Bionic

Okay sports fans, here's the skinny: Jonathan Cummins formed Bionic after he left A&M recording artists The Doughboys in search of something a bit more rocking. After all, eight and half years of playing power pop is enough drive anybody batty. After a relatively short time spent in the rehearsal space, Bionic came out with both guns blazing and quickly recorded their debut record at Le Studio (Rush, Ramones, The Police etc.) with co producer Glenn Robinson (Voivod, The Tea Party). The end result has been heralded as "one of the most brutalizing pop records since Husker Du's 'Zen Arcade'".
Melody Maker's Neil Kulkarni gave it 41/2 stars, describing it as "One of the most instantly thrilling, richly rewarding rock LP's I've heard ". Hour Magazine went the full five stars, claiming "Bionic's self-titled debut is quite simply the best rock album I've heard in a very long time".
With the addition of Canadian guitar hero Ian Blurton (Blurtonia, ex-Change Of Heart), the band began touring Canada relentlessly, performing with fellow comrades Jesus Lizard, Tricky Woo, New Bomb Turks, Danko Jones and the unlikely role of headlining over a young band called Sum 41 and culminating with an opening slot in Montreal for none other their childhood heroes KISS on the 1999 Psycho Circus tour.
During this time Cargo U.K. picked up the debut record for distribution in Europe while U.K. label Boss Tuneage pressed up the vinyl version (now sold out) and took distribution in Japan. Bionic was also able to release a 7” for France label Diabolik. Bionic hooked up with Lookout records madmen The Gaza Strippers to tour over thirty dates throughout Spain, France, Germany, U.K., Sweden, Norway, Italy and more in the spring of 2001. This new, harder rocking Bionic blew away thousands of fans, promoters and journalists, drawing comparisons to everyone from the MC5 to At The Drive-In, and prompting one Kerrang reviewer to liken Bionic's performance to "Queens Of The Stone Age buttfucking the Hellacopters with Bad Religion clapping along".
Upon coming home from Europe the band now had a whole record of road tested material and quickly set about recording their Deliverance record, which is considered a Canadian underground rock classic. Deliverance had the band on the road constantly having toured Canada four times as well as dates a sold out show at Black Eyed Flies at SXSW. Shortly afterwards the band licensed their record to Abstract Sounds in the U.K. and toured for five weeks across Europe with their good friends Nashville Pussy. Love was in the air and shortly after the band returned Bionic guitarist Ian Blurton chose to leave the band due to living in a different city and so he could concentrate more on his band with (now) ex- Nashville Pussy member Katy’s band C’mon.
The band slowed down as they regrouped with new guitarist Jean Belanger and threw out almost an entire album’s worth of material that just wasn’t deemed worthy of representing Bionic’s next musical step. If their debut their aggressive pop record, Deliverance running the whole gamut their third record Black Blood is arguably their most aggressive musical statement and easily their finest recorded moment. Songs like “I Got Skin” seethes with punk rock know how while the explosive title track and “Sister Dynamite” rock while retaining an angular charm. “With this new record we only kept songs that at the end of the day had a signature Bionic sound and could stand up and make a musical statement” explains singer Jonathan Cummins. “There are so many bands that are seeped in cliché, and rock and roll retread that we wanted to distant ourselves as much as possible from that scene and show that rock and roll is and should be a legitimate artform. I think we are really dug in and now and Black Blood has definitely pointed us in direction that we are comfortable being in”
Black Blood is being released on Oct. 7th in Canada with other territories to follow with a Canadian tour planned for November. 2007 will have the band doing what they do best and going out on the road for the majority of the year.