Cujo

NEW SINGLE - 'DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS?' - RELEASED 17TH APRIL

CHANNEL 4 SLASHMUSIC - ARTIST OF THE WEEK / BAND CURRENTLY FEATURED ON CHANNEL 4 SLASHMUSIC ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN

BANDWAGON.CO.UK - FEATURED ARTIST

GLASSWERK.CO.UK - FEATURED ARTIST

KARMADOWNLOAD.COM - FEATURED RELEASE

BBC 6 MUSIC - SINGLE AIRED ON BRUCE DICKINSON ROCK SHOW

TOTALROCK RADIO - SINGLE ADDED TO A-LIST

PULSE RATED - SINGLE ADDED TO A-LIST

"GROWLY POPSTERS CUJO ARE LASHING MEATY ASH RIFFS TO GREEN DAY PUNK... SHEER NIRVANA BRILLIANCE... IT'LL KILL THE BLACK VELVETS" (NME)

"COMPLETELY ESSENTIAL... HAS PUNK ROCK ANTHEM WRITTEN AL OVER IT... (RHYTHM & BOOZE)

“I was utterly blown away by how utterly f'ing good they are” (Glasswerk.co.uk)

2006 sees Cujo enter its 8th year. Eight years is a long time for any band and many would have split up a long time ago, signed or unsigned. Not Cujo. A lot has happened since the band’s inception in May 1998 when Kevin Dawson (guitarist/singer) and Ben Keep (then guitarist/now bassist) met whilst working in a country pub together in the UK. Both wanted to start a band and so enlisted mutual friend James Norton on bass. On drums they drafted in another local, Jamie Hook, and Cujo was born. The band hail from Enfield on the northern outskirts of London, a place most famous for Chas ‘n’ Dave and the UK’s first ATM machine, not exactly the most inspiring of histories! But, with panache and resolve and influences ranging from Nirvana and the Pixies to the Chillis and Queen, Cujo set out to change things. Unbeknown to them however, a tragic event lay just around the corner and would change their lives forever. On July 14th 2000, James was killed in a motorbike accident.

In the immediate aftermath of the accident, the band was put completely on hold. Four ambitious and highly talented young men were now just three and the thought of playing could not have been further from their minds. James had been a key figure in the Cujo line-up and playing without him just didn’t seem right. With time though, life began to regain some semblance of normality and they eventually managed to pick up their instruments again, with Ben taking up the bass and a new fire burning in their bellies.

After the low-budget demo of Big Muff Pie in December 2000, Cujo travelled to Wales to record Can Your Grandaddy Do This?, a nine-tracker recorded, mixed and mastered in just 2 days. The band began to up the ante on the gig front, regularly playing such renowned London venues as the Bull & Gate and Dublin Castle and within months were back in the studio recording the follow-up to Grandaddy, I’m Gonna Be An Astronaut.

In January 2002, Cujo sent one of their tracks, Summer Song (a tribute to James), to Claire Sturgess at XFM Unsigned. The track was aired the very next night. Having heard the track on the radio, Pepe Jeans contacted Cujo asking to use Summer Song in a pan-European MTV campaign. Seeing this as great exposure for their music, Cujo agreed and Summer Song proceeded to blast its way into millions of homes across Europe. By now, Cujo were coming into their own. They were playing bigger and better venues and were continuing to fight the image-driven bilge that had become much of British and American music.

In 2003, Cujo returned to Wales once again to record their most adventurous record yet, Ginormous. This saw Cujo progress further than ever before both lyrically and sonically. From the fast paced rowdiness of Fake Lunar Landing and Pink Eyes (a love story between a man and an albino girl) to the anti-authoritarianism of Walk All Over You and the anti-ladism ode of Leave Me Here Alone, Cujo began to realise they were not just another garage band with a bunch of mediocre tunes. They were now a tight, well-rehearsed 3-piece with some fantastic songs that would not appear out of place on any radio station.

With this new found confidence in both their own ability and their music, Cujo began to gain momentum and by 2004 found themselves gigging yet more extensively and further afield. Cujo entered the studio once again and recorded ten tracks, six of which appeared on AlieNation, the band’s debut commercial EP, self-released on the band’s own label in September. In the same month, Cujo were invited to play at the internationally renowned In The City music convention in Manchester, UK, where they supported a then unknown band, The Subways.

In 2005, Cujo stepped up the pace once again and achieved some very notable successes including playing at the O2 Wireless Festival in London’s Hyde Park, being selected for the Lee Jeans Sounds Unsigned tour, being playlisted on Virgin Radio Xtreme, being made Artist of the Week on Karmadownload.com and receiving a fantastic review in the weekly rock bible, the NME.

Cujo’s mission statement is simple yet strangely refreshing given the current plethora of image-driven bands: to write and play the best music they can, stay true to their roots and