psychedelic-glam-punk-pop band koala started life in the midlands as a collaboration between school friends martin cadwallader (guitars/vocals/keyboards) and gaz evans (bass/vocals/samples) and occasional computer geek, tim paul. moving to south london they were joined by swiss drummer daniel strittmatter (ex-high llamas, mike scott, ian mcnabb) where they cemented their love of husker du, beach boys, slade and the flaming lips into one very loud noise.

koala have two independently released ep's to their name. `super-rotunda' was produced in tamworth by former members of 80's heavy rockers, wolfsbane. `solid gold selection', produced by the band, followed, featuring `feels like you're falling in love (again)', which ranked in at number 14 on the popular american website excellentonline.com top 50 songs of the year members poll - the first unsigned band to achieve this in the site's 6 year history. excellent have since included exclusive koala tracks on their first two cd compilations.

the band caused a stir at the 'in the city' music conference with their `relentless rhythms and massive choruses' (nme). as a run up to the album, koala released the white label 12' `mna mna mna'. the track was played on john peel's radio 1 show and also received heavy rotation on gary crowley's bbc london slot. `it's got a wonderful summery 70s glammy, beach boys feel to it which certainly floats my boat and I've played it subsequently on every one of my shows' said gary.

after thieving as much free time in any studio they could find, koala have completed their debut album, the mighty 'DO NOT BE AFRAID', and signed to the gigantic multimedia conglomerate CO-POP records for the album's imminent release.