John Bramwell

Left-handed by nature but a right-handed guitarist, John Bramwell is best known as the frontman of I Am Kloot, the alternative rock band he formed in 1999. Born in Hyde, Cheshire, in November 1964 and raised in nearby Gee Cross, he fronted a four-piece called The Ignition in the 1980s before stepping out as a solo performer under the name Johnny Dangerously. That solo work came first, and it is worth knowing about.

The band's first single, "Titanic/To You", came out in 1999 as a 7-inch double A-side, and its debut album Natural History followed in 2001, both produced by Guy Garvey of Elbow. Years earlier Bramwell had released the mini-album You, Me and the Alarm Clock in 1989, and a crowd-sourced Guardian list of overlooked albums later included it. In 2013 he sang lead on "Measurement of Moving On" for Felix White's solo EP Cosmo, and his first full-length solo album, Leave Alone the Empty Spaces, came out in November 2017. The Light Fantastic followed on 23 February 2024, reaching 39 in the UK album chart a week later.