Cold War Kids and Tijuana Panthers

Cold War Kids, who hail from Long Beach California, are made up of Nathan Willet, on guitar and vocals, Dann Gallucci on guitar and vocals, Matt Maust on bass guitar, Joe Plummer on drums and percussion and Matthew Schwartz on keyboard and percussion. They started out as a band in 2004 and Maust dreamed up the name whilst travelling in Europe. It was in Budapest where they stumbled upon a park with old communist statues. He recalls that seeing a playground in that park and the phrase ‘Cold War Kids’ entered his mind.

The band recorded and released their first EP, “Mulberry Street” in 2005, and then two EPs the following year in the form of ‘With Our Wallets Full’ and ‘Up in Rags’. The independent label, Monarchy Music, would go on to re-release the EPs as one compilation album entitled “Up in Rags/With Our Wallets Full, the year after. It was their debut album, “Robbers & Cowards”, released on October 10th 2006 that earned the band a great deal of success with sales nearing 200,000 copies. The album received a healthy dose of critical acclaim too. They led with the single “Hang Me Up to Dry”, which gained airplay on XM Satellite Radio, BBC Radio 1 and Triple J in Australia.

Their sophomore album, “Loyalty to Loyalty” was an organic step in another direction musically; it was released on September 23rd 2008, and received positive reviews from journalists worldwide. They spent the rest of 2008 and the majority of 2009, touring the album, which even featured a tour with Death Cab for Cutie.

In March 2014, they joined forces with Stella Artois and Andy Cavatorta on a side project called “Chalice Symphony”. It consisted of using the renowned glasses as musical instruments that would feature on the song, “A Million Eyes”. Later in 2014, they released the leading single from their fifth album “Hold My Home” which was released on October 21st.