Born Cages was a New York City-based indie rock band formed in 2011 by
Vlad Holiday. In January 2018, the band officially announced it had split after 6 years of touring and recording. Past members include Vlad Holiday, Matt Maroulakos, Dave Tantao, Amanda Carl, Steve Kellner, Pete Malleo, and Mike Lisa. The band released their final mini-album/EP ''Exit Signs In A Burning Building'' around
SXSW
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...
Music Festival in March 2017, where
NPR raved, "Undeniably great songs... Every moment was Instagram-ready, and every song made me want to throw my hands in the air... I look forward to saying, 'I saw them when...'"
The album contained lead single "Ain't Gonna Happen", which charted on
Spotify
Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...
's United States Viral 50.
Born Cages shared stages with bands like Guns N' Roses, The Subways, Hockey, Magic Man, X Ambassadors, Donald Cumming (of The Virgins), Har Mar Superstar, JD Samson, Said The Whale, and Public Access TV.
On February 19 and 23 of 2012, the band were hand-picked to open for
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band from Los Angeles, California, formed in 1985. When they signed to Geffen Records in 1986, the band comprised vocalist Axl Rose, lead guitarist Slash, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff McKa ...
in Chicago and Maryland.
Formation and Early Days
In October 2011, the band began booking shows in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
under the moniker Electric Sun. The band's first live show was at
Music Hall of Williamsburg on October 26, 2011. In October 2012, they changed their name to "Born Cages" due to too many people confusing them for a 1970s rock band that shared the same name, fronted by The Scorpions' Uli Jon Roth.
The band's first show as Born Cages was at
CMJ
CMJ Holdings Corp. is a music events and online media company, originally founded in 1978, which ran a website, hosted an annual festival in New York City, and published two magazines, ''CMJ New Music Monthly'' and ''CMJ New Music Report''. Th ...
Music Festival with
X Ambassadors
X Ambassadors (also stylized XA) are an American pop rock band from Ithaca, New York. Its members currently include lead vocalist Sam Harris, keyboardist Casey Harris, and drummer Adam Levin. Russ Flynn is a touring member that plays guitar and ...
. Vlad Holiday remains the only original member from the Electric Sun days.
Discography
''The Sidelines'' EP (2011-2013)
Born Cages released The Sidelines EP on June 18, 2013, which was produced by Jon Kaplan, co-produced by Vlad Holiday, and engineered by Oliver Straus.
The EP features three songs from the upcoming full-length album, and 2 exclusive tracks.
''
Filter Magazine
''Filter'' (stylized as ''FILTER'') was a seasonal, off-beat entertainment magazine on American music which was founded in the summer of 2002. It featured commentary and photos of up-and-coming musicians and filmmakers ranging from actors to wri ...
'' says The Sidelines EP, “beautifully straddles the line between dreamy and discordant … a standout 17 minutes,” and declared it "spellbinding." Vice Noisey describes the music as a “blend of 80s-influenced synth/guitar work and modern pop-rock sounds” and
Blackbook Magazine
''BlackBook'' is an arts and culture magazine
A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase ...
raves, “More than a decade after the riff-heavy heyday of The Strokes, The Vines, The White Stripes, The Hives, and many other bands that put the word “the” before a plural noun, we may be ready for another bout of ripping revivalism… Born Cages certainly makes that argument.” Artist Direct says, “The New York indie band totally rocks our world with their brand of ‘80s-style, synthy rock.” Alternative Press wrote, “Don’t Look Back - a soaring rocker that you’ll have no problem dancing to assuming you can put down the air guitar for four minutes.”
The album debuted at No. 3 on the
''Billboard'' 200 albums chart with first week sales of 87,000 units. In December 2014, the album was certified Gold, having sold over half a million units. The song has also been featured several times on New York Classic Rock station
Q104.3
WAXQ (104.3 FM) is a classic rock- formatted radio station licensed to New York City. WAXQ is owned by iHeartMedia and broadcasts from studios in the former AT&T Building in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan; its transmitter is located ...
's "Out Of The Box" segment with Jonathan Clarke.
In conjunction with the EP, a video for the song “Caiti” was released June 19, 2013 on
VEVO
Vevo ( , an abbreviation for "Video Evolution", stylized as VEVO until 2013) is an American multinational video hosting service, best known for providing music videos to YouTube. The service is also available as an app on selected smart TVs, di ...
/
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
, and July 8, 2013 on
MTV
MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
.com. On February 13, 2014,
Filter Magazine
''Filter'' (stylized as ''FILTER'') was a seasonal, off-beat entertainment magazine on American music which was founded in the summer of 2002. It featured commentary and photos of up-and-coming musicians and filmmakers ranging from actors to wri ...
premiered Don't Look Back's official music video.
''I'm Glad I'm Not Me (2014-2016)''
![Born Cages live summer 2015](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Born_Cages_live_summer_2015.jpg)
Born Cages' debut full-length album, I'm Glad I'm Not Me, was released via Washington Square on June 2, 2015. The album artwork was created by London-based illustrator Matthew Cooper, who's worked with Arctic Monkeys, The Kills, Caribou, Franz Ferdinand, Noel Gallagher and Paul McCartney. Due to Rolling Down The Hill and Metaphor's radio play, I'm Glad I'm Not Me became the No. 9 album at Alternative Specialty radio during the week of December 10, 2014.
On August 5, 2014,
Buzznet premiered Born Cages' "Rolling Down The Hill," as the band announced a headlining tour in support of the new single. On September 4, Fresh New Tracks premiered a Rolling Down The Hill remix from German producer Glastrophobie, which reached the No. 2 spot on
Hype Machine
Hype Machine is a music blog aggregator created by Anthony Volodkin.
History
Hype Machine was originally a music database created in 2005 by Anthony Volodkin, then a sophomore computer science major at Hunter College.Heilemann, JohCapturing the ...
's Popular Remix Chart.
Yahoo! Music
Yahoo! Music was a brand under which Yahoo! provided a variety of music services, including Internet radio, music videos, news, artist information, and original programming. Previously, users with Yahoo! accounts could gain access to hundreds of ...
premiered the song's official music video on November 1, 2014. On November 21, 2014, the video won
mtvU's The Freshmen competition.
On the week of November 19, 2014, Rolling Down The Hill reached No. 7 on the Alternative Specialty Radio chart, with spins on stations like LA's
KROQ
KROQ-FM (106.7 MHz) is a commercial radio station licensed to Pasadena, California, serving Greater Los Angeles. Owned by Audacy, Inc., it broadcasts an alternative rock format known as "The World Famous KROQ" (pronounced "kay-rock").
The stat ...
and NYC's
Q104.3
WAXQ (104.3 FM) is a classic rock- formatted radio station licensed to New York City. WAXQ is owned by iHeartMedia and broadcasts from studios in the former AT&T Building in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan; its transmitter is located ...
. The single also features B-Side track, "Fuel To The Fire," which was an old demo from the band's first studio recording.
![Born Cages 2015](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Born_Cages_2015.jpg)
On April 7, 2015, Diffuser FM premiered "I Just Want The Truth, Baby", the second single from I'm Glad I'm Not Me, as an ''instant gratification'' track on
iTunes
iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...
. The song was featured on
MTV
MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
's
Catfish: The TV Show, along with indie film
No Pay, Nudity, featuring Gabriel Byrne and Nathan Lane.
''Exit Signs In A Burning Building (2017-Final Days)''
On April 7, 2017, Born Cages put out their latest release, Exit Signs In A Burning Building. The release is a 7-song
mini-album
A mini-LP or mini-album is a short vinyl record album or LP, usually retailing at a lower price than an album that would be considered full-length. It is distinct from an EP due to containing more tracks and a slightly longer running length. A ...
, produced by Vlad Holiday, mixed by Justin Gerrish (Vampire Weekend, The Strokes, Hamilton Leithouser), mastered by Emily Lazar (Arcade Fire, The Killers, Lou Reed), with additional production and engineering by Matt Maroulakos. In an interview, Holiday addressed the band's nearly year-long hiatus while writing the new album, saying that, "There wasn’t a specific process to writing this record other than, write when you wanna write. I don’t like music that feels forced, and sometimes that inevitably happens with a band’s second release, when you don’t want to be in the shadows for too long. But we took the shadows head on, because life’s too short to write shitty songs."
The first song released was Ain't Gonna Happen on December 6, 2016, which reached No. 42 on
Spotify
Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...
's United States Viral 50 Chart on January 9. On February 7, 2017, the band premiered their second single Half Asleep on Pancakes & Whiskey along with more details on the album release.
The official music video for Half Asleep was premiered March 8 on
VEVO
Vevo ( , an abbreviation for "Video Evolution", stylized as VEVO until 2013) is an American multinational video hosting service, best known for providing music videos to YouTube. The service is also available as an app on selected smart TVs, di ...
.
Born Cages performed songs from the new album at
SXSW
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...
Music Festival in March 2017, where
NPR raved, "Undeniably great songs... Every moment was Instagram-ready, and every song made me want to throw my hands in the air... I look forward to saying, 'I saw them when...'"
Born Cages also performed new music for
Daytrotter and
Paste Magazine's SXSW studio sessions.
The band's final show was a sold out night with the band
X Ambassadors
X Ambassadors (also stylized XA) are an American pop rock band from Ithaca, New York. Its members currently include lead vocalist Sam Harris, keyboardist Casey Harris, and drummer Adam Levin. Russ Flynn is a touring member that plays guitar and ...
at Toronto's legendary Horseshoe Tavern.
[ ]
References
External links
Born Cages Official WebsiteBorn Cages on Tumblr
{{Authority control
Alternative rock groups from New York (state)