MUSIC

Verizon Wireless Theater presents Big HOT Kaboom - Too Fast For Love Tour: 3OH!3 and Cobra Starship. 

Cobra Starship and 3OH!3 are teaming up for a co-headlining tour this spring that takes the bands across North America April through June. The “Too Fast For Love” tour kicks off April 28 at Eagles Ballroom in Milwaukee and runs through a June 11 gig at Festival Pier At Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia.

3OH!3:  This is a story about two boys from Colorado. They both grew up in the faux-hippy town of Boulder and ended up at the University of Colorado. One, Nathaniel Motte, graduated summa cum laude and got into medical school, the other, Sean Foreman, got college degrees in math and English. Nat spoke fluent French, Sean won the Ultimate Frisbee World Championship in Finland when he was nineteen. Both loved hip-hop, but hated the exclusivity of the scene. They disagreed with the common assumption that anything on the radio was the work of Satan. So they started making beats in their basement and writing songs that blended rock and hip-hop and dance and pop and who knows what else, and petitioned to remove the "guilty" from "guilty pleasure." They used their area code as their band name, except with an added exclamation point.

The raucous songs caught the attention of Matt Galle, owner of New York-based indie label Photo Finish Records and booking agent to superstars like My Chemical Romance and Taking Back Sunday, and producer Matt Squire, who pretty much produces every awesome band nowadays. Galle signed them to Photo Finish and Squire co-produced the duo's debut, Want, a collection of infectious songs.

3OH!3 headed out on Warped Tour in the summer of 2008 as their first real tour. There they learned that showers are overrated and if you have punchy, rhyming lyrics, dancey rap beats and a raucous live show that involved choreography, kids will come see you play. So many kids, in fact, that your stage will get more and more packed every day as the tour progresses, inciting jealousy from all the other bands. Want was released on July 8, 2008 while they were playing a parking lot in 100-degree heat. The disc's first single was "Don't Trust Me," which was co-produced with Benny Blanco, a song that went to No. 1 on Billboard's Mainstream Top 40 chart.

The band was sent back on the road in the fall for a headlining tour sponsored by MySpace, who jumped on the 3OH3! bandwagon after the pair was a Top 3 artist on the site for several months. The only problem was that Sean was in Brooklyn and the band's gear was in Colorado. So Sean rode his bike from New York to Denver over the course of twenty-two days, clearing his head and sleeping in bushes by the side of the road along the way. On the fall tour, the band sold out so many venues they were forced to move some of the shows to bigger rooms, culminating at show at San Diego's Soma for 2,500 screaming fans.

Radio stations began playing "Don't Trust Me," bleeping out swear words like "ho" and "Helen Keller." MTV and Fuse threw the video into rotation. Katy Perry called and told the boys to pack their bags for Europe, where they traveled around in a soccer mom van as the only openers on Perry's tour. MTV called and told the boys to pack their Speedos for Spring Break, conveniently scripting them into an episode of The Real World: Cancun. Alternative Press called and told the boys to start working out before their cover shoot and headlining slot on the Alternative Press Tour, which kicked off at SxSW in March.

Because no one really ever needs to go home or sleep in a real bed, Sean and Nat jumped almost immediately on Warped Tour for their second run. This time they knew the ropes. Bringing a padlock to secure your own porta-potty backstage each day, for example. They were the biggest band on the tour and even though some people might argue with that, it's true. "Don't Trust Me" was certified double platinum. They remixed second single "Starstrukk" to include vocals from Katy Perry and released it at the end of August. Tours were planned in Europe, Australia and the States for the fall. MTV called again and told the band they were nominated for a Video Music Award for "Best New Artist."

It all seems like a lot to take in, especially for a band with only one album out. But don't worry. If music fails, Nat can become a rich doctor and pay for Sean to pedal a unicycle across Canada.

Cobra Starship:  Gabe Saporta was in the desert, contemplating his existence, when a cobra bit him on the neck. You're thinking: Yeah right. If a cobra bit his neck he'd be dead. But that's what happened. That moment, in the desert, while Gabe was clutching his neck in pain, hallucinating that the snake was schooling him on the dancefloor, was the inception of Cobra Starship. Not exactly the most conventional way to form a band.

Since that moment in the desert in 2005 a lot has happened. Gabe collaborated with William Beckett (The Academy Is), Travis McCoy (Gym Class Heroes), and Maja Ivarsson (The Sounds) to pen the first Cobra Starship song, "Bring It (Snakes on a Plane)," which came out on the Snakes on a Plane soundtrack in August 2006. A lot of people liked that song and Gabe realized that writing catchy songs is a good way to get to hang out with Samuel l. Jackson. He figured if he wrote a whole record full of songs like that maybe he and Sam could get BFF necklaces and have slumber parties.

Cobra's first album, While the City Sleeps, We Rule the Streets, came out in October 2006. A lot of people liked that too (some people didn't, but Gabe handled them and now they like it). Gabe got a band together?guitarist Ryland Blackinton, bassist Alex Suarez, keytarist Victoria Asher and drummer Nate Novarro. They started touring; nepotism earned them an opening slot on the Fall Out Boy tour. The members of Cobra said to each other, let's put out a new record every year. And let's starting writing new songs on tour right now!

Cobra's second record, ¡Viva la Cobra!, came out in October 2007. The album cover was a picture of Gabe wearing bling with his face on it. This time even more people liked the songs and Gabe's head started swelling uncontrollably. It barely fit on the tour bus, which was a problem because Cobra was touring a lot. They played MTV Spring Break, Bamboozle East, West; they rocked over london and rocked over Tokyo. They even made it up to Canada!

People liked the record so much that Cobra got their mugs on TV. They were on MTV's New Year's Eve, Jimmy Kimmel live, and late Night with Conan O'Brien. Then Alternative Press stuck them on the cover. Their video for The City Is At War went into the Top 10 on MTV. They headlined for the first time and sold out every show. In the summer of 2008, Cobra