Vines Investigation

The Vines,
The Vines are an Australian garage rock band notable for producing a musical hybrid of ’60s rock and ’90s alternative music. Since 2006 their line-up has consisted of vocalist and lead guitarist Craig Nicholls, rhythm guitarist Ryan Griffiths, bassist Brad Heald and drummer Hamish Rosser.

They appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone in October 2002 (the first Australian band to do so since Men At Work in 1983) with the words “Rock is Back: meet the Vines” boldly emblazed underneath.^[3] Often referred to as the ‘The’ bands, The Strokes, The Hives, The White Stripes and The Vines combined old fashioned punk and adrenaline fuelled riffs to be ushered in at the beginning of 2002 as the saviors of rock.^[4]

The Vines have been moderately successful in the Australian recording industry, winning an ARIA in 2002 for Breakthrough Artist and receiving nominations for six other awards in as many years.^[5] In 2003, their debut album Highly Evolved went double platinum in their home country of Australia,^[6] and since then the band has released two albums and a “Best-Of” compilation from their time at Capitol Records. They finished working on the new album Melodia in March 2008 which was released on July 12 2008 in Australia.^[7], in the UK on July 14, and will be released in the USA on July 22.

craig nicholls,

Craig Robert Nicholls, (born August 31, 1977 in Sydney, Australia) is the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of the rock group The Vines.

Craig Nicholls is second youngest of four, having two sisters and a brother. He spent his childhood listening to the The Beatles or painting. He attended Marist College Penshurst. Nicholls dropped out of school during his tenth grade year of High School. As Nicholls was interested in painting, he chose to enrol in an art school to study painting. He supplied his vocation with money earned at a food service job (at a McDonald’s restaurant in South Hurstville, Sydney). There he met future bandmates, Patrick MatthewsDavid Oliffe (former drummer). To form a quartet, Nicholls invited his school-mate Ryan GriffithsRishikesh pertaining to the place in India where his favourite band The Beatles had gone. During their gig days, the newspapers would misprint their band name as ‘Rishi Chasms’, so Nicholls decided to change the name to The Vines, a reference to his father’s frontman role in the 1960s band The Vynes. His father taught him to play guitar when he was a child. (who left the band in 2004) and to join in the band. Nicholls said in an interview that he had kept the band’s name as

Nicholls had never written songs until they started playing gigs. He stated in an interview that once he started writing songs, he started loving it and continued to write more and more songs. Moreover, he stated that writing was a good outlet for him.^[1]

With gigs that included playing for backyard parties, they gathered a following in Sydney and eventually reached the notice of Capitol Records. Nicholls paintings have graced the covers of Vines albums.

During a promotional show for Triple M radio, bass player Patrick Matthews walked off stage after Nicholls bleated at the audience and demanded that the crowd not talk during the performance. He said to the crowd,”Why the fuck are you laughing? You’re all a bunch of sheep. Can’t you go baa?”. Nicholls was even accused of kicking a photographer and charges were pressed. As a result, Patrick Matthews never played with The Vines again (he has since joined Youth Group) and Triple M banned The Vines from being played on their radio station indefinitely. Nicholls was accompanied by his brother Matt, and his manager and friend Andy Kelly in Balmain Local Court in Sydney on 19 November 2004. There it was revealed that Nicholls had Asperger’s Syndrome.

This was known by Nicholls’ guitar technician, English roadcrew veteran Tony Bateman who had toured with The Cure, Sisters Of Mercy and Black Sabbath. He suspected that there was something clinically different with Nicholls and downloaded information about Asperger’s Syndrome, later handing it over to Andy Kelly. The judge dropped all charges against Nicholls on the condition that he sought immediate treatment. Nicholls yelled “I’m Free!” upon leaving the courthouse.^[2]

He was under medical treatment and underwent therapy for six months. He has given up his intake of fast food and marijuana habit.^[3]

Nicholls has spoken about his condition in various interviews when asked about