Elephant Tree + Elder Druid

Live Free Tourbooking Presents:

U.K stoner / doom / psychadelic rock band Elephant Tree.

With support from Elder Druid

Formed in early August 2013, Elephant Tree began life int the dingy back streets of London’s answer to Tin Pan Alley. Nestled behind the the now demolished 12 Bar Club, in a hot and humid piss soaked alley, the rehearsal space that saw the very first notes of Attack Of The Altaica (AOTA) could be found. Jack Townley, then on bass guitar, and Sam Hart would meet here each week in an attempt to cobble together some semblance of a band with original material. It wouldn’t take long before one of their many post-rehearsal trips to the local Crowbar saw them encounter the almost mythical Peter Holland. After talking for a few hours the tree agreed that they should get together to jam, an idea later cemented at a viewing of OM in the Village Underground venue, with Holland taking over the role of bass guitarist and Townley moving into the more familiar territory of electric guitar.

The trio began by polishing up the rough edges of AOTA before progressing onto newer riffs and melodic ideas, this time including Holland’s signature vocal styling alongside the already unique sounding ideas from Townley and Hart. Something would still allude the group though, feeling like the sound was still missing something. Enter centre stage, Riley MacIntyre. Having made the move from Canada and finding a job in London working in the same post production studio as Townley, MacIntyre was looking for a group to satisfy his musical itch. Having chatted together and discovering similar tastes in music, as well as revealing his hidden talent as a sitar player, MacIntyre was invited to join the group in early January 2014. Finally the group felt that their sound was complete and could now focus on setting down a collection of songs that they were happy to play live should that opportunity ever present itself.

That opportunity did in fact present itself and much sooner than they had expected. Holland, being the only established musician at the time, managed to reach out to promoters and secure an opening support for Holland’s main musical project, Trippy Wicked And The Cosmic Children Of The Knight, alongside Bong Cauldron. The date was set as the 12th of April 2014, at the newly refurbished and revitalised venue The Unicorn, Camden. At this stage Hart had only been playing drums since the band’s formation, Townley had only recently restrung the guitar since his college days and MacIntyre had yet to obtain a complete set of strings for the sitar. It is safe to say the group was more than nervous on their first outing. The event passed without major incident, just a few errant notes and stick drops, and a string of booking enquiries followed, beginning with the opening support of Electric Moon at The Underworld, Camden. People were also beginning to enquire about the possibility of physical releases of the bands growing material