The Vines

The Vines are a hybrid blend of the rock ‘n’ roll influence from the 60’s and the alternate movement of garage in the 90’s. Famous for bringing back “rock” in 2002 as suggested on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine, and generating titles as “the second coming of Nirvana” by British Press, the original line up was created in 1994 in urban Sydney.

Frontman Craig Nicholls and fellow co-worker Patrick Mathews met whilst super-sizing sundaes together at McDonalds in Sydney during the early 90’s.

The two soon started jamming with Nicolls on vocals/guitar and Mathews on bass. After a while word spread and then were joined by Mathews school friend David Oliffe on drums and the three started playing backyard shows locally performing predominately Nirvana covers.

The Vines were originally titled as Rishikesh, the Indian city where The Beatles are famed to have visited. Although due to constant spelling error in new papers and reviews, Nicholls decided to pay tribute to his fathers Elvis cover band The Vynes, calling themselves just that, ‘The Vines’.

Due to infrequent tours, The Vines seemed to have created very little rumblings in their hometown of Sydney, though they had accumulated a collection of other thirty songs in 2001.

The guys began sending out some demos to labels and when it fell into the laps of XL Recordings in the U.K, they were quick to put out the bands first single ‘Factory’ as a limited seven-inch EP which soon became giant NME's Single of the Week in 2001.

The boys flew out to Los Angeles to record the debut album ‘Highly Evolved’ with producer Rob Schnapf. Unfortunately for the young band, drummer David Oliffe’s decided to leave the band when the pressure of recording became too great, and matters weren’t helped by funding “issues”. Recording commenced again months later as a result of increasing record company interest and the band invited session drummers fill in, including Joey Waronker of R.E.M.

Once back in Australia, they started advertising for a new drummer in late 2001. Soon after, they recruited Hamish Rosser on drums and Nicholls' best friend Ryan Griffith’s on acoustic guitar. The Vines were signed to Heavenly Records in the UK and ‘EMI’ Australia shortly after.

The single "Highly Evolved" generated much critical hype as NME made it a single of the week in March 2002. That single also charted in the UK at #32 on the singles chart and also in Australia's ARIA net top 100 singles chart.

After their breakthrough, The Vines went onto record 'Winning Days' which was released in March 2004 and debuted at #7 in Australia, #23 in the US and #29 in the UK. It saw the release of commercial and advertising favourite ‘Ride’ but due to Nicholls increasingly erratic behaviour shows started to get out of hand due to ‘Winning Days’ not living up to the success of it’s predecessor ‘Highly Evolved’.

Situations were becoming quickly out of hand at live shows with Nicholls abusing fans and concert goers which resulted in bass play Patrick Mathews walking off stage at a Sydney show. In the aftermath of the hostile performance Nicholls assaulted a photographer at the Triple M event and charges were pressed. The Vines were then banned from Triple M airwaves, and Nicholls was also barred from giving interviews. Uproar blazed through the Australian music industry and the former Sydney darlings soon found themselves exiled.

The groups surfaced two years later in 2006, tale wedged firmly between their legs and were hoping for a return to form with their third studio album ‘Vision Valley’. Although sales were once again disappointing, the album was considered the bands sheepish and apologetic return. They did very little press to support the album, announcing secret shows and continuous thanks for those supported them on their fan site. Brad Heald had been recruited as the new bassist, as Patrick Matthews did not return and has now joined alternative band Youth Group.

They announced via their official fan club website, ‘Dreamin The Insane’, that they are ready to perform again and are going to schedule shows "any day now.’ And this saw the follow up of both local and overseas shows to which all band members were exceptionally well behaved the comeback was a complete success with the signing to ‘Ivy League Records’ in 2007.

The most recent release ‘Melodia’ has seen the rebirth of the once troubled rock band to grace. The 2008 release is thick with the same famous grungy catchy tunes and Nicholls vocals now bleed experience of reaching the top following a dark downfall in the industry. Their performance at MTV Snow Jam 2008 saw the band rocking out in a welcome return to form, and we can be sure The Vines are back and bigger than ever and plan on doing several Australian and International tours.

By Stephen Mai