By: Lucy Rendler-Kaplan @arkaymktg
I had the incredible opportunity to sit down with John
Cusimano, lead singer and songwriter of The Cringe, after watching them play at
SXSW. Though the name of the band, “The Cringe,” has its origins back from when
Cusimano was high school, playing “indie absurdist” garage punk with a “rough
around the edges” feel, the present version is anything but cringe worthy. Their sound is reminiscent of early Foo
Fighters and Smashing Pumpkins, along with heartfelt ballads sung masterfully
by Cusimano.
In Austin, a city The Cringe calls one it’s favorite place
to play, (mainly Stubb’s, a location you might associate with one of the
biggest parties of SXSW, thrown by the wife of Cusimano) the band was playing
shows to sold out crowds, promoting songs off their fourth album, “Hiding in
Plain Sight.” With the success of this record, and radio ready songs such as “Lord
Jim” and “Get Me Some,” it will definitely be hard for the band to hide in
plain sight for much longer.
Writing this originally for the Public Relations Society of
America, I wanted to get John’s take on the changing landscape of PR for bands.
Few very short years ago only the largest bands such as the Foo Fighters would
hire publicists, but now bands popping up each day in your backyard are making
use of everything public relations has to offer. The Cringe has worked with
several PR firms and has also brought the function in-house. Cusimano believes “because of the growth of
the internet and social media, it is increasingly easier and less expensive for
a band to promote themselves. That being
said, it is quite helpful for an experienced PR firm to get a band noticed and breakthrough
in an increasingly crowded market place – ideally a PR firm should help an
artist move up the long tail and maximize his/her consumer base.” Most recently
The Cringe worked with “the esteemed and wonderful Girlie Action (PR firm) on
the release of their most recent album “Hiding in Plain Sight” (available on
Itunes and everywhere else online).” For one of the PR campaigns The Cringe has
run, Trendsetter has proven indispensable in promoting their video “Deep Girl”
– the views of that video keep going up and up . . .
He goes on to tell me, “The internet has changed the
publication landscape from print to online fairly drastically, thereby opening
up the market place from a few large and expensive PR firms to a lot of smaller
firms, many of whom focus almost exclusively online and need to and can move as
quickly as the online world requires.” He believes this will only continue to
expand.
Upcoming plans for The Cringe involve their current tour off
of “Hiding in Plain Sight” and the very near future has the band looking
forward to a bunch of April dates with one of their “hero” bands (and one of
Kurt Cobain’s favorites) – The Meat
Puppets. You can learn more about The
Cringe and follow their tour dates at ? http://www.thecringe.com/ or on Facebook www.facebook.com/thecxringe. Cusimano also encourages fans to chat with
them on twitter www.twitter.com/thecringe
and to check out his own personal photos on Instagram, under the handle thecringe.
Currently, The Cringe includes:
John Cusimano,
vocals, guitar and keys
James “Roto” Rotondi, guitar
Jonny Blaze, bass
Shawn Pelton, drums
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