The Androids formed out of the ashes of 2 young Australian bands in 2002 and took themselves and their music to the world in 2003.
It all began in 2002 when Tim Henwood (lead vocs/guitar) decided to leave his platinum selling band The Superjesus. Prior to joining The Superjesus , Henwood had established a strong career in Australia as a highly respected and in demand guitarist as well as being the front man of Australian indie rock darlings Plasticine. Henwood kept both bands running through the late 90's , finding great success with platinum record sales and radio play , but after deciding to leave TSJ he realized it was time to start the new millennium with a new band.
Henwood recruited the Plasticine rhythm section of Marty Grech (drums) and Matt Tomlinson (bass) and the 3 old friends put their heads down and went to work in the studio recording a self financed record that would become The Androids debut album.
During the recording process the band jammed with dozens of possible 4th members , including flying potential contenders from O/S . But no one could fill the gap until Tim remembered Sam Grayson , whom he had met on tour a year before when their 2 bands played together. The 4 guys jammed on some of Henwood's idea's on Tim's birthday in 2002 and the line up was cemented then and there.
From there Henwood, Grech, Tomlinson and Grayson worked their ass's off touring under numerous names to raise the necessary funds to pay for the recording of the album. A few months later they had decided on the bands name (The Androids), signed deals with a major label ( FMR ) and management firm in Australia and were about to put out their first single.
Although not being the bands preferred choice as first single "Do It With Madonna" reached #4 on the national charts, topped the radio airplay stats and earnt them a platinum plaque for the wall. This was followed by the top 15 second single "Here She Comes" and the top forty debut album "The Androids".
For the end of 2002 and most of 2003 you couldn't turn a radio on without hearing an Androids song within a ten minute slot ! While things were going well at home and the band were touring all over the country like men possessed , things were heating up in the USA as well. Someone from a very large LA based radio station had heard the first single while on holiday in Australia and taken a copy back to the US where it was quickly added to high rotation and began getting hundreds of requests almost straight away! At this point the band didn't even have a label there yet and they would find out that this was a common story all over the globe for The Androids at this same time! However they soon signed a major international deal with Republic/Universal .
While airplay was spreading over the USA , the band headed to the UK to tour and support the release of the first single and then the album. They featured on many major UK TV and radio programs , earning high rotation on all the major UK radio stations and playing on Top Of The Pops when they made it into the UK top 15 with their first single! The band would spend the coming months touring around the UK doing their own club gigs, doing the summer festivals ( such as playing to ten thousand people at Kerang's Game on festival at the Millennium dome, and playing at Guilfest with Alice Cooper and The Darkness ) and embarking on a heavy schedule of TV and radio promo in the UK before heading back to Australia to continue touring - including a prestigious slot with KISS in front of 45,000 people at Telsra dome!
After the runaway success of The Androids first release, Henwood, Grech, Tomlinson and Grayson ( never that keen on taking a break ) are now working on new material for the band ' s second album , working towards getting to the States and then back out on the road in Australia and the UK. Henwood says "we wanna show people what we are about and that we mean business, so rather than fuck around we wanna get in the studio and record a kick ass 2nd album and get back out on tour and blow a lot of fuckers away!" "It's time to get back to our roots and get back to balls n all guitar rock without the sugar!"
It sounds like Henwood is getting back to basics and getting back to what he is best known for. Great, high energy, kick ass guitar music!
The Androids are a band with a point to prove and we can all look forward to a day very soon where we will be hearing them blasting from cars in the street, and the party next door, and sweating and giving it their all on stages all over the world again!
