Cute Is What We Aim For 'Rotation' album

Fueled By Ramen recording group Cute Is What We Aim For have revealed details of their eagerly anticipated sophomore outing. Entitled "ROTATION," the album will arrive in stores and at all digital retailers on June 24th. "ROTATION" is currently available for pre-order via the Fueled By Ramen web store, along with a special Limited Edition CD/DVD package that includes an "In The Studio" documentary, bonus tracks, acoustic performances, photo gallery, and more.

Cute Is What We Aim For will introduce fans to their new songs on a coast-to-coast summer headline jaunt. The tour will hit the ground running on June 15th at Pittsburgh's Diesel Club Lounge, with dates continuing through late-August (see below itinerary). Support acts include Ace Enders, Danger Radio, and labelmates Powerspace. Pre-order tickets for the tour will be available tomorrow at noon local time to fan club members at www.thesocialscene.org, while the general on-sale will begin May 9th and 10th. Prior to their North American tour, the band will play a series of UK co-headline dates alongside Boys Like Girls. Among the trek's sure-to-be-highlights is a top-billed main stage set at Leeds' upcoming Slam Dunk Festival, set for Sunday, May 25th.

Produced by John Feldmann (The Used, Story of the Year), "ROTATION" finds Cute Is What We Aim For exceeding expectations with a collection of effervescent new songs, marked by palpable urgency and an expanded knack for exploration and invention. Now available via the band's MySpace page and for purchase on iTunes, tracks such as the first single, "Practice Makes Perfect" -- with its singing synths and delightfully new-wave sensibility, prove the Buffalo, New York-based combo's caustic lyrical wit and penchant for soaring choruses remain in full effect. Elsewhere, "Loser" is a punk-pop classic in waiting, while the electronic flourishes on "Navigate Me" show CIWWAF unafraid to add bold new colors to their already bright palette.

"We're not seventeen anymore," says vocalist Shaant Hacikyan, explaining the band's remarkable growth. "There's so much to be said about these past few years and being in a pressure cooker and learning what the real world is like. I think this record is going to do such incredible things and launch us to another level."

Cute Is What We Aim For exploded out of the gate in 2006 with their critically acclaimed debut album, "THE SAME OLD BLOOD RUSH WITH A NEW TOUCH." Fueled by the singles "There's A Class For This" and "The Curse of Curves," the album entered the record books as the fastest-selling new release in the history of the Fueled By Ramen label. The band was named among Rolling Stone's "10 Artists to Watch" and Blender's annual "Hot 100" ranking. Cute Is What We Aim For were soon starring on the cover of Alternative Press's annual "100 Bands You Need To Know" issue, which hailed the band as "the best thing since Fall Out Boy." Critical celebration came from across the spectrum, including a full-blown rave from no less a prestigious outlet as the New York Times. "The epitome of emo circa 2006... These songs are tightly packed with twists and turns and -- yes -- singalongs... Cute Is What We Aim For has released the emo album of the summer."

CIWWAF rapidly built a faithful and fervent fan following via an active online presence and good old-fashioned roadwork. The band toured nearly non-stop throughout 2006 and 2007, headlining shows and sharing stages with the likes of Fall Out Boy, Gym Class Heroes, Paramore, Plain White Ts, Hit The Lights, and Hellogoodbye.

who is who
Shaant Hacikyan (vocals)
Jeffrey Czum (guitar)
Tom Falcone (drums)
Dave Melillo (Bass)

tour dates
JUNE
15 Pittsburgh, PA Diesel Club Lounge
17 New Haven, CT Toad's Place
19 New York, NY Highline Ballroom
20 Asbury Park, NJ The Stone Pony
21 Albany, NY Revolution Hall
22 Boston, MA The Middle East
24 Toronto, ONT The Mod Club
25 Montreal, QUE Studio JPR
27 Buffalo, NY Town Ballroom
28 Philadelphia, PA The Fillmore @ Theatre of Living Arts
29 Farmingdale, NY The Crazy Donkey

JULY
1 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
2 Norfolk, VA The NorVa
4 Charlotte, NC Tremont
5 Atlanta, GA The Masquerade
6 Orlando, FL The Social
8 Miami, FL The Culture Room
9 Tampa, FL State Theatre
11 Austin, TX Emo's
12 Houston, TX Warehouse
13 Dallas, TX House of Blues - Cambridge Room
15 Oklahoma City, OK Diamond Ballroom
16 Albuquerque, NM The Launchpad
18 Phoenix, AZ The Club House
19 Las Vegas, NV Jillian's
20 San Diego, CA Soma
23 Los Angeles, CA The Troubadour
25 Anaheim, CA The Glass House
26 San Francisco, CA Slim's
27 Sacramento, CA The Boardwalk
29 Vancouver, BC The Plaza
30 Seattle, WA Chop Suey

