Ellwood (band)

Biography

Ellwood came together in the late 2000s after Robertson moved back to Solvang, California, his hometown. He got back in touch with Palmer and Rosenberg, and since the local music scene in the Santa Ynez Valley didn’t offer much, the three of them started a new band just for kicks. They later brought in Dustin Lanker, who had been a touring keyboardist for the Mad Caddies. Unlike the Mad Caddies’ punk rock and ska punk style, Ellwood went for a sunnier, more relaxed sound built on mid-tempo ska and reggae.

After playing local shows for a while, the band decided in 2010 to make an album. They spent six months writing songs, recorded demos in Palmer’s garage, and then cut the actual album in just two days at a Santa Barbara studio. Robertson put Ellwood on hold for nearly a year to focus on the Mad Caddies, but then handed a copy of the album to Fat Mike at a party. Mike called him a few days later and agreed to release it on Fat Wreck Chords. That album, Lost in Transition, came out on June 21, 2011, and got positive reviews from outlets like Alternative Press, PopMatters, and Punknews.org. To promote it, Ellwood headlined a European tour in late 2011, then supported NOFX and Old Man Markley on a West Coast U.S. tour in January 2012.

Not long after the album dropped, Robertson said Ellwood was already working on new material. He described the upcoming music as a big shift from their debut, calling it “heavy, aggressive, poppy rock.” Robertson explained that the band planned to take things record by record, following whatever theme they wanted, and that they aimed to keep expanding without being tied to one sound. He also mentioned a goal of releasing five albums in five years. On November 1, 2012, a Facebook update confirmed that work on a second album had started, but that Ellwood would be “put in the freezer for a little while” while Robertson went back to writing and touring with the Mad Caddies. After years of silence, Robertson finally confirmed in an October 2020 interview that Ellwood was officially defunct.