Takeover UK 'Running with the Wasters' album

Pittsburgh based The Takeover UK is influenced by different genres such as new wave, punkrock, garage rock and 60's pop. They will release their Rykodisc debut Running with the Wasters on March 24th. This album could very well have been released back in 1978- lots of old school rock n' roll vibes with a Britrock kick and huge hooks and smashing choruses. The band is searching for the perfect pop song and there are a few contenders like "Never Been So Sick," the title track "Running With The Wasters," and the fist single, "Ah La La," which is at Alternative radio now.

The Takeover UK is Nic Snyder, vocals/guitar, Mark Solomich, vocals/guitar, Adam Shash,vocals/bass and John Shickels, drums.

The band along with LA's Gliss join forces on a co-tour dubbed "The Stimulus Package Tour." All of the shows will be at recession-friendly prices.

The Takeover UK tour dates
3/25/09 San Diego CA Beauty Bar
3/27/09 Los Angeles CA Spaceland
3/29/09 San Jose CA Johnny V's
3/30/09 Sacramento CA Luigi's Fungarden
3/31/09 San Francisco CA Hotel Utah
4/02/09 Portland OR East End
4/04/09 Eugene OR Sam Bond's Garage
4/05/09 Seattle WA El Corazon
4/06/09 Spokane WA BLVD
4/07/09 Boise ID Bouquet
4/08/09 Denver CO Soiled Dove
4/09/09 Davenport IA Redstone Room
4/11/09 Chicago IL Beat Kitchen (early show)
4/13/09 Lawrence KS The Jackpot
4/17/09 Pittsburgh PA Brillo Box
4/20/09 Atlanta GA Drunken Unicorn
4/24/09 Miami FL Sweat @ Vagabond
5/4/09 NYC NY Mercury Lounge
5/6/09 Brooklyn NY Union Hall

The Takeover UK biography
On Saturday nights, 21st Street, Manhattan's notorious strip of clubs peddling fourhundred-dollar bottles of vodka to Paris Hilton wannabes and nouveau riche hedge fund managers, is a nightmare. "It's like mardi gras. You've got a street filled with beautiful girls in short skirts, but we ain't offering what they want. I shovel horseshit for a living," shrugs Nic Snyder, guitar player, singer, and heartthrob of The Takeover UK. He has the good looks of a mid-western serial killer - you could see him playing against Sissy Spacek in a Hollywood epic. The rest of the gang also carry the charisma and gravitas that comes with living in Pittsburgh and getting the hell out. Besides Nic, among them are Mark and Derek, both office drones, and Josh, an out of work pizza delivery boy. Together they have cemented a bond as tough as anything that has come out of a town famous for forging steel.

The Takeover UK have been recording here on 21st Street, putting the finishing touches on their debut, Running with the Wasters a bold, brash pop masterpiece. They make no bones about it, they are unabashedly pop - though their punk attitude comes shining through with thick power chords and vocals that teeter between sugar and snarl.

In a world of color-bynumbers pop performed by painted faces and hand-picked record company doll babies, The Takeover UK stand out in sharp relief - whatever territory they have "taken" they have earned inch by inch, with sweat and raw talent. They are lucky to have two singer songwriters working as one, blessed with an incredible depth of compositional tools - how is it even possible to come up with so many good songs? And every one of them takes unexpected twists and turns across an album brimming with angst, happiness, anger, confusion, and humor. It does not hurt that they can play their asses off.

Armed with a full quiver of production zoo-zazz pumped up with old school rock'n'roll values, they have come up with a unique formula that sounds distinctively today, and quite possibly, the future. "Lonely Ones'" snotty vocals collide against a thick, Spector-like wall of sound fulfilling the promises of Johnny Thunders and the Ronettes. Hints of ‘70s glitter in "Denise" puts a coat of high-gloss on their blue-collar work ethic, but
there is no concealing their guts. There is energy in everything they do. "Ah La La" sounds like it was made for a car radio - or is that the other way around?

"We came up playing punk rock but we moved on," laughs Josh, who keeps the beat swinging for The Takeover UK. But their music is still decidedly punk. "The Ramones are just distilled down from the Beach Boys," says Nic. "The Sex Pistols have giant choruses." Mark, who shares vocal and guitar duties, continues, deconstructing the various themes prevalent in pop: "There's the lovers' lament, the invitation to dance - ‘Blue Suede Shoes,' what is that about?" Nic interrupts. "But we're not aiming for the teen market. We're not that calculated." And the damndest thing is that he ain't just saying it, it is palpable. In the studio, listening to the playback of "Damn Tryin'," one of dozens of songs The Takeover UK recorded in NY, the engineer pushed the volume on the rhythm guitar track... chonk... chonk... chonk...the perfect chisel-action chord bashing, falling right between "She's a Woman" and "London Calling," without touching either one. The reporter raised an eyebrow. He knew they had something powerful brewing, but now, confronted with the pure crunch of their guitars and the effortless between-the-eyes hooks, he was smitten. They were the complete package: they had ears, they listened. They had absorbed the music. And they were not mercenary, they believed. It flowed easily from their finger tips.

But what about the name, the reporter wants to know. Why is a band from Pittsburgh called The Takeover UK? "Let's face it, all the best bands are British," Josh offers.
"That's not true," counters Nic. "Well..." he says, almost ready to acquiesce. But the truth is that they are an American band and for whatever fetishes they hold close
to heart and groin for the British Invasion and its prodigy, they are as keen on their blue collar roots as they are on their love for the three-chord artists who wrote the book on modern pop music. The actual story is simple: inspired by a Jay-Z song they named themselves The Takeover. There was another band by that name, and tongue in cheek they became The Takeover UK, and it stuck.

And so, the story goes, sick of hustling in Pittsburgh, they went to LA and got themselves a 15-night residency at one of the City of Angels better clubs. "But on the last night we got kicked out," Mark relates. "The crowds just kept getting bigger, but the guy who owned the place wanted a shitty cover band to play, so on our last night we played at the Viper Room instead." "And we got a record offer," says Nic. "But they wanted more Beach Boys, and less Clash. And then we got signed to Ryko."

And such is the curse of genius: occasional scrapes, friction with the world at large. But there is no such dissonance in the music of The Takeover UK, or in the group themselves. They have everything it takes, no less: commitment to their music and an astonishing ability to craft scores of great songs that make people move. Sons of Pittsburgh, soon to be the blue-collar standard bearers of the allusive pop dream, and citizens of the world, The Takeover UK are bathing gleefully at the nexus where the future of rock'n'roll meets its storied past.

"Pop is not a dirty word," says Mark. "We love the art form. We're chasing the perfect pop single."

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