was called «Just The Start» and it proved to be very popular all over the world. This prompted the band to get back together and perform it in the second episode of the first season of Oliver’s Twist (the episode being entitled «Scarlet Division»). The Oliver’s Twist theme was later released on itunes along with several other Jamie Oliver songs. There was also a later appearance in a series 2 episode called «The Session» where they performed the song «The Kiss Of Summer».