Musical Fish Magazine

Meet the band

John // Lead vocals / guitar
Darryl // Drums / backing vocals
Martin // Bass / backing vocals

In mid-December 1996, an unnamed band got up on-stage at a band festival on Durban’s North Beach with no intentions other than to play the five songs they knew and get off.

By the end of the fifth song, things had changed....

Tree63 began life as an experiment, when John Ellis called Darryl Swart in late- 1996 to talk about life, faith and rock ‘n roll. Darryl had just left his band, Durban’s infamous What She Said, and John, after years of banging his head against the brick wall of the South African music industry with St Legend and then with his own projects, had just completed his studies at Durban’s University of Natal. The two, thoroughly disillusioned and looking for an opportunity to make a difference, decided to get together for a cathartic jam session. John roped Scoop, a friend of his, in on bass guitar, and six hours of rehearsal later they were up on-stage at the North Beach festival, a festival put together, as it so happened, by Darryl’s good friend Martin Engle.

After the initial and unexpected success of that first live appearance, the band, not taking things that seriously at all and still unnamed, resumed jamming in early 1997, rehearsing the songs that John was writing at the time. A few more live appearances in Durban later and the band began to realize that something special was happening. Soon, they had a name at last : “Tree”. And more songs. An album’s worth, at least.

The goal at that point became to record this new sound that Tree was forging,for the sake of posterity, and then break up. John, unconvinced that his spiritual convictions could coexist with a rock n’ roll band, decided to travel, and Tree’s fate was decided. In April 1997, work began on the album at Martin Engle’s Dog Ears Studios in Westville, South Africa. Self-produced, it contained twelve songs that formed the basis of their live show. A few months later, 1000 copies of Tree’s debut album “Overflow” were pressed and packaged, the album was launched and marketed by new friend Michael Sillifant’s fledgling Lush Records.... and Tree broke up. Or so they thought.

In early 1998, Tree tentatively reconvened after a change of heart from John. A national South African tour supporting local heroes MIC, as well as a trip to Europe, started the ball rolling, and in July of that year, Tree traveled to the UK to make its debut at the Soul Survivor festival. The support from the UK crowds was nothing less than incredible, and Tree started looking more like something worth pursuing.

Tree returned to South Africa armed with a record deal with Survivor Records. Work began in April 1999 on the follow-up record, “63”. Recorded at Northwind Recording in Kloof, just outside Durban, the album contained what would prove to be Tree’s first national radio hits, as well as the material that eventually attracted US record companies. Released in July 1999 in the UK, and in December of that year in South Africa, the album proved that Tree did indeed have something special to offer. Unreservedly rock n’ roll, yet fresh and compelling, and unabashed about its spiritual messages and Christian convictions, the award-winning album spawned the hits “A Million Lights”, “Stumbling Stone” and “Treasure” (#2, #1 and #1 respectively on South African mainstream Top 40 charts).

In early 2000, the band, having moved Martin Engle from band manager to bass player, met up with the head of Inpop Records, a US label based out of Nashville, and traveled to the States for the first time in June of that year to discuss and finalize a deal. In October 2000, Tree63 (the band’s name now incorporating its “63” identity) released its American debut. At the time, the band had already embarked on its first US tour, supporting US gold-selling Sonic Flood.

The self-titled US release, an American-friendly mixture of some of the best material off “Overflow” and “63”, went on to receive a Dove Award in 2001 for Rock Album of the Year , and the first two singles, “Treasure” (originally off “63”) and “Look What You’ve Done” (originally off “Overflow”) both went to #1 on The US CHR charts in 2001.

After a successful first trip to Australia early in the year, Tree63 spent 2001 on tour in the States, supporting Rebecca St James and later appearing at most summer festivals. The next album is in the pipeline: new songs, new sounds, new vision, new everything, and the best, as they say, is yet to come....

Visit the Tree 63 Homepage HERE!