Rob Ellis has had a career spanning over ten years in popular contemporary music. He has produced, collaborated and performed with many artists as well as working on his own solo projects such as Spleen and the new highly-acclaimed solo instrumental album 'Music For The Home'.

Rob is best known for his instrumental contributions to PJ Harvey as well as being co-producer of both 'Dry' and 'Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea'.



In 1985, Rob moved to Bristol with John Parish and Ian Olliver where they hooked up with Jeremy Hogg and formed a new version of Automatic Dlamini, a band that Rob and John had put together in 1981 having met at college in Yeovil. The band toured extensively and released one album 'The D is for drum' on Idea records.

In 1987, Rob decided to leave to lend his hand to other projects. At this time Rob was replaced by Polly Harvey and Automatic Dlamini released one more album before John Parish disbanded the group.



1991-1992

Rob teamed up with Polly Jean Harvey and Ian Olliver to form a three-piece group focusing on songs Polly had written. Stephen Vaughan eventually replaced Ian Olliver on bass and together with Rob, they created a solid backbone for Polly's music. The group took the name 'PJ Harvey', and were quickly championed by the likes of the NME, John Peel and popular artists such as R.E.M. and U2.

Rob co-produced, arranged strings, played drums and sang vocals on the debut album 'Dry', also co-writing two songs from that album: 'Plants & Rags' and 'Joe'. 'The album met with some considerable success both critically and commercially and the band toured extensively around the world in response.



In 1993, the band followed up 'Dry' with a second PJ Harvey album 'Rid Of Me', recorded by the legendary Steve Albini in Minneapolis, USA. The album followed up the success of 'Dry' on both sides of the Atlantic and became one of the regular highly placed albums in the end of year polls. The band undertook a world tour as well as playing Glastonbury and Reading festivals and, notably, they also supported U2 on the European leg of their 'Zooropa' tour.

Rob left the three-piece in the autumn to pursue other projects and to experiment with his own writing.



In 1995, Rob joined Laika (playing drums) on tour to promote their debut album 'Silver Apples Of The Moon', the tour took in Europe and the U.S. supporting the likes of Tricky and Stereolab. Rob also began work on his first 'solo' project 'Spleen'.



The first 'Spleen' album 'Soundtrack To Spleen' was released on Bristol's Swarf Finger label in 1996 featuring performances from John Parish, Tim Farthing, Chas Dickie, Terry Edwards, Pooka as well as material written with and sung by Polly Harvey.



Rob teamed up with Laika again in 1997 for the recording of their second album 'Sounds Of The Satellites', providing drums, percussion, piano and backing vocals. The album, released on Too Pure records, was an independent hit and Rob joined them on an extensive tour including a U.S. support slot with Fiona Apple.

Rob contributed drums and string arrangements to Pooka's album 'Spinning', Pooka having just been signed to Island records after leaving Warner Brothers.

San Francisco based band, Swell, also enlisted Rob to play drums on their fifth album 'For All The Beautiful People'.



Rob joined John Parish and Polly Harvey on tour with the Mark Bruce Dance Company, playing drums and keyboards in a live choreographed performance of John and Polly's album 'Dance Hall At Louse Point'.



Spleen's second album, 'Little Scratches' was released by Swarf Finger Records in 1998 and included performances from Lou Ciccotelli (God, Laika), John Parish, Pascal Humbert (16 Horsepower), Terry Edwards, Tim Farthing, Pinkie MacLure and music co-written with Polly Harvey.



A band was put together featuring Lou Ciccotelli, Tim Farthing, Terry Edwards, John Parish, Pinky Maclure and Rob Ellis that embarked on a short UK tour.



Rob returned to work with Polly Harvey on her fourth album 'Is This Desire?', providing arrangements, drums and piano, and finished off the year touring extensively with PJ Harvey throughout Europe and the U.S.



In 1999 Rob joined John Parish in Europe for a short tour to promote John's soundtrack project 'Rosie'. Rob played drums, keyboards and sang vocals.



Laika enlisted Rob's help again for their third album 'Good Looking Blues', released by Too Pure later in the year.



Polly Harvey and Rob recorded a version of 'Nickel Under The Foot', a song from a Thirties musical by Marc Blitzstein, for the soundtrack to Tim Robbins' movie 'Cradle Will Rock'.

Rob continued work on his five-year retrospective instrumental album 'Music For The Home', finally released in 2000. Scott Walker took a sample from 'Music For The Home' for his production work on Ute Lemper's 'Punishing Kiss'.



In early 2000 Placebo enlisted Rob to write the string arrangements for their third album 'Black Market Music'.

Rob, Tim Farthing and Tim's brother Roo joined forces and formed 'Christmas', they spent Spring recording tracks for singles and compilations. The first Christmas single (a split CDSingle with White Hotel) was released in the summer.

'Music For The Home' was finally completed and released by The Leaf Label in the Autumn and received good critical notices.



In early summer, Rob joined Polly Harvey and Mick Harvey (of The Bad Seeds) to co-produce Polly's latest album 'Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea'. A promotional tour of Europe and the U.S. was started in September featuring Polly Harvey, Rob Ellis, Tim Farthing, Margaret Fiedler (Laika) and Eric Drew Feldman(Captain Beefheart/Pixies instrumentalist).



2001 saw Rob continually on tour with PJ Harvey throughout Europe, Australia and the U.S., notably supporting U2 on their Elevation tour. The summer saw them playing at all the major European festivals too. PJ Harvey won the Mercury Music Prize 2001 for 'Stories From The City...' and the news reached the band on Sept 11th where they were staying in Washington on that eventful day.



2002-2003

Albums by Danish band Kitty Wu and Italian band Marlene Kuntz which Rob produced during 2002 were released in 2003 alongside Madrugada's new lp "Grit" on which Rob played drums, organ piano and arranged strings for acclaimed single 'Majesty' and which received a UK release in January 2004 on the Music for Nations label.



Rob spent the best part of 2003 working as musical director for Martina Topley-Bird promoting her Mercury award nominated album 'Quixotic' as well as live performance with a new 3-piece PJHarvey line up for tours in December 2002 in Australia and a summer 2003 festival tour culminating in a performance at the Tate Modern in London in September 2003.



In August 2003 Rob played drums on tracks produced by Eric Drew Feldman for Charlotte Hatherley ( of Ash)'s 1st solo album due to be released 16th August 2004 on Double Dragon records.



Rob also worked on a new album for Marianne Faithfull co-producing with Head a track written for her by Damon Albarn as well as a track written by Jon Brion, best known for his soundtrack work for Paul Thomas Anderson movies such as "Punch-drunk love".



Rob contributed, playing drums and piano on 5 tracks written and produced by Polly Harvey for this same Marianne Faithfull album due out later in 2004.



Also, Rob has contributed to PJ Harvey album 'Uh Huh Her' which was recorded at the end of 2003 and released in the Spring of 2004.