AUGUST
1 Portland, OR Hawthorne Theatre
2 Boise, ID The Big Easy
4 Salt Lake City, UT Club Sound
5 Denver, CO The Marquis Theatre
6 Kansas City, MO The Beaumont Club
8 Minneapolis, MN Station 4
9 Milwaukee, WI The Eagles Club
10 Chicago, IL Metro
12 St. Louis, MO Creepy Crawl
13 Cincinnati, OH Madison Theatre
15 Cleveland, OH Grog Shop
16 Detroit, MI Magic Stick
17 Columbus, OH The Basement

Further Dates To Be Announced

biography
Life is short and the last thing we want to do is waste your time. By now, you already know the myriad feats Cute Is What We Aim For have accomplished since forming in 2005. The band’s 2006 debut The Same Old Blood Rush With A New Touch spent countless months on the Billboard Top 200 Charts; the group successfully headlined Alternative Press’ Bands You Need To Know tour (and graced the cover of the magazine) and Cute Is What We Aim For were named one of Rolling Stones’ 10 Artists To Watch—all while the group were still teenagers living in the dreary blue-collar town of Buffalo, New York.

While the band managed to exceed even their own expectations with their debut, being thrown into this type of whirlwind success forced the group to grow up quickly—and this marked maturity is evident with every note of the band’s follow-up, Rotation. “We’re not seventeen anymore; there’s so much to be said about these past few years of being in a pressure cooker and learning what the real world is like,” explains vocalist Shaant Hacikyan, stating that this time around the band decided to make a record for themselves without taking any scene politics or trends into consideration. “I think this record is going to do such incredible things and launch us to another level.”

In order to fully realize their vision, the band—which also includes guitarist Jeff Czum, drummer Tom Falcone and new bassist Dave Melillo—holed up in Los Angeles with Goldfinger’s John Feldmann armed with only a blurry sketch of what the songs that would eventually make up Rotation. “We only had one full song written going into the studio and I thought we were going to get kicked out,” Czum explains with a laugh, adding that he felt some extra pressure considering the fact that Goldfinger is one of Czum’s favorite bands. “Thankfully, we work best under pressure and I really think that added stress helped shape these songs.”

“A lot of the bands I’ve worked with don’t want to experiment too much, but these guys were really open-minded and I think that’s why this record turned out so good,” explains Feldmann, who has previously produced and discovered artists like the Used and Story Of The Year. “I just tried to push them by putting a piano in front of them instead of a guitar and making them write on that instrument or by putting them in different physical environments,” he adds. “I always like to try and push artists, I felt like these guys allowed me to push them as far as I could. [Making this record] was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in the studio.”

Listening to Rotation, this urgency is almost palpable and Feldmann—whose production techniques ranged from making Melillo throw punches at Hacikyan during tracking to literally tracking songs on the beach near Monterey—pulled something special out of the group by getting them outside of their comfort zone. This is immediately evident with the first single “Doctor,” which features singing synths and a new-wave sensibility while still retaining Cute Is What We Aim For’s caustic lyrical wit and penchant for soaring choruses. Alternately, “Loser” evokes classic material by pop-punk royalty like Green Day, while the electronic flourishes on “Navigate” show the band stretching out and exploring alternate forms of arrangement, instrumentation and, maybe most importantly, collaboration.

Hacikyan explains that this time around he was more influenced by classic songwriters like Tom Petty and John Lennon instead of anyone in the current music scene—and that’s obvious while listening to the lyrical progression on Rotation. “We realized ‘How are we going to make a statement if we’re trying to just go along with everyone else?’” Hacikyan explains, adding that the lyrics for Rotation were improvised in the vocal booth to keep them from sounding too calculated. “I think we just realized that if anyone is going to take us seriously, let’s take the classics. Why not be influenced by the masters instead of individuals with the same influences as me?” He also adds that the band’s newest member Melillo was instrumental in the writing process and, maybe, more importantly made the band feel like a cohesive unit for the first time ever.

If the band had to name one lyrical theme on Rotation, it would be “change,” which makes perfect sense when you consider the plateaus and pitfalls the band has endured over the past few years. “This one had such a cohesive message of change: external change, internal change, global change, political change, social change—everything on this record has a message,” Hacikyan elaborates. “The last time we made a record it was all me and the other guys wouldn’t do anything because it was an unhappy environment,” he adds. “We didn’t know any better [then], but this time we had a vision we could follow artistically.

“Making this album was such a learning process and I want to stress not just musically but from a life perspective I think we’ve developed so much,” Hacikyan summarizes. “We realized this is a career and we have to go for it; we can’t just be kids and take it for granted. At times, I didn’t appreciate our situation because it happened so quickly,” he adds, reflecting on the band’s tumultuous few years of inner-band struggles and member changes. “Now there’s so much satisfaction in understanding life isn’t about the destination, it’s in the journey.”

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Cute Is What We Aim For - Rotation