The Waletones was born as a concept in the winter of 2009 when band founder, Drew Wale, was confiding in his brother about the disbanding of his six-year pop-punk music venture, Sliced Peach. Discussing musical inspirations and song ideas that Wale had for a sixties rock ’n’ roll band, his brother turned to him and said “Bro, The Waletones would be a great name for that style of band.” And so the seed was planted.

Having lived in the West Country from the age of 5, Wale embarked on a move to the big smoke where he enrolled on to a sound engineering degree with London College of Music at UWL, formed hard rock band Kissimmee and joined chart topping indie band The Holloways on the road for their second album 'No Smoke, No Mirrors'.

It wasn’t until 2013 when Wale re-enrolled at UWL on a Masters in Record Production that The Waletones became a physical entity. Meeting bassist Pete Daynes and drummer Mat Swales, both also studying at UWL, Wale shared his ideas and enthusiasm for reviving the Mersey Beat sound and both immediately signed up for the venture.

After laying down a few demos, the trio quickly realised that the band wasn’t complete. Adamant that they needed a strong lead vocalist, they held auditions at the university. It was a spine-chilling rendition of U2’s 'With or Without You' by an unassuming Northerner that caught their attention; Luke Shenton-Sharp became the fourth member of The Waletones. Quickly followed by an additional guitarist, Samuel Bartrop, the line-up was complete by September 2014. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.