Album Notes

Cobalt & the Hired Guns is a boot-stompin', tambourine-shakin', irresistibly genuine good time. Seamlessly blending upbeat genres from Americana to Ska, this dynamic four piece puts on a rambunctious show filled with sharp musicianship and emotion. Cobalt & the Hired Guns is about love and guts, energy and enthusiasm - refusing to pretend they aren't having fun.

Their new record Jump the Fence, created at Chicago Recording Company with producer/engineer Brian Humphrey (State Radio, The Hives, Stephen Kellogg), is a fresh blend of dance-fueling vigor and introspective sentiment.

Jump the Fence is also a carbon neutral album - all of the greenhouse gases associated with the recording, production, and direct promotion of the CD were offset via investments in wind energy.

• Track 5 - "Up to You" - banked the band national recognition and a cool $5,000 by winning the #1 song grand prize for May on OurStage.com, beating out over 20,000 artists and garnering 11,000 plays in the month.

• Track 1 - "Rome" - got mainstream Chicago radio play on June 22 when Q101's Chris Payne and KMA Management/MOBfest guru Bret Bassi featured the track.

• Track 2 “Never a Harbor” was featured on Chicago NPR's news and culture show Eight-Forty-Eight to promote the Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Festival at the Congress Theater.

• Track 4 - "Spotlights" - was recently selected to be on the iGo Cars "Audio Emissions" compilation alongside Wilco, Neko Case, Studs Terkel, Kid Sister, and Brighton, MA. The compilation will be waiting in the CD players of all iGo cars in Chicago and distributed at festivals.

The band's music and political work have been recently featured in the Chicago Sun-Times: http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/music/chicagomusic/1036325,sound070308.article