In early 2003 vocalist/guitarist James Klopper and saxophonist/keyboardist Clement Carr where invited to a jam session in a rather shady looking garage in Cape Town, South Africa by bassist Ryan McArthur, drummer Josh Watson, vocalist/guitarist Nick Key and trumpet player Hugh Lashbrooke. These 4 teenage chaps were recruiting musicians to fatten up the sound of their new ska band  Captain Stu and the Llamas, who at the time had more words in their name than songs in their set-list and were thus yet to play a gig. But shortly after making the adjustment to a 6 piece, Captain Stu and the Llamas had their first gig offer to play at a friends highly prestigious 15th birthday house party.

After a handful of small gigs and many break-time rehearsals in the music room of the high school they all attended, Captain Stu made their first line-up change by adding trombonist JP Arrow and saxophonist/guitarist Jon Shaban to the band. The addition of Shaban ,who was fronting the ska band Dingus at the time, and Arrow marked the beginning of a trend of frequent, often bizarre, line-up changes which would span the next 6 years.

The early days saw the band playing gigs wherever they could find someone with understanding neighbors and deaf parents, exploring as many musical avenues as possible in a tireless quest to create the musical equivalent of Dr Frankenstein’s Monster relaxing on a tropical island. Luckily their music made more sense than their metaphors and they quickly gained a sizable following amongst the under-18 crowd all over the greater Cape Town area, frequently packing-out venues like the Wynberg Sports Club and far too many Scout Halls for anyone to remember.

Their fast-growing popularity caught the eyes of more established bands like Hog Hoggidy Hog and The Rudimentals, which along with some very eager management from their buddy Dan Neville, helped them secure some more prestigious gigs at venues like Mercury Live, Zula and the (now sadly deceased) Independent Armchair Theatre. Playing to larger and older audiences was a great step forward but required a lot more lying about the age of band members than gigs in school halls had.

It was around this time that Trumpeter Hugh Lashbrooke left the band to follow in his father’s shoes and become a world class sloth-tamer in the great Bostol Urgenheim traveling circus. To compensate for this loss, Shaban underwent surgery to have a third arm surgically attached to the intercostal muscle of his ribcage and played the trumpet parts using his nose. It must be noted that arm was kindly donated by the Singapore correctional facility, which still, inexplicably, constitutes the vast majority of our fanbase. They had removed it from a man who had the impudence to wave vigorously in a public place.

Taking this loss in their stride Captain Stu decided it was about time to record a proper CD as the only recording they had done before was in a dungeon. Ross McDonald (of Hog Hoggidy Hog and The Rudimentals) and Lee Thompson (of Hog Hoggidy Hog and the Springbok Nude Girls) offered to come onboard to produce what would become The Untold Tales of Captain Stu and the Llamas, which was not only the band’s first album but also one of the only albums ever recorded to have the same number of syllables in the name as tracks on the disc.

Before launching the album in mid 2005 Captain Stu received their first gig offering outside of their home province. So far outside in fact, that it was almost outside the country. Although it was a relatively small gig at a river rafting campsite full of pedophiles armed with warm wine, it was significant for a number of reasons: Firstly it was Captain Stu’s introductory taste of touring, a flavour to which they soon became addicted. Secondly it was the first time they had made friends with Afrikaans people, namely the Zinkplaat okes, who they have toured and gigged with many times since and lastly it was the first time someone in the band got alcohol poisoning.

Back in Cape Town after their colossal 1 gig tour to (almost) Namibia, Captain Stu launched their debut album to over 1200 people at the (now also sadly deceased) Valve Theatre in July of 2005. Along with the album they released their first ever music video for the album’s single The Curse, which was shot by their buddy Steve Philipson with a Nollywood-sized budget of R30 (which is the equivalent of about $0.00006 or – £0.00000000001). The video and album received some really cool reviews and a fair bit of airtime which helped Captain Stu get booked for higher profile gigs and start working the festival circuit, playing big Cape Town events like Obs Fest and Long Street Festival.

Before 2005 had time to end, Drummer Josh Watson submitted his letter of resignation, stating that he had been converted to Beuhalism – the belief that the universe is merely a very busy intersection of enormous dung beetles rolling their cargo towards a huge whale-god named Gary Sinise (a complete coincidence apparently) who liked to see how high he could shoot the dungballs/planets out of his blowhole – and would therefore be going to live in a Beuhalist commune somewhere in the Groot Marico. Before they had too much time to ponder their individual insignificance Captain Stu invited Dylan Hichens, who Klopper, McArthur and Shaban had gigged alongside in the joke-band Would You Like Some Curry?, to fill Watson’s shoes.

2006 saw the band working hard on new material as well as gigging the club circuit more extensively than ever now that the entire band was finally over 18. They also played a lot of gigs with touring bands and became good buddies with many of them, like Sibling Rivalry, City Bowl Mizers and Fuzigish. During this time it became apparent to Captain Stu that any degree of organization and order was near impossible in a 7-piece band when they discovered they had driven their manager Dan Neville completely insane. Neville was unfortunately unable to continue his management position after an incident where he was caught licking elderly people in Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens and whispering “it tastes like death” into their ears and was subsequently institutionalized. This incident forced the band to address the problem of having 7 members in the most logical way they could… by getting an 8th member, Trumpeter Stigue Nel.

