Tambalane is an Australian rock group.

(FROM: http://www.tambalane.com/)

Many strange things have begun with a bottle of red wine... from great romances to bloody wars. For drummer Ben Gillies and keyboardist Wesley Carr the vino inspired a rock'n'roll band.

By the second bottle the pair were writing song after song in Ben's kitchen and merrily taping the results. After the third bottle they decided that their new group needed a name so they looked at the label on the bottle and in their... exuberant... state they pledged to call themselves "Tambalane".

However, the next morning when they were cleaning up the empties the pair realized that they'd actually misread the spelling of the winery's name!

"The evening had been so perfect that we just decided to stick with Tambalane", explains Ben Gillies. "It felt right, just like the music did".

The pair originally met through mutual friends at a time when they both had too much time on their hands. Ben's band, Silverchair, was taking an indefinite break and the surf wasn't great. He was heartily sick of sitting around in Newcastle listening to James Brown and Led Zepplin and was looking for something to keep him musically active. At the same time Wesley was eking out a living in Sydney's inner city pubs playing folk songs and trying to sell a few copies of his indie EP after the show. Both of them were keen to have a new musical outlet so it only took a few corks to be popped before they were rolling at full speed into making music together.

"We both had a bunch of musical ideas that didn't make sense for our other projects so it was great to be able to bounce off each other and turn lots of them into complete songs", says Wesley Carr.

Some of the songs that Ben and Wes knocked up over the red wine that first night will soon make their way onto the group's self titled debut album. It's a compelling brew of classic rock with irresistible melodies. Gillies trademark heavy grooves are all too apparent but they are tempered in many places by Carr's sweet singer/songwriter influences.

It's a return to co-writing for Ben after leaving the composition chores to Daniel Johns on the last few Silverchair CD's. However, on the group's first two albums Ben helped pen the music on tracks including classics like "Tomorrow" and "Slave".

"I really enjoy playing Daniel's songs but sometimes over recent years I've missed having that writing outlet", he says. "It's been great to get back into doing that with Wes. Silverchair is fun and I definitely want to make more albums and tour with Daniel and Chris when the time's right but in the meantime it's a lot of fun to do Tambalane because my role is so different."

"I even get to play a bit of guitar and sing background vocals in this band", he chuckles.

TAMBALANE are an up and coming Aussie rock band, showing great promise with the release of their debut album, along with their new hit single "Free" including the single's music clip, which has aired on RAGE, Channel V, MTV, and other stations. The music clip was filmed by Robert Hambling and assistant Nicholas Walsh, and is a video not to miss!! Nicholas Walsh is a professional music clip artist based in Sydney, Australia. ...