Suicide City signs with The End Records
Suicide City, the band featuring Biohazard guitarist/vocalist Billy Graziadei and former Kittie bassist Jennifer Arroyo, has inked a deal with The End Records. The group's full-length debut, entitled "Frenzy", is scheduled for release on August 4.Suicide City formed in 2004 when five talented and experienced artists, sharing the same passion in music, crossed paths. For the past several years, Billy Graziadei of Biohazard has been producing bands from many different parts of the world. While producing tracks for The Groovenics, their singer, Karl Bernholtz, and Graziadei realized they had many common musical interests. Bernholtz and Graziadei quickly began writing material and soon hooked up with New York-based drummer Dan Lamagna and Groovenics/Ghost Fight guitarist Aj Marchetta. Kittie bassist Jennifer Arroyo joined up with the band shortly after, solidifying the Suicide City lineup.
Not the type of band to just wait around for things to happen, Suicide City self-released an EP, "Not My Year", in 2005 and has since managed to sell over 7,000 copies sans label support. That year they also saw success in the form of a "Best Unsigned Band" award from East Coast Romper. They have also self-produced and released a live DVD, entitled "Live From Cbgb".
Although the individual band members come from wildly different backgrounds, they all share a common passion for music and an unfaltering loyalty to Suicide City.
As Arroyo says, "Suicide City inspires to me to reach new levels of sound and emotion."
Graziadei describes Suicide City's sound as "punk rock, dirty rock 'n roll with some big balls of metal and a touch of manic depression thrown in."
Lamagna's precise percussion fury adds to the speed and aggression of the band's sound, but is reigned in when a more melodic sound is required. The layers of Marchetta's and Graziadei's guitars succeed in laying down an aggressive onslaught as well as some impressive and unexpected melody while Arroyo's bass holds down the low end of the party. Bernholtz vocalizes emotional poetry masterfully, and more than matches the music's energy.
"'Frenzy' is such an eclectic blend of music," says Marchetta. "This band is unafraid and unapologetic about what we create, and because of that we have an album with a really wide musical landscape."
Graziadei points out, "In our short time together, Suicide City has achieved more on our own than most bands do in their whole career with the help of a label."
Perhaps Bernholtz sums it up best: "Suicide City thrives on making people happy and smile through our music without having to candy coat anything. Life does not...suck and then you die.' Life is great, dangerous, exciting, strange, and then you die. I guess that's what we're trying to portray with our music."
For more information, visit www.suicidecity.com.
