Biography
Big Leaves ranks among Wales’s most prominent acts, sharing that distinction with Super Furry Animals. Lead vocalist Rhodri Sion and bassist/trumpeter Kevin Tame grew up as next-door neighbors in the North Wales village of Waunfawr, close to Caernarfon, while guitarist Meilir Gwynedd and drummer Osian Gwynedd resided just up the road. The four began performing together in 1988, when they were eleven and twelve, under the name Beganifs. Their debut appearance took place at Penygroes Football Club, and they continued to play underage shows in nearby pubs and clubs. The cassette Llygaid Gwyder became their first release, selling five hundred copies and drawing the interest of the Welsh label Ankst, which subsequently issued the follow-up cassette Fraeth—the imprint’s strongest seller to date. The band toured alongside other Welsh groups, among them Ffa Coffi Pawb, whose two future Super Furry Animals members soon formed close friendships with them. During a television broadcast in Amsterdam, a stoned host mistakenly introduced the Beganifs as “Big Leaves,” prompting the musicians to adopt the new name. In November 1998 they issued their first EP under that moniker, Trwmgwsg—rendered in English as Deep Sleep—on Crai Records; the label followed it in February 1999 with another EP, Belinda. Their initial English-language single, Sly Alibi, appeared on Whipcord in June and reached a growing audience across Britain and Wales, where the group now commanded large crowds. The November Whipcord release Racing Birds placed them on Radio One’s charts, and the Welsh-language album Pwy Sy’n Galw? (translated as Who’s Calling?) arrived in March 2000, further elevating their profile. Fine surfaced in June, after which the band recruited drummer Matt Hobbs from Swindon; original drummer Osian Gwynedd shifted to keyboards. Dell’Orso issued the widely praised Animal Instinct EP in June 2001, and the Cardiff-based Boobytrap label released the two-track single Electro Magnetic Pollution that August. Also in 2001 the group became the focus of the SFC-produced documentary Dydd ar ol Dydd for Channel 4 Wales. Crai put out the Siglo EP in February 2002, and that summer Big Leaves performed at the South By Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, securing greater recognition in the United States before signing with the Cardiff-based Sony subsidiary Townhill Music.
Albums
