Canadian duo Cleopatrick have today released their ferocious new single and video ‘THE DRAKE’ today on the band’s own Nowhere Special Recordings, distributed by Thirty Tigers. The new song is quintessential cleopatrick at their most raw and unfiltered, with the accompanying home-video reminiscing on pre-pandemic life at one of the band’s signature basement shows.
“THIS SONG IS ABOUT A GIG WE PLAYED AT “THE DRAKE HOTEL” IN TORONTO, BACK IN 2017. IT WAS SHORTLY AFTER OUR BAND HAD STARTED TO POP. WE WERE VERY ANXIOUS FOR THIS SHOW AS IT WAS GOING TO BE ONE OF OUR FIRST PERFORMANCES WHERE WE WOULD BE IN FRONT OF A CROWD OF PEOPLE THAT HAD DISCOVERED US THROUGH THE INTERNET. WE FELT A LOT OF PRESSURE, AND INTENDED TO IMPRESS.
HOWEVER, SHORTLY BEFORE WE WENT UP TO PLAY, THINGS ENDED UP TAKING A VERY UNFORTUNATE TURN. AS WE NERVOUSLY WATCHED THE CROWD SPILL ONTO THE VENUE FLOOR FROM OUTSIDE, A FAMILIAR GROUP CAUGHT OUR EYE…IT WAS “THE BOYS” says Cleopatrick.
At just 23 years old, cleopatrick have proven they are a true force to be reckoned with on both sides of the Atlantic; they’ve been tipped as one of Amazon Music’s Ones To Watch 2021, clocked 77+ million streams across just twelve tracks, alongside multiple sell-out tours across Europe which included an immediately sold-out underplay at London’s Electrowerkz and several shows (including London Alexandra Palace) supporting Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes in 2020.
Over lockdown, lifelong best friends cleopatrick found themselves spiritually and physically trapped in the very basement they’d romanticized so deeply on their early records. But after a few weeks the two emerged feeling more self-aware, vulnerable, hungry, and vengeful than ever before. With an eye towards 2021 Luke Gruntz (vocals/guitars) reveals, “a handful of new songs were sparked by this solitude, and we ended up quickly replacing parts of our next album we thought we had been ready to record.” He goes on, “We tracked with a vengeance. We had fire in our eyes — memories of moshpit-friendships, shaken venue floors, and late night interstate wrong-turns in our hearts. We recorded these songs as a love-letter to everything we had experienced prior to Covid, and everything we are longing to be reunited with.”
cleopatrick’s forthcoming debut album is incoming soon, written, recorded and produced by the band and their close friend Jig Dubé. “No bullshit ghostwriters. No label A&R, no big name producers. Just three kids with some fuzz pedals and a point to prove. We chose to make this album in Jig’s basement, because we wanted to show the kids that come to our gigs that you don’t need to sign a major label deal, or assimilate with the modern “rockstar” phonies in order to make it. In fact it’s quite the opposite. All you need is some good friends and a little vision.” the band’s frontman Luke Gruntz explains.
cleopatrick are comprised of best friends since the age of four Luke Gruntz (guitar/vocals) and Ian Fraser (drums), who formed the band as a duo because they couldn’t find a bass player in their small town of Coburg, Ontario. Flipping the stereotypical machismo of rock music on its head, cleopatrick formed the loose DIY collective ‘New Rock Mafia’ as a means to offer support to one another.
