The Band

John Cusimano - vocals, guitar
John lives in NYC and grew up listening to Hüsker Dü, The Ramones, Television, Sex Pistols, The Beatles, Coltrane, Bird, and too many others to list here.

Around a year ago, John met Rob while they were working at the same job in NYC. John had a handful of songs and Rob played lead guitar. John ran an ad in the Village Voice for a bass player and met Matt. Matt, Rob and John jammed and it sounded good. Matt, Rob and John met Shawn, who also happened to be the best drummer in NYC. More songs were written, lots of gigs were played and an album was recorded (at Electric Lady Studios) with a really awesome engineer named Steve.

In addition to singing for The Cringe, he plays drums and keyboards in three other side projects with Matt.

James Rotondi - lead guitar
Cringe guitarist James "Roto" Rotondi brings a combination of retro-inspired tones and forward-thinking lead playing to the band's own mixture of the classic and the cutting-edge. Roto's impressive pedigree includes tours and recordings with Mike Patton's Mr. Bungle, French electro stars Air, trip-hop pioneers the Grassy Knoll, as well as collaborations, sessions and gigs with Santana's Michael Shrieve, horn gods Tower of Power, sax iconoclast Skerik (Critters Buggin) and pop legend Jason Falkner. An accomplished singer and keyboardist, Roto has also played, sang and co-composed on over 200 TV commercials, from Olympus to Lexus to Spagettios. His new solo EP, "The MiniLove EP," will be released digitally and on CD this July (myspace.com/rotovybe) and he continues to work on film music with his instrumental project, Jettatura (myspace.com/jettaturatheband).

Matt Powers - bass
I've always known that I was going to be in music. I wore out my Who tape (the Best of I think) when I was 6, but I wasn't allowed to play guitar until I was 13. Later, I found myself playing bass more and more. I met John two years ago following up an ad in the Village Voice and after one session jamming together I was 'in.'

Since then, John has been jamming with me in and out of several projects. He played drums in my early solo shows. My last project, 'Whether Music', featuring my wife Adriana Powers on bass and Bill Motzing on drums has ended but you can still check it out here: www.whethermusic.com or www.myspace.com/whether1.

My latest solo project, Matt Powers "Never Ending Aftermath" is set to be released mid-july on itunes, amazon.com, and cdbaby.com. I'll have cds on my solo tour. For more info check out: www.myspace.com/mattpowers2.

Shawn Pelton - drums
When he's not doing his thing for the Cringe, Shawn plays with the Saturday Night Live Band, Sheryl Crow and Rod Stewart.

Links
ACME Underground
The Doors
CBGB's
Listen Records
Elbow Room
Watch Entertainment
The Continental
Game On NY
TechExpo
Shannon O'Shea Management
Electric Lady Studios
Sound on Sound Studios
Masterdisk NYC
Whether Music