COG IS:

Luke Gower - bass, vocals

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A Biography of Cog

by Marcus Whale (last updated 15/8/05)

Flynn Gower and Lucius Borich (the son of renowned Australian rock guitarist Kevin Borich) were friends at high school in the 1980s. Borich being a drummer, and Flynn being a guitarist, they would occasionally jam. As their school careers finished Lucius went to form the band "Juice" while Flynn formed the 5 piece funk metal band "The Hanging Tree." In 1995, after the release of Juice's debut album, Lucius left the band and joined The Hanging Tree, which eventually broke up and both Lucius went to work in the USA. There, Lucius did session drumming for a large range of genres all the while writing songs on his guitar. Flynn, in Sydney, wanted to form a band and contacted Lucius, eventually resulting in the formation of Cog. Initially, the band was to form in the US, but Lucius chose to travel home finding a disappointed Flynn, who had already sold all his gear in preparation for the move. The drum, bass and guitar parts for what would become the Just Visiting EPs were recorded shortly after in 1998 with Lucius assuming bass duties, vocals recorded two years later. To fill out the bass in live shows, Flynn recruited his brother Luke, formerly of the Sydney band "Tax". After they formed this legitimate lineup, they toured aggressively, clocking up thousands of kilometres of weekly driving, between Sydney and Melbourne.

Their first residency, at a pub in the Sydney suburbs was without a vocalist. They encouraged people to send them demos for the vocals job, however the band were so unimpressed with the demos that Flynn trained his voice to fill the vacancy. Their breakthrough gig was a Wednesday headlining slot at Excelsior Hotel in Surry Hills, where they packed out the club consistently for 4 months. They were recognised with a nomination for "best emerging live band in NSW" at the Australian Live Music awards. In November of 2000 they released a demo called Pseudo EP. On it would be three songs that would be re-released as part of the Just Visiting Part One EP, and "Bondi RFHK" an alternate version of a fourth song to appear on the aforementioned Just Visiting Part One EP. In 2001, the band signed with underground label Little Samurai Records and prepared to release the Just Visiting Part One and Just Visiting Part Two EPs.

The two EPs, despite the slight differences in style between them, were written and recorded at the same time. The band chose not to release the studio session as a full album so they would not lose their debut album virginity, and would get twice the publicity. They grabbed a breakthrough gig, just before the release of Just Visiting Part One, supporting System of a Down at the Hordern Pavilion. Just Visiting Part One was released in February 2002 and was still consistently appearing in the ARIA Top 20 Heavy Rock/Metal singles/EPs chart over 2 years after its release. In July, the song "Bondi" was added to Andrew Haug's Triple J 3 Hours of Power Compilation. Just Visiting Part Two was released in October that same year and was also still appearing in the ARIA Top 20 Heavy Rock/Metal singles/EPs charts after two years. That year, Cog also won, not merely nominated for "best emerging live band in NSW" at the Australian Live Music Awards. After an extensive tour supporting the two EPs, including a slot at the Big Day Out in 2003, Cog headed for the studio to record their latest project, a maxi single.

The single contains "Open Up", a cover of a dance song originally recorded by Leftfield, which became a live favourite. The single also contains the extended versions of "Paris, Texas" and "Moshiach", as well as a remix of Open Up by DJ Silk. An interesting detail is that the release date was on the third day of the third month of the third year (of the millennium). They toured in support of the single before again entering the studio, this time using more than a mere 8-track that they used to record the Just Visiting EPs. Throughout the rest of 2003, the band worked on writing and demoing their forthcoming debut album. The band had completed the pre-production for the album by early 2004, however they were not able to go into production due to a lack of financial resources. During this time, and adding insult to injury, their demos had been noticed by renowned producer Sylvia Massy Shivy (Tool, System of a Down), who agreed to produce the album once they were able to gain the funding to travel to her California studio. Thus the band was in limbo, playing occasional gigs while continuing to sustain a life for themselves through drab day jobs. After around six months of shopping their demos around, even to private investors as well as music labels, Cog signed to Difrnt Music, a new label for which Cog was the first signing and formed and run by former Universal Music Australia head honcho Paul Krige. During this time Cog also signed to management company Aloha Management (Shihad, Killing Heidi).

Cog recorded their debut album, "The New Normal", during September, October and November of 2004 with Sylvia Massy Shivy, and released the album on 12th April 2005. It debuted on the ARIA albums chart at number 19, and at number 6 for Australasian artists, receiving rave reviews nationwide, also being nominated for a "J Award", Triple J's award for the best Australian album of the year. Cog commenced a two and a half month tour in support of the album with an in-store performance, at midnight 9th/10th April, where copies of the album were sold pre-release. On this tour, Cog were joined by Karnivool and In the Grey. After performing 3 dates at the start of July, Cog will tour New Zealand for the first time midway through July, supporting Kiwi band Shihad in five dates. During August and September, Shihad and Cog perform a co-headlining tour of Australia dubbed the Homeland Security Tour.