INSPIRED while sharing a bottle of wine, drummer Ben Gillies and keyboardist Wesley Carr decided to start a band.
The result was Tambalane . Since their inception the band have gone from strength to strength. By late last year they had written more than 20 songs they liked and found bass player Greg Royal and keyboardist Gerard Masters . to help flesh out the tunes. They are supporting Pete Murray when he plays at Newcastle Panthers on November 18 , as well as Spiderbait and The Living End at The Queens Wharf Brewery's New Year's Eve gig.
Carr and Gillies met when both of them were looking for a new musical outlet. Gillies's band Silverchair was taking an indefinite break and Carr was playing folk songs at inner-city pubs in Sydney, trying to sell copies of his indie EP.
Carr said they both had a lot of ideas that did not make sense for their other projects.
``It was great to be able to bounce off each other and turn lots of them into complete songs,'' Carr said.
Some of the songs the pair wrote that first night on the red wine made it onto the group's self- titled debut album which was recorded over a few hectic weeks earlier this year. It was produced and engineered by Phil McKellar , who oversaw Silverchair's first recording and has since produced albums for Grinspoon and Spiderbait.
Gillies said while he enjoyed playing Daniel Johns's songs with Silverchair, he had missed having that writing outlet.
``It's been great to get back into that with Wes. His role in Tambalane was very different from his role in Silverchair. ``I even get to play a bit of guitar and sing background vocals in this band.'' Tambalane was released independently in Australia in August.
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