Himalayas are a Welshrock group from Cardiff in South Wales, formed in 2015. The group currently consists of Mike Griffiths, Joe Williams, Louis Heaps and James Goulbourn. The group are described as energetic live performers, offering music with "seductive guitar lines, hip bass parts that will groove you to the core all driven by an avalanche of drums."
History
Goulbourn, Griffiths, and Williams all met in school and were later joined in the group by Heaps, who was an acquaintance of Goulbourn. The group cite interests from The Beatles, Otis Redding, Kelly Jones, Green Day, John Bonham, and Cher. The band began producing music on SoundCloud in July 2016, with their first track titled "Cheap Thrills". This was followed a few months later by their debut EP release "Ecstasy", "How Do You Sleep", and "Intoxicate Me". The group began touring at venues including Clwb Ifor Bach for Cardiff University'sXpresstival, Warehouse 54 in Newport, and Fiddler's Elbow in Camden. The band have been managed since August 2018 by Stephanie Brennan; formerly of WME and Kobalt Records; and James Brennan, both of whom are based with the Dark Horses agency. Their upcoming release The Masquerade is set to be released independently. The band's music is largely written by Griffiths and Williams and the band have worked closely with former Estrons member Steffan Pringle, who also works with rising Welsh names Adwaith and Jack Perrett. The band drew large scale attention with the release of their track "Thank God I'm Not You". BBC Cymru Wales presenter Adam Walton reportedly called the band for permission to play the track on air within a day of its release, and the band went on to appear on BBC Radio 1 with Edith Bowman, Virgin Radio, Amazing Radio, and Radio X, with the track named by the latter as the Track Of The Week for the week commencing. The band toured extensively in 2018 with appearances at BBC Music Introducing Stage at Reading and Leeds Festival, Isle of Wight Festival, the BBC Music Introducing/PRS for Music stage at South by Southwest 2018, Cardiff Sŵn Festival, the Horizons Gorwelion stage at Festival N°6, a two venue run with Kaiser Chiefs, and sets at Truck Festival, Y Not Festival, Tramlines Festival, HOYfest, and a headline set at Nambuccapalooza in London. To date, the band's headline track "Thank God I'm Not You" has over 15 million streams on Spotify and the related music video is their most viewed upload on YouTube. The band announced their 2019 single, "The Masquerade", during their BBC Radio 2 debut on the Johnny Walker show, which will be their first independent release after leaving their previous label.
