The Justice Collective
The Justice Collective was a collective of musicians and celebrities. The project is spearheaded by Peter Hooton of the Farm. It was originally established in 2012 as a fund-raising record raising money for the various charities associated with the Hillsborough disaster. It is best known for its charity single "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" in 2012. A closely related collective known as the Peace Collective released the charity single "All Together Now" in 2014.
The Justice Tonight Band
After the News International phone hacking scandal, members of the Farm along with Pete Wylie and Mick Jones of the Clash performed at an anti-The Sun concert at the Liverpool Olympia in September 2011. Following this, they formed the Justice Tonight Band and toured the United Kingdom and Europe the following year in order to raise awareness of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign.Recording of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother"
Initially, the idea was to re-release the 2009 single "The Fields of Anfield Road" by the Liverpool Collective featuring the Kop Choir; however, this idea was rejected by Peter Hooton as only a relatively small number of people would buy it. Inspired by Everton's Hillsborough tribute on 17 September 2012, the song was played at Goodison Park prior to their match against Newcastle United. It was then decided that a re-recording of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" would be made by various artists including the Justice Tonight Band and released as the charity single.Keith Mullen of the Farm recruited Guy Chambers to produce the single and with Chambers offering free use of his Sleeper Studios to record the song. On 25 October, Steve Rotheram, Guy Chambers and Kenny Dalglish announced plans of the single to be recorded by various artists.
In 2012, the Justice Collective recorded a new version of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother", a popular music ballad written by Bobby Scott and Bob Russell made famous by the Hollies. The song went on to take the coveted Christmas number 1 position for 2012 in the UK, beating X Factor winner James Arthur, who was number one the previous week. It was number 2 in Scotland and number 4 in Ireland. The song was recorded with vocals including those of Melanie C, Robbie Williams and two original members of the Hollies, Bobby Elliott and Tony Hicks, for various charities associated with the Hillsborough disaster. The video was produced and directed by Simon Hanning, filming each of the individual artists over many days.