Formed in late 2001 in the small Suffolk town of Stowmarket, the band soon hit the road in earnest playing respectable venues, where they started to gather loyal following. After recording their first demo CD and playing just a handful of gigs, The Vaults were invited to record a session for John Peel. This in turn lead to them being chosen as one of Radio One's week of unsigned playlist artists. Since then they have completed a second Peel session and been invited back for a third live show from the BBC's Maida Vale studios later in the year. They have already gained huge fans at XFM through word of mouth and were invited to play at Ian Camfield's live rock show night at London's Barfly venue. The band have also been gigging constantly around the UK. This exposure led to The Vaults being invited as only support to bearded marvels ZZ Top on their recent Arena and Academy UK tour. They played to over 15,000 people with an amazing response. (official site bio, 2003, via angelfire.com)
The Discogs site suggests the Vaults had only three releases, all on the Red Flag label, with their debut 10" in 2003 followed by two further EPs the next year.
The Vaults were among the Bury St Edmunds area artists to receive radio exposure by Peel in the early 21st century (others included Miss Black America, Dawn Parade, the Exiles and Cowcube). Peel mentioned that his daughter Florence was going out with the guitarist of The Vaults on his December 2002 (FSK) show. As the first Stowmarket band to do a session [1], the Vaults appeared to be particular favourites, with Peel claiming on 16 January 2003:
"I couldn't be more proud of them if they were my own children, which blood tests have shown they are not."
In Margrave Of The Marshes (hardback, p327), Sheila Ravenscroft recalls that the Vaults were very much on Peel's mind in 2004 as he set off for South America on what would prove to be his last-ever holiday:
"He had saved the band's T-shirt to wear at Machu Picchu, which we planned to visit on our last day in Peru. We were taking our own snaps to accompany the travel feature that John was writing for the Telegraph, and he wanted to give the Vaults some helpful publicity."
04 September 2003 (Radio Eins): I'm Going (white label) (JP claims Vaults rehearse in his shed and notes they are currently on tour with ZZ Top, "probably getting booed off every night.")
