Elefant

Elefant were a New York City band built around singer Diego Garcia, and his road to the stage was a winding one. Born in Detroit to Argentine parents, he grew up on Iggy Pop and the MC5, moved with his family to Tampa, Florida, as a young teen, and had an acoustic guitar and his own songs by 14. He went off to Brown University in 1996 to study economics, but by his junior year he knew music was the real plan. After graduating in 2000 he headed for New York, had a short spell in a band called Circus, and then put Elefant together with bassist Jeff Berrall and guitarist James Ascuitto, better known as Mod.

They were part of the same 2000s New York indie rock scene as Interpol, and they signed to Kemado Records in 2002. Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid, their 2003 debut, is all moody guitars, sleek rhythms and cool, lovelorn melodies, and "Misfit" was the song that carried them onto rock radio.

The Black Magic Show followed in 2006, with "Lolita" leading the charge on a glossier, more polished sound. It was their last album, and by 2010 the band was finished.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.