The Cute Lepers: 8th Annual Program – Punk Album IMA Winner / Punk Song IMA Nominee

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Contact:
Gabe Godin

gabe (at) blackheart.com
www.cutelepers.com

The Cute Lepers are a six/seven piece band from Seattle, WA equally influenced by first wave punk, mod-revival, power pop, and a soft spot in our hearts for Johnny Thunders… oh yeah, with occasional hints of doo-wop, early 60′s rock’n'roll and a load of female back-up vocals. After a couple sold out singles and lengthy tours of the United States and Europe, in the summer of 2008 our debut album “Can’t Stand Modern Music” was released on Damaged Goods in the U.K. and europe. Here in the states Blackheart Records (yeah… the label Joan Jett started up a few decades ago!) picked up the record and is handling it for the US and rest of the world aside from EU/UK. We don’t stay home for long so look out for us touring the US and Europe a few times a year supporting the latest 7″ or album. We don’t make much money at this, hence we’re likely malnourished when you see us… sandwiches are nice! Or even better, canned food mailed to us! If you wanna contribute we’ll give you Kicks’ address. Hey, buy our record too. It’s good!

Travis Criscola, rest in peace

Early the morning of March 28, 2009 in Cincinnati our friend and band-mate Travis Criscola passed away in his sleep. He was 24. Travis was guitarist in the Cute Lepers for the last six months and was the perfect addition to the band as it’s developed. He was our friend. His company was always a pleasure. I don’t think I ever heard him say a negative word about any one. He was smart, polite and considerate, always interested in learning more about music and playing guitar… he really loved music. He was passionate about music in a way that only other like-minded musicians recognize and relate with. When Travis joined the band he would not think twice about jumping on the bus from Olympia and making the two hour ride to Seattle for a spur of the moment rehearsal, and then riding the bus two more hours to get back home. In fact Travis was doing this three times a week up until we left for Europe to start our tour. His character and his commitment made him the very best we could hope for in a band-mate and a friend. We’re gonna really miss him. We feel that it’s appropriate and absolutely not in bad taste to disclose the cause of death of our friend. Travis combined alcohol and pills, then went to sleep and never woke up. It was an accident. Travis was not any kind of a habitual drug user. I’m a man who has left drugs and alcohol alone for over a decade and I just wont work with people who are mixed up with narcotics. It is rare to find a rock n’ roll musician in his early twenties who doesn’t get caught up in hitting the bars and going to parties on tour, and Trav was just one of those ones who made a really bad decision. He naively took some type of pills on top of the beer he was drinking and that’s it. I believe that it would be a disservice for us to leave out this information. People would wind up hearing distorted versions of the truth anyways. Also our hope is that other young musicians, or anyone it may apply to who reads this will learn from our tragedy and perhaps wise up a bit. We’re currently traveling across the country back home to Seattle with heavy hearts. Trav’s family and his beautiful longtime girlfriend are in our prayers. –Steve

In light of this tragedy, the duration of the tour has been canceled.