The tale starts in the early '80s, when singer-songwriter Lewie Docksey was still in school and tried to form a band named The Breeze. He started playing drums and joined his first band in 1986, but that didn't last. After a couple of short tenures with other local bands, he then joined Rock 'n' Roll act Stoney Ground in 1987, a venture which lasted 4 years. During that time he also became active with '60s band Shooter. In 1991 he left both, put down the drum sticks, and became the singer with a Soul band for 3 years. Then, in 1996, he partnered up with old friend Paul Cook (whom he sang with a made-up band in his school days) to write songs for a recording side-project (at the same time he was also running his own band Lewie D's Blues Shack) under the name of Thyme. Thyme recorded the Thomby Park demo (meanwhile Lewie had bought a 4-track recording device, and learned himself to fiddle around on keyboards and bass), a box set of 3 full cassette tapes entitled The Vibe, and a complete album's worth of material which never got recorded. Starting off as an acoustic band, Thyme's sound eventually evolved into something more electrified, as Lewie took up the effect unit of his band up to his rehearsal/ recording bedroom. But, just as Thyme was getting towards the sound displayed these days by Split Sofa (which got the quite tongue-in-cheek name of “Sofa Rock”), Cook called it quits, leaving Lewie on his own in early 1999.

Somewhat dispirited at having lost his co-writer, Lewie still found the new material to be quite strong, and eventually resolved to ask the members of his regular band (guitarist Joe Nicklin,  and bassist Martyn Stretton) to help him out recording the debut mini-album Angerlistic Pillow. During 2000 and 2001 the band built their own recording studio and went about recording their debut full-length with Mike Strode of Band Of Joy and Forevermore fame on lead guitar. The latter possibly helped the band getting some spotlight, and the album was picked up by local DJ Paul Baker, who invited Lewie to talk about Split Sofa on Burton On Trent based Phoenix Radio, also playing songs off the album during one afternoon show. Sophomore album Sorcerers Lullaby was released in 2005, was again aired on Phoenix Radio, and subsequently sold relatively well, even without a label backing the band. 2005 would be a very productive year for Lewie, whom not only wrote an album's worth of material released on 2006 album Draylon, but started the writing process for the 2007 released album The Seventh Level...the latter with newly fund writing partner (and acoustic guitarist for the band) Martin Gilman (his first band too, first picked up the guitar in 1993 inspired by Oasis and Coldplay, and first met Lewie when they working at Nestle until 2001). Meanwhile however, live work came to the horizon after the band's 2006 release, and the EP Dark Daze was recorded to sell at gigs (later set up for sale on the Internet in 2007). Withing weeks of that release the band was contacted by Radio Japan and Radio Electica, whom both wanted to air different songs off the EP. Encouraged by the positive reactions the band sent out promotional packages in hopes of getting a publishing deal, and although no deal actually came through they got the very positive response to carry on sending info. With Paul Barker working there, radio station ARFM then picked up on the band's new EP A Mystical Reason, and it was subsequently distributed by CDBaby, iTunes, Amazon, and a variety of other music download sites.

By then a regular gigging band (with bassist/ backing singer Gareth Williams in their ranks since mid 2007), Split Sofa's mailing list grew ever more as the band kept gaining more fans through their facebook page. But work on new material never stopped, and gave birth to the band's most recent outing, The Gathering, which was again distributed by CDBaby and other download sites. Songs off the album ware again played at ARFM, and even got onto BBC Radio, and the band was invited to play at several festivals, making for an even wider spreading of the Sofa Rock sound.

Right, so by now I guess your curiosity should be aroused about what exactly “Sofa Rock” is? Actually, the name explains it all : it's Rock you're supposed to listen to from a comfortable chair, say sofa! In other words, this is easy-listening Rock, but with nice underlaying layers of simple complexity. Cited band influences (on the band's facebook page) include Pink Floyd (yeah man, that elusive guitar sound, you know), Love, The Doors, Caravan, Gong (apparently Flying Teapot changed Lewie's life when he first heard that), Kula Shaker, and The Beatles...and there's really something of those in Split Sofa music, for sure.http://www.concreteweb.be

Discography

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