Wake Up and come alive with Kobai

Aug 7 2008 by Graham Fraser, Hamilton Advertiser

A LANARKSHIRE band have released a new single with a little help from a Swedish cider giant.

Kobai, a six-piece outfit originally from Hamilton, East Kilbride and Glasgow, have already attracted the attention of industry big wigs.

The band are made up of vocalist and guitarist Ross Hinton (23), Stephen Morrow (23), on guitar and synth, Hamilton’s Chris Jarvie (24), on synth and guitar, Robert Taylor (23), on guitar and vocals, bassist Ricky McBride (22), and Jamie Finn (26), on drums.

Wake Up is the new single from the Lanarkshire boys.

The groovy tune has an eclectic mix of foot-tapping guitars and bouncing drum beats with some synthesisers reminiscent of The Killers and the Kaiser Chiefs; it’s like Kasabian meets the Stone Roses.

The song also has an ’80s feel.

You can almost imagine the Ghostbusters dancing to it as they chase ghouls around the streets of New York.

Wake Up has been released in conjunction with a new initiative from Kopparberg to find emerging music talent.

The Kopparberg Collective features Kobai on a double disc with Juno!

The single has been available since the beginning of July on a limited 1000-copy run and on digital download from www.onthejukebox.com

To coincide with the release of the single, the two bands toured all over Scotland.

Drummer Jamie Finn commented: “Our work has attracted a lot of attention from people like Jim (Gellatly) and Vic Galloway. We are very pleased with how it has all turned out.”

Gellatly, XFM’s music guru, described the band as “the next in an amazing line of exciting new rock acts coming out of Scotland at the moment” after he heard the band play.

Formed in 2004, Kobai are influenced by a wide range of styles.

They have been compared to the sounds of The Chemical Brothers, Nirvana, LCD soundsysten and Muse.

Within months of first forming, Kobai won the UK-wide Emergenza unsigned competition after playing in front of thousands of music fans at the Glasgow Carling Academy and London Astoria.

The band then gained great respect and a large following within the Glasgow music scene and have performed in concert with The Fratellis and Union of Knives

In 2006, the boys toured Germany, Austria, Italy and the UK performing their debut single Serotonin.

This song received airplay on several radio stations throughout the UK, including BBC Radio One.

It was also voted single of the week on both XFM Scotland and XFM Manchester.

The English station went on to name Kobai as unsigned band of the year.

The boys have also performed for BBC 2’s The Music Show and have featured in the BBC’s coverage of the Wickerman Festival and Channel 4’s coverage of the Live at Loch Lomond festival.

In 2007, Kobai settled into the studio to record their 12-track debut album with producer Kevin Burleigh, who has worked with Dirty Pretty Things and Simple Minds.

Misadventures was subsequently released as a Japan-only release in January 2008, selling 10,000+ copies within the first few months after the band signed a licence deal with Tokyo’s Fabtone records.

The band now plan to burst back onto the scene in 2008 with the UK-release of Misadventures.

To date, the band have attracted interest from record labels in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Central Europe.

If you would to know more about Kobai, visit www.myspace.com/kobai and www.kobai.co.uk