Bellowhead

"Bellowhead" are an English contemporary folk band. The eleven-piece band plays traditional dance tunes, folk songs and shanties, with arrangements drawing inspiration from a wide diversity of musical styles and influences. The band includes percussion and a four-piece brass section, and is particularly renowned for its energetic live performances. Bellowhead's musicians play more than 20 instruments between them; with six members providing vocals. The idea for the band came to Spiers and Boden while the duo were in a traffic jam on tour. The longer they sat in traffic, the more friends they thought to invite to join. This led to the formation of a ten-piece band, with Benji Kirkpatrick, Rachael McShane, Paul Sartin, Pete Flood, Brendan Kelly, Justin Thurgur, Andy Mellon and Giles Lewin completing the initial line-up. Before they had time to rehearse, the band were invited to play the first Oxford Folk Festival in April 2004, which went successfully. In 2004, the band independently released a five-track EP, publicised as "English World Music", called E.P.Onymous, which generated positive reviews.