Toronto, ON-based rock band, Cigar Club has released two brand new singles in preparation for the release of their debut album, Day, Now, which is set for release in May.
One of the singles, “…Aliens” is an instant classic: a pummeling rock-meets-punk track driven by one of the tightest drum and bass duos of the year. Seriously, fills galore! Percussionist Tyler Booth and bassist Jeff LeFort really pack a punch together on this one.
Better yet, the pair’s backing gang vocals — along with those of lead guitarist Dan Amato-Gauci’s — complement frontman Dan Amato-Gauci’s own smashing vocal delivery.
“This song is so much fun to play,” said the enthusiastic “Trev.” “It’s fast and has gang vocals and a wicked drum intro that’s just like, ‘let’s go,’” he concluded.
Dan revealed that the three-minute, 45-second rager was written about the “perils of dealing with friends who have issues when you yourself, also, have some unrectified issues.”
In the fashion of good old punk rock, side B of Cigar Club’s double song, or “Swimmin’ in Gold,” is led by a raucous, yet awesome display of guitar riffage by twin-axe attack Trevon and Dan. The latter rips a face-melting solo towards the end, before being interrupted by Jeff’s very own precision bass solo. The result is magnificent and emotional chaos after hearing Trevor sing his heart out all throughout.
On his intense and gobsmacking bass solo, Jeff simply called “Swimmin’ in Gold,” “fast-paced, balls to the wall, heavy-hitting, hard rock n’ roll.”
Tyler, the drummer, said it’s “the most demanding track on the (soon-to-be-released) album” and highlighted that while it was inspired by Queens of the Stone Age’s world-renowned 2002 release, Songs for the Deaf, he feels it’s truly reminiscent of the intensity of Megadeth’s beloved thrash metal music.
Check out the lyric video for “…Aliens” below and find out more about Cigar Club via our mini-interview.
First off, care to introduce yourself to our readers?
Greetings. We are Cigar Club and we play rock n’ roll for your ear holes. We hope you enjoy the tunes.
Tell us about the recording process behind “…Aliens” and “Swimmin’ in Gold”…?
These songs were recorded at Union Sound Company, where we also recorded the rest of our debut album. It was a huge learning experience for us because it was our first time in a high-end professional studio. We tracked everything in 4 days which was really exciting but also nerve-racking, as we couldn’t afford any more time than that.
We worked with sound engineer Darren McGill and our producer Matt S on this project, who helped us push our playing to the next level. We are super thankful for both of them for keeping everything running smoothly and letting us know when we were slipping.
Aliens and Swimming were the first songs we wrote for the record following our EP. The approach for these songs started with an idea to write songs that we wouldn’t get bored of playing live, and play what we wanted to play rather than confining to a genre or what people expected from us. We are happy with the result and love playing these songs.
We wanted to keep the energy for these songs similar to our live performances, so we decided to track everything together in the recording process, playing in the same room, rather than the approach we used on our EP which was tracking everything individually. This way we were able to play off of each other and capture the emotion and intensity of each of us individually, but also as a collective.
What was the highlight of 2020?
All the downtime was good for us to realize how much we miss each other and love what we do. We really can’t wait to get back touring and writing and recording our next album. 2020 basically gave us enlightenment and increased the excitement of our love for music.
What do you hope to accomplish in your career in 2021?
We will be releasing our first full-length LP in May, so number 1 is actually getting that out there. Hopefully, by the end of the year, we will be able to begin performing, however, we feel as though the performances might be something that will happen in 2022. That’s number 2 on our list.
Other than that, with this album release, we hope to find a good manager who is interested in our music and sees potential in the band. If we can secure that then hopefully we can be pushed in the right direction to make music our careers. Currently, we are managing ourselves and we have been finding it really hard to balance our daily work lives with our love for music. We hope to make music our only job at one point so hopefully, 2021 is a big stepping stone in that direction!
Is there anyone out there you’d like to collaborate with in the future?
As far as making music, our ideal collaborations are with ourselves for the most part, however, we are looking forward to touring in the near future and hopefully, it can be with some bands that we admire such as Cleopatrick or any of the bands from the NRM, The Dirty Nil, Crownlands, PUP.