Cage The Elephant 'self-titled' album

Cage The Elephant is a Bowling Green, Kentucky-based five piece band consisting of Matt Shultz (vocals), his brother Brad (guitar) and their friends Daniel Titchenor (bass), Lincoln Parish (guitar) and Jared Champion (drums). Matt, Brad and Daniel grew up on an alternative religious commune started by their ex-hippie parents. Pop music was strictly forbidden so their discovery of key punk and rock influences was covert and somewhat recent. The essence of Jimi Hendrix, Green Day, White Stripes and Kings of Leon, among others, fuels Cage's libertine, over-the-top rock explosions.

Appearances at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, and a tour with Queens of the Stone Age provided the band with critical early live exposure. They then relocated to the UK for a period of time, where their debut self-titled album was released in mid-2008. It has sold over 40,000 copies to date in the UK, driven by a Top 40 charting single and extensive touring there, including memorable performances at sold-out Reading and Leeds festivals. Cage The Elephant now returns to the land of their origin, exultant, intemperate, and ready to conquer.

"Rock has not seen a band this untamed for an age" The Guardian (UK)

"Listen to the album to hear the wealth of invention and frustration contained therein" - NME

"Renowned for their raucous and high energy live shows of dirty rock'n'roll...[T]hat high energy is infectious..." The Independent (UK)

Cage The Elephant biography
Matt Shultz (vocals), his brother Brad (guitar) and their friends Daniel Titchenor (bass), Lincoln Parish (guitar) and Jared Champion (drums) have spent the last year tearing back and forth across Britain and America, leaving a trail of hedonistic chaos in their wake. Their debut album (recorded in just ten days with producer Jay Joyce), dropped in June 2008, and has been the basis for sellout tours in the UK as the five kids from Kentucky show the children of Great Britain hows it done.

Matt, Brad and Daniel grew up on an alternative religious commune. “Our parents were kind of Jesus-freaks”, recalls Brad. “At first they were like a bunch of hippies, and then they found God when they were on Acid, and became really hardcore Christians”. This conversion had a drastic impact on the Schultz boys’ musical upbringing. “If my Dad was feeling saucy he might put Pink Floyd on”, Brad continues, “But I can’t remember listening to much that wasn’t Christian until Mum and Dad got divorced”.

Mr Schultz is “a lot more chilled out now”, but back then Matt and Brad’s love affair with rock ‘n’ roll had to be a more covert operation. Concerned that his sons were being exposed to songs about suicide, he smashed up a Pearl Jam tape one afternoon. “He wouldn’t let us listen to that shit”, says Matt, “but we would sneak it home anyway, till we had this big crate of secret tapes”.

Daniel, Jared and Lincoln joined the gang. The band demoed, toured, and did all the stuff that bands do, and as acclaimed appearances at the Lollapalooza and Bonaroo festivals led to a tour with Queens of the Stone Age, it soon became clear that something special was building.

“Our name kind of stands for the whole of society”, Matt explains, “the people we all are by nature. Sometimes it feels like there’s a campaign to lock up all the good in the world. You turn on the news and hear ‘Today 26 people got gunned down, and one guy got his head chopped off, and here’s a picture of it’. It’s like there’s no hope. And it’s not just the government or the media who are responsible for that, it’s everywhere. But we want to show that’s not right - you can’t cage the elephant”.

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Cage The Elephant - self-titled