A SCHICKEL HISTORY

Schickel is a band. A band from Adelaide. Adelaide is in South Australia, which is a state in the country of Australia. The southern-most state of Australia, in fact. Unless, of course, you count Tasmania... but who would want to do that? Anyway, it has been speculated that Schickel is an Australian band. This is correct.

This ear-smile inducing band was formed by singer/guitarist Joel Sprigg in 2003, when he materialised a 7-track Demo EP titled "What's With All The Soup... Mary?". Some say he just thought of "Schickel" out of thin air. Others claim it is regional German slang. Others still allude to the fact that Joel once wrestled a bear. A big bear. He trounced it by strangling it with his mitten-encased hands, and with his (or her) last dying breath, this big bear wheezed "Schickel..."

That never happened.

After high-school friends Jason Golding and Charles Young showed nods of enthusiasm and constructed sentences of "I'm impressed, sir", he (Joel, not the deceased, supposedly gender-ambiguous bear) asked them to join the band on bass and guitar respectively, with hopes of further recording and joyous gigging. More home recordings were made, and joyous acoustic gigging all began at Geoff "Come on, let's go" Stone's 18th birthday party. However, further ideas of gigging were shelved due to a drummer shortage. Kind of an epidemic, actually. This all changed in December 2004, when Craig Bunting took up stick duties, enabling the band to get out and gig! Wooooo!

The year of 2005 saw Charles leave the band in January, reducing Schickel to a leaner, meaner three-piece as it mostly remains today. Schickel also played in the inaugural MusicSA "Louder Than Words" showcase at Flinders University, drawing the biggest crowd without even headlining the event, and being filmed and interviewed for AwesamTV.

2006 saw the departure of Craig from the band leaving Schickel without a drummer once again. It was also this year wherein Schickel started production of its first LP, 'Blue, Green & Tuesday'. Recording duties were performed solely by Joel on vocals, guitars and drums, and Jason on bass and guitars.

After completion of the album, Joel and Jason began the search for a new drummer, looking for someone committed to gigging and working on new material. Their prayers were answered by a little chap called Hugh.

Hugh 'House' Linnane joined the band in early May 2007, and boy was he pretty. In 2008 the guys started work on an all new self-titled EP, recording once again with Brenton Trott who recorded and mixed the 2006 record 'Blue, Green & Tuesday'. The EP was finished and released in 2009 featuring 'I Don't Believe In Egypt' and 'You'll See Me Walk In', songs proven popular at live shows.