Background
Mishra was born in Rourkela, India on 30 July 1966, but emigrated to the United Kingdom with his family at age three.
Mishra was born in Rourkela, India on 30 July 1966, but emigrated to the United Kingdom with his family at age three.
White Town"s song "Your Woman" reached number one in the United Kingdom Chart in January 1997. "Your Woman" also peaked at number one in Spain, as well as number two in Australia, number four in Canada, Denmark and Finland and number 23 in the United States. White Town was formed by Mishra in 1989 after he saw the Pixies play.
Initially there were other members on guitar, bass and drums playing support gigs for various bands including Primal Scream.
In 1990 he released his first self-financed record, White Town European Parliament, on 7" vinyl. This featured Nick Glyn-Davies on drums and Sean Deegan on bass with Mishra on guitar and vocals.
Glyn-Davies left and was replaced live by a drum machine and Leon Wilson on guitar. The rest of the band drifted away in Autumn 1990 and from then on Mishra mainly worked on his own, using other musicians to record with, including Gary Thatcher of the Derby band The Beekeepers on guitar.
After a troubled working relationship with Electric and Music Industries, Mishra was dropped from the label in 1997.
Since then, he has gone back to working with indie labels such as Parasol Records. His album, 2000"s Peek & Poke, received moderately enthusiastic reviews. In 2005, White Town contributed the song "The PNAC Cabal" to the charity album, Voyces United for United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. A New Surprise European Parliament was released in September 2006 by the Swedish indie label Heavenly People’s Hits, and was followed up by the album Don"t Mention the War, which launched Mishra"s own Bzangy Records label.
Your Woman was the beaten finalist in the December 2014 "One Hit Wonder World Cup" feature on the Steve Lamacq show on British Broadcasting Corporation radio station British Broadcasting Corporation Radio 6 Music.
A new 7" single titled "I Wanna Be Your Ex" with b-side "Rainy Day" is scheduled to be released by Golly Jane Records in March, 2015.