Tag Archives: Panic Cell

Breed 77 | Panic Cell @ the Barfly.

By Dave Piper | February 6, 2009 - 3:29 pm | News Leave a comment

Birmingham – the Barfly

Breed 77

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Breed 77 come from the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. Old Gibraltarian school friends, Paul Isola, Danny Felice, and Stuart Cavilla met up in London and became informally known as the Gibraltarian Mafia. When, in late April 1996, this circle of friends formed a band, they wanted a name to reflect their joint origins and called themselves simply Breed. The band were forced to change their name because it was previously registered by Steve Hewitt (formerly of Placebo) on his vanity record label. Stuart Cavilla, the band’s bass player, had previously worked as a motorcycle courier under the call sign of Kilo 77 or K77, and the band became Breed 77

Breed 77′s self-titled debut album was first released in November 2001 and due to a high demand was re-released in April 2005. Their second album Cultura was released on 3 May 2004 and went to number 61 in the UK album charts and number 3 in the Rock Album Chart. Cultura produced the singles “La Última Hora”, “The River”, and “World’s on Fire”. “The River” managed to secure their first UK Top 40 position, getting to number 39 in the UK Singles Chart. “World’s On Fire” just missed out scraping in at number 43, but was number 1 in the Rock Singles Chart. Neither song received any mainstream radio air-time and the videos were featured only on the Scuzz and Kerrang! TV music television channels.

Breed 77 released their third album In My Blood (En Mi Sangre) internationally on 11 September 2006. In My Blood (En Mi Sangre) was produced by Ron Saint-Germain (The Saint) noted for his work with Soundgarden, Tool, Creed and Bad Brains. Two bonus tracks were produced by Greg Haver (Manic Street Preachers). The first single from this album, “Alive”) was out on 12 June 2006, also known as Download Monday, and reached number 6 on the Rock Singles Chart. The second single was “Blind”, released on 4 September 2006. Their last single to date is “Look at Me Now”, released on 23 April 2007. The single includes a special cover of the song ‘Zombie’, by The Cranberries.

In early 2007, the band released the iTunes exclusive album Un Encuentro (to coincide with the launch of “iTunes Latino“. The album featured 11 songs from previous albums but all sung in Spanish. This album was re-released in physical CD format on 7 May 2007.

The band is currently finalising their fifth studio album, Insects.The first two tracks have been announced as “The Horns of Hattin” (April 2008) and “Wake Up” (July 2008). The album is set to be released early-mid 2009.

Panic Cell

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Harj Virdee (Guitar)
Rob Hicks (Drums)
Luke Bell (Vocals)
Kelly Downes (Guitar)
Bobby Town (Bass)

Taking their cue from the new album title, Panic Cell have striven forward defiantly through their first album (‘Bitter Part of Me’) and their intense live shows have won them acclaim, admiration and new fans all over the world, their reputation as a world class live act is unquestionable. “We’re a live band first and foremost, we’re entertainers and we do a damn fine job, we play every show with hunger and voraciously whether we’re first or last on the bill ” says vocalist Luke Bell. Three years of touring the UK, Ireland, Europe & the U.S.A has oiled the machine that is Panic Cell; the band have taken new found maturity and poured it into ‘What Doesn’t Kill Us’. “Having had the luxury of coming off tour and spending time in pre-production for these new songs, something we couldn’t do with the first album and Panic Cell sound all the better for doing it” says bassist Bobby Town.

Panic Cells evolution comes as no surprise when looking at the top international class of bands they have toured with on their first release: U.S Billboard No.1 artists Disturbed and Staind, Mudvayne, Devildriver, SOiL, Drowning Pool, ILL Nino, Testament, American Head Charge, In This Moment and many more. “We’ve had the privilege of playing with many a great band, literally world class acts that has ensured every night we go out on stage we’ve had to raise our game, giving the crowd one hell of a show.” says drummer Rob Hicks. One hell of a show is very apt for the bands set at the UK’s top rock/metal festival ‘Download 2007′ with many people believing this one of the main highlights of the festival. A packed out tent with outside standing room only is testimony to Panic Cells pulling power and longevity. Most astonishing of all, everything Panic Cell had achieved to this point was as an unsigned band. (words taken from the bands website)