Having been focusing solely on Cape Town since their epic 2005 trip Captain Stu decided decided that a tour was long overdue by July 2007, so they headed up country on their first proper national tour to Johannesburg and Durban. The Tour started with a pumping show at Roxy’s in Joburg and a broken geyser at the house the band was sleeping at. The next morning was a rush to get on the road to Durban for their slot at Uprisings festival that afternoon, their first festival oustide of Cape Town. Durban (and especially their buddies from City Bowl Mizers and Sibling Rivalry) gave Captain Stu the warmest welcome they could ever have hoped for and a great relationship was quickly established between the city and the band, a relationship consecrated with spilt beer and man-sweat.

In mid 2007 the band was offered management by Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts Graduate and friend of Shaban’s, Sophie Doherty. This was very exciting because not only had she physically received her degree in music management from Paul MacCartny himself, but Captain Stu now had someone else to drive completely insane.

Later in the year a new single, Value Systems, was recorded, the band played Rocking The Daisies for the first time and they were selected as finalists in a Nationally televised band-search. Shortly after this drummer Dylan Hichens was abducted by a group of dassies who had been exposed to nuclear waste and mutated into human-sized evil-doers with an unquenchable thirst for flat beer. Having mistaken the band for popular UK supergroup U2 (as so many had and still do), they dragged Hichens to their subterranean lair and set ransom at $6 000 000. When the band proved to them that we were not U2, by playing a song that didn’t make them vomit, they offered to release Hichens. However, he declined to be set free, saying that he felt greatly at peace living in the sewers with the teenage-mutant-ninja-dassies and the band would unfortunately have to find a new drummer. They found one called Devin Jones.

As the year was drawing to a close, Captain Stu were Invited to play the MK Avontuur, a 2 week tour consisting of 10 bands playing all along the countries coast. United again with their old buddies Zinkplaat and another 8 afrikaans bands they had one of the funnest tours so far.

2008 saw Captain Stu trimming down from a size 8 to a size 6 when Trumpeter Stigue Nel was arrested for the attempted murder of Angela Lansbury (who had accused him of murdering one of her esteemed colleagues after a dinner party) and Trombonist JP Arrow left us to focus solely on his highly successful pornographic film career. After this adjustment the band spent the year gigging vigorously, doing another music video, touring multiple times to Durban and Johannesburg, sleeping in airports / bus terminals and recording their next album.

At the end of 2008 Captain Stu was given the great privilege of opening for Maroon 5 and One Republic when they were selected as finalists in the Road To V competition, a definite highlight of the bands career despite playing the gig with the biggest hangovers imaginable from McArthur’s 21st the night before. Shortly after this the band left for their 2nd MK Avontuur, which was an even crazier party than the first.

At the beginning of 2009, just days after the launch of their second album “The Adventures of Captain Stu” to a capacity crowd at The Assembly in Cape Town, the band received some terrible news: both drummer Devin Jones and saxophonist/keyboardist Clement Carr had fallen violently ill after sharing a gatsby from Plumstead Fisheries. The two were placed in a special quarantined ICU where the surgeons discovered that they had been poisoned by a toxin occurring exclusively when luminous-pink ketchup is exposed to direct sunlight before binding chemically with the greasy slap chips in the gatsby. Although the skilled surgeons were able to save Jones and Carr, they both developed a fatal allergy to music and thus could no longer continue to play with Captain Stu. Ryk Otto (who Captain Stu had befriended by frequently gigging with his old band “Cheech”) took Jones’ place as Drummer and Matt “Will-I-Is” Willis (who had attended the same high-school as the rest of the band, played in “Dingus” with Shaban and had guested at a number of Captain Stu shows previously) replaced Carr as Horn player/keyboardist. When Willis accepted the invitation to join the band he was overseas, and would be for a few months still, so Saxophonist/keyboardist/generally good ow Raiven Hansmann offered to fill in until his return.

Over the next few months Captain Stu recorded a new music video for the single “More Than Friends”, toured Johannesburg and Pretoria, played Oppikoppi Festival for the first time and signed on a new member of the team in the form of publicist Rachelle “Rach-Dog” Crous. Just as the new members were getting settled the band sustained yet another loss. Vocalist Nick Key, who had been with the band from its inception, lost his voice box in a scandalous legal battle against “Science Conglomerated”, a powerful multinational hell-bent on creating the most powerful male vocal pop quintet the World had ever seen. Key had not fully examined the contract he signed stating his wish to donate his voice box to science upon his death, failing to notice that the words “upon death” were absent from the entire document. Instead of replacing Key, Vocalist/Guitarist James Klopper took over the full responsibility of lead vocals.

8 years, 7 members, 1 Name Adjustment and hundreds of gigs, festivals and tours later, Captain Stu stand as the 5-piece they are today. Ready to Party.