Vines

Biography

The original version of the Vines met in suburban Sydney in the mid 1990s where Craig Nicholls, Patrick Matthews and David Oliffe met while working at their local McDonalds. They decided to form a band with Nicholls on guitar and vocals, Matthews on bass and vocals and Olliffe on drums. The band played Nirvana covers at parties while working on developing a sound of their own on Nicholls' four-track recorder. The band was named the Vines because Nicholls' father played in a Sydney band called the Vynes that played Elvis Presley covers.
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Highly Evolved - worldwide success
Album cover for 'Highly Evolved'
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Album cover for 'Highly Evolved'

Their debut single "Factory" attracted little interest in their native land, but the Vines signed with Heavenly Records in the United Kingdom. They funded the recording of Highly Evolved with Rob Schnapf who had worked with the Foo Fighters, Beck and Elliott Smith. The single "Highly Evolved" earned them more 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 ARIAnet top 100 singles chart. The release of the album saw more critical success with the band appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone and the NME. The album debuted at #3 in the UK's albums chart, #5 in Australia's ARIAnet albums chart and #11 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 albums chart. With the band playing high-profile slots on The Late Show with David Letterman and the MTV Video Music Awards. A few more singles were released from the album, including "Get Free" which charted in the UK at #24 and Australia at #44, while also being the #5 song in Australia's Triple J Hot 100 of 2002. A third single, "Outtathaway" also charted in the UK, at #20, and also in Australia at #38. A fourth single was also released in Australia titled "Homesick", reaching #50. Highly Evolved then went on to sell 1.5 million albums throughout the world with distribution through Capitol Records.

The instant success put great strain on the band. Olliffe did not like touring and the band added guitarist Ryan Griffiths and drummer Hamish Rosser. Nicholls and Matthews had a serious fight after a gig in Boston in late 2002.

In May 2003, the band went into a studio in Woodstock, New York with Rob Schnapf again on production. While Craig Nicholls had talked of having a highly produced album, he told the Australian edition of Rolling Stone in March 2004 that they decided to stick to a less-is-more philosophy. "I wanted it to be - in my head - something grand, with big ideas and that vision sort of thing. But at the same time, that doesn't mean that something can't be special if it's just simple. Because I think that the songs are the main thing".