Cupcakes

So, let us now welcome Cupcakes into this vaunted pantheon of dysfunction. With their soaring self-titled debut, Cupcakes took the road of pure difficulty and paved it with fist fights, screaming arguments, smashed guitars and outright threats. Fortunately they arrived at an ambitious place with a remarkable record that streams with ferocious rock, lyrical wonders and a vague sense of deep tensions and dread.

As a unit, Cupcakes are new, but the four musicians have had a long history. Singer Preston Graves, bassist Solomon Snyder and drummer Matt Walker have been spreading this gospel since they started playing together in the early ‘90s in a band called Tribal Opera. When that outfit broke up Graves hooked up with guitarist Greg Suran – who’d worked with Machines of Loving Grace, Neneh Cherry and the notorious Blue Man Group – and set the Cupcakes collaboration in motion.

The other members were keeping busy with Snyder going on to play with James Iha, Jonny Polonsky, Trailer Hitch and many others, while Walker became a member of Filter and later, Smashing Pumpkins. He subsequently lent his skills to Ric Ocasek, Veruca Salt and Iha and also composed music for the film "Blade".

It was in 1996 when Graves’ Cupcakes reverie became a reality when all parties assembled in a Chicago rehearsal studio. The songs that Graves and Suran had worked on were, in his words, "these little two minute sugary cupcakes" with a heavy Can and Kraftwork influence. When the two presented their "little cakes" to Matt and Sol, something happened – a transformation that has become the signature aspect of the Cupcakes sound. Essentially, the melodic and poppy aspects of the songs were embraced, but a layer of straightforward and powerful rock n’ roll was injected right into the mix. "With Matt and Sol our ‘anti-rock’ concepts just sounded silly. With those guys, the rock just comes forward," says Suran.

Beset by urgent requests to spread their music beyond the concert stage, Graves, Suran, Snyder and Walker hastened to London to record Cupcakes. This is, as they say, where the story gets interesting. Once in London, the band spent three months in a tiny apartment over Townhouse Studios with producer Stephen Street, whose credits include Blur, The Pretenders, The Smiths, Morrissey, The Cranberries and other rock luminaries.