Early career (2010–2011) Tony Friend had been DJing since 2001, while his brother, Josh, had been in multiple bands prior to Modestep with Matthew Curtis, only forming the band in 2010, along with guitarist Nick Tsang, a former member of
Go:Audio. Modestep was initially formed in 2008 by brothers Josh and Tony Friend. In the early days, prior to being or considering themselves to be a band, Tony and Josh held weekly online radio shows on Sundays: Modestep Radio - the church of dubstep. The show was also used to showcase new original tracks such as 'Exile' (given away for free to listeners of the show dated 20.06.10), 'Boogey Wonderland', 'Feel Good', 'To The Stars' and 'Sunlight'. 'Sunlight' ended up being remastered for release on their debut album Evolution Theory. 'Feel Good', 'To The Stars' also made it onto their debut album.
Evolution Theory (2011–2013) Modestep began work on their debut album during early January 2011, with their debut single "
Feel Good" being released in the
United Kingdom on 6 February 2011; managing to reach the
BBC Radio 1 A Playlist during the weeks prior to release. The single was released as part of a 3-track
extended play, including another track entitled "Bite The Hand". On 13 February, the single debuted at number 38 on the
UK Singles Chart, also reaching number 5 on the
independent releases chart and number 6 on the
dance releases chart. The music video of the new version of their single "
Sunlight" was released on
YouTube on 3 July, passing 1 million views within four days, also making the Radio 1 A-list and debuting at number 16 in the UK charts. "
To The Stars" has also made it onto the Radio 1 A-list and was released on 6 November. Their fourth single "Show Me A Sign" made its
YouTube debut on 19 March 2012 and was released on 6 May 2012.
Second studio album, departure of Tsang and Curtis and arrival of Deek and Lundy (2013–2017) In December 2013, the band embarked on the Foot Locker tour in Europe, promoting popular shoe retail store
Foot Locker. On 14 January 2014, Tsang and Curtis both left the band to pursue their own careers in the music industry. Despite this the album was still scheduled and a world tour is expected with the two new members, Pat Lundy (ex-drummer of the band
Funeral For A Friend) and Kyle Deek (age 22) who joined in the spring of 2014. Starting in mid-2014, Josh and Tony began their recurring appearances in
TheSyndicateProject's YouTube series, "Mianite", a series of videos based around the game
Minecraft. The band released a new single titled "Snake" for free download in mid-January 2015. On 22 February 2015, they announced the title and track listing for their second studio album, to be released on 25 May 2015.
London Road, released through Modestep's own record label Max Records, it features collaborations with
FuntCase,
Teddy Killerz,
Culprate,
The Partysquad, Trolley Snatcha,
Big Narstie, Flowdan, Frisco and more. On 14 May 2015, Modestep announced the release of one new song per day until the full album release.
Monstercat, Disciple, and the departure of Friend, Deek and Lundy (2017–present) After a brief hiatus, Modestep returned with "Living For The Weekend," a song that released on British record label
Never Say Die Records. Tony left the band in the summer of 2017. On 13 November, Canadian record label
Monstercat released the duo's next single, "Higher". The duo then released two more singles on Monstercat: "Going Nowhere" (with Dion Timmer) and "Summer". On 4 July 2018, British record label
Disciple Records announces that Modestep has been signed to the label. The duo released "By My Side" alongside
Virtual Riot and
Barely Alive on Disciple's fourth compilation in the Disciple Alliance series. Modestep came back to Monstercat to release "Not IRL" on 14 January 2019. Modestep then released their debut Disciple EP entitled "Echoes" on 27 February 2019, which featured a collaboration with Virtual Riot entitled "Nothing". Modestep released their collab with Phaseone "Mayday" later that same year, which was featured on the latter's "Transcendency" LP. On the 17th of July, 2019, they released their second EP of the year entitled "Dawn", later releasing a collection of remixes for the EP entitled "The Remixes" featuring remixes from
Riot Ten, Graphyt & Ecraze,
Code:Pandorum, and Definitive. Later that year, they released a single with MVRDA entitled "Old School" on Disciple Recordings' "Alliance Vol 5" and also a solo single on Disciple Round Table's "Knights of the Round Table Vol 3" compilation entitled "Alarm". In 2020, Modestep released a single on Disciple recordings' "Alliance Vol 6" entitled "Lost My Way." In 2021, Modestep released a single on
UKF Music entitled "Forever". Later that year, they released a collaborative single on Disciple Recordings with
Virtual Riot and Frank Zummo entitled "This Could Be Us", which later was featured on Virtual Riot's "Simulation" LP. Modestep then released a single on Disciple Recordings' "Alliance Vol 7" compilation entitled "Solastalgia". In 2022, Modestep released an EP on Disciple Recordings entitled "Diamonds", which featured collaborations with artists such as Automhate, Dr Ushuu, Jiqui, Nosphere and Oddprophet. On 3 November 2022, Pat Lundy announced his departure from the band after 9 years via Twitter. On 10 February 2023, Modestep announced on Twitter that they will be leaving Disciple's roster due to their new music route not aligning with Disciple's. ==Musical style and influences==