Rock enthusiasts, I have an announcement. Fat Domino and Jimmy Preston were not the first rock ‘n’ roll artists. That’s right, someone else came earlier–100 years earlier for that matter. A new report by Atlas Obscura dives into the history of the English group, The Original Monstre Rock Band, who by 1846 gathered fans from far and wide to behold their melodies created by actual rocks “hewn from a volcanic mountain called Skiddaw.”
The band was founded by a Keswick stonesman by the name of Joseph Richardson and primarily used his invention of a “rock harmonicon.” The harmonicon, which falls under the lithophone instrument category, was like a large xylophone with bars made out of a metamorphic stone called hornfels. It took Richardson 13 years to craft the 61-stone instrument, which ended up being 12 feet long with a five-octave range. The largest piece of stone measured about three feet long and the smallest was about six inches in length.
According to Atlas Obscura, Richardson and his three sons would use mallets with “heads the size of baseballs” to hit the hornfels and impress crowds with their “intricate classical repertoire.” By 1840, the Original Monstre Rock Band became so popular, they rocked London’s Egyptian Hall and the Royal Surrey Zoological Gardens, and traveled the United States on a national tour. They even played for Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace twice, an accomplishment which is likely the olden-day equivalent to headlining Coachella two years in a row.
The original rock harmonicon is currently on display at Keswick Museum & Art Gallery in Keswick, England, and visitors can actually take turns playing the instrument. Watch the museum’s video below and read the full Atlas Obscura report here.