Artist Info
         
Aqualung
All Music Guide
London-based Matt Hales, aka Aqualung, started getting involved in music at a young age while listening to different tracks played at his parents Southampton record store. He began writing songs at age four on his familys piano. At the age of 16, after achieving a scholarship, the enthusiastic young man began attending composition classes. A year later a symphony called Life Cycle became his debut in the classical field, performed by a 60 piece orchestra. His brother Ben joined him in a band to cover the Polices classic songs. In the early 90s, following studies at Londons City University, he became part of the Britpop band Ruth, releasing Harrison on ARC Records in 1999. After leading the 45s (not the Atlanta-based garage rock revival band) and issuing two singles on Universal, Hales grew disenchanted and started working on Aqualung in 2002, often co-writing songs with his wife Kim Oliver and brother Ben Hales. The alternative rock project (initially just a lo-fi bedroom venture) became quickly popularized by a VW Beetle TV ad in the U.K. featuring his song Strange and Beautiful (Ill Put a Spell on You), which coincided with the release of his self-titled debut in 2002. Several singles followed into the next year, as well as his second album, the fuller-sounding Still Life. The record spawned another hit single in Brighter Than Sunshine, and soon, various Aqualung tracks were popping up in popular television shows and movies on both sides of the Atlantic. Hales then combined tracks from his earlier U.K. albums into one twelve-song set for Aqualungs proper American debut, which finally surfaced in early 2005 via Columbia Records entitled Brighter Than Sunshine. Extensive touring throughout North America followed over the next two years, driving the album to #1 on Billboards Heatseekers chart and going on to sell over 250,000 copies. On the road, since Hales was essentially just playing songs hed written years earlier to a new audience, he would routinely switch up the Aqualung show with different musicians, settings and approaches to keep things as fresh as possible. The diverse elements he explored during this time (including the echo device called the memoryman) subsequently drove the creative process behind what would later become Aqualungs next album, March 2007s more ambitious Memory Man.
         
         
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