Zane Lowe may have started a bidding war for this unsigned British band after launching Beats 1 with their new single

After a few false starts, former Radio 1 Zane Lowe launched Apple's 24/7 radio station Beats 1 with a song by British indie band Spring King.

Lowe had previously played the track, "City," on Radio 1, and said that the team had kept coming back to it as they were building the new radio station.

The move made the band from Manchester hot property to talent scouts worldwide, and may have started a bidding war for their contract, according to Music Business Worldwide. Lead singer and drummer Tarek Musa is signed to independent British label Transgressive as a producer, but the entire band remained unsigned as of 10 p.m. last night, their manager Claire Southwick from Primitive Management told MBW.

Musa was in the studio when the news came through that City was live on Beats 1, working on new music that the band hopes to release later in the year, NME reports, while the rest of the band, Peter Darlington, James Green and Andy Morton, were working at their day jobs. 

MBW hinted that the band could have been close to signing with a label before last night, but are probably getting a lot more offers now that everyone tuning in to the launch of Beats 1 heard their track. We reached out to the band's manager, Claire Southwick from Primitive Management, for more details.

The rest of the band's industry team includes Jason Edwards from music agency CODA and Chris Bellam at Beggars Group, MBW says. 

Zane Lowe's choice was right in line with plans for Beats 1, and Apple Music in general, which has positioned itself as a friend to smaller artists, and uses human curators rather than just algorithms to suggest music.

Here's Spring King's track City: