When you've got two weeks to explode, what do you do? If you had two weeks – that's just fourteen days – to try to make an indelible impression and stand out from a crowd rather than simply be a face in it, how could that not be looked at as an imposing task? It couldn't be easy, that's for sure, but Cobra Skulls singer Devin Peralta isn't sweating; when his band, Cobra Skulls, was offered a two-week tour covering the West Coast dates on Warped Tour this year, there was no wondering at whether they could do it, the only question the band had to pose was when they start, according to the singer. “We're only doing the West Coast section; only eight shows over a period of twelve days,” says Peralta with an almost eerie calm. “That starts up August 7th and we'll be done a little less than two weeks later. We start in Salt Lake, then Denver, and then Southern California before we go up to Seattle and Portland, and then that's it. Kevin Lyman asked us to do these dates late November I think, and it'll just be a good way for us to feel out the tour, because we haven't done it before. We've heard all the horror stories about how hard it is and how hot it is, but we're all still pretty excited to go.”
'Excitement' is the perfect word to explain recent events in the Cobra Skulls' camp of late because, so far this year, the band is beginning to see a lot of its' hard work get noticed; between the band's series of dates on Warped Tour, their signing with Fat Wreck Chords last February and some proposed high profile tours on the horizon in addition to the band's upcoming time scheduled to record a new EP, while nothing was moving slowly before, the Cobra Skulls' career appears to have up-shifted a couple of gears and nobody is happier about it all than the band itself. It always feels pretty good to get recognized but now, according to Peralta, comes the part where they check themselves daily to make sure they're not losing anything in the high-speed shuffle. “Our last album, American Rubicon came out in the summer of 2009 and then Fat Mike came and saw us play in November, 2009,” recalls Peralta of the series of events that got them to where they are. “That was the first time he'd seen us and he told us that he was really impressed with the show, and then I saw him a month later at a NoFX show and that was the first time he asked if we'd be interested in working with Fat Wreck. At the time, I told him we'd definitely be interested in that, but it didn't really solidify until about a month or two later. I've since heard that, as soon as we said we were interested in December, 2009, we were in – but they didn't announce it until, like, February of 2010. Since then, we've agreed to record a new EP but we're still not exactly sure how it's going to come out yet. We've got four or five songs ready, and that's going to be our first release through Fat Wreck, but I don't know if it's going to be a seven-inch or what. I talked to Mike about that, and he said, 'Let's just record it and then we'll decide all that shit later,' so that's what we're going to do; during that session too, we're recording a Bad Religion song for a Thirtieth Anniversary Bad Religion compilation that Epitaph's putting out, but I'm not exactly sure when that's coming out yet.”
With all of those plans set and said, all that remains is for Cobra Skulls to get back to what they love doing best: get on the road and play – the prospect for which is the most attractive prospect for Peralta. “We have these dates on Warped Tour as well as some scattered shows here and there, and then we leave for a seven-week tour on September 30th,” says the singer of the current plan. “On that tour, we're doing Riotfest and CMJ, about five Canadian dates and a bunch of shows out East and then down to Florida where we hook up with Dead To Me, and then we head back West. We're pretty much spoken for and confirmed for another two-week tour with NoFX and Bouncing Souls that starts in January and February too; which sort of forced us to change our plans a little. We were originally planning on recording our full-length in February, but now I think we're doing that in March.
“We were pretty busy even before we signed to Fat Wreck,” continues Peralta as he thinks about how things both have and haven't changed for the band since signing on Fat Wreck Chords' dotted line. “We toured for five months straight last year with no breaks, and then we toured for another month, made a record and then toured for another month. Grand total, we toured for seven months last year and, this year, we had already toured for two months in the US and Canada before we went over to Europe and toured there for a third time so we're pretty used to touring constantly. It still feels a little different and a little special though, don't get me wrong. I mean, we're confirmed and scheduled to go on a tour with NoFX and Bouncing Souls – two of my favorite bands growing up – and that is just amazing. That we have the opportunity to do that and to do Warped Tour and everything else feels pretty good to me; that probably wouldn't have happened were we not signed to Fat Wreck, and so it's the combination of all of it that's really exciting to me.”
Artist:
www.cobraskulls.com/
www.myspace.com/cobraskulls
Albums:
Before the release of Cobra Skulls' forthcoming EP, Check out some of the band's other releases here on Amazon .
