Divorcing New York

It's always Summer when those Bleeding Hearts boys get together... You know - making out at the Drive-In, keg parties, tailgating before the Foghat/B.O.C. show, feeling up the prom queen by your locker on the last day of school. Skinny dipping out at Greasy Lake, bragging to your friends about the 19 year old babe you got to third base with while on vacation with your parents at Myrtle Beach. Springsteen and Brian Wilson mastered writing about those things, but The Bleeding Hearts did it a little dirtier, way sillier, much less famously and a shit-ton louder! Real and true American guitar rock with Cheap Trick hooks and Ramones ferocity. Only the most jaded would not get this band. If rock and roll has to be one thing, and one thing only, it has to be LOUD. Sexy. Abrasive. Dangerous. Rapturous. Feverish. Bluesy. Foot-tapping. Body-moving. Deadly. Did I say one thing or ten? The definition differs for every listener, but whatever that most central characteristic is for you one thing is certain: The Bleeding Hearts have it. It. Raw power. For reasons that will never be entirely clear, nostalgia perpetually favors some styles over others. So while we've had waves and waves of ska and psych, bar-chord, bar-band rock remains underrepresented (outside of isolated cases like The Hold Steady). That just means more room for The Bleeding Hearts. Raleigh NC's resident crew rumbles through chunky anthemic rockers, harking back to the innocence and enthusiasm of youth. Hard candy hooks crash over mid-tempo boogie. Classics' just another word for timeless. And as Coke taught us, sometimes New isn't better. Born from the seeds of discontent - either in their previous bands or in the state of the NC music scene, Raleigh NC's The Bleeding Hearts set out with one goal - to play great rock music while having fun doing it. And that is exactly what they did. The barrage of press began even before their first show in April of '03. The boys backed up the hype by signing with Charlotte NC's MoRisen Records after their fifth show. The first album, Stayin After Class, was met with rave reviews. A sometimes lighthearted, made-in-America rock 'n' roll trip built on Cheap Trick hooks and Ramones ferocity said The Independent Weekly. Creative Loafing called it Stoned Soup: big meaty riffs, wholesome melody and enough hot pepper attitude to make it burn a bit going down. The following tour covered the east coast from Boston to NC, ending with an opening slot for Velvet Revolver and one of the final shows at NYC's legendary punk club, The Continental with Walter Lure. All the while, new tunes were being written for the second album. Lead singer/lead guitarist, Sam Madison provided the framework and lyrics for the songs, but James Britt (bass), Joe Yerry (guitar) and Scott Taylor (drums) brought the rock! After a brief stint with New York-based Abray Records, they signed with Raleigh NC's Double Naught records in 2008. The second album, Nothin' On But The Radio was released later that year to more rave reviews and another tour. Internet radio jumped on board with Little Steven's Underground Garage naming their first single, Rehab Girl, one of his Coolest Songs in The World including it on his Vol 8 compilation. Steven even gave them his vote for the best album cover of the year, featuring a lovely, naked-tattooed vixen on the cover! Though things were going better than ever for the band, things were falling apart internally and by the end of 2009 the band decided to call it quits. Fast-forwarding a year, an impromptu reunion show brought back those warm fuzzy feelings and the boys constructed a full-fledged come-back adding long time friend and teen sensation, Bill Egan on drums. Since reforming in March of 2011, the guys have been met with overwhelming optimism, playing several sold-out shows including opening for Jesse Malin, CJ Ramone, headlinging the HOPSCOTCH kickoff party and returning to NYC with The Threads Sept 16. Several new songs, a new album and video are all in the works. Maybe it's true, as Praxis magazine simply put, only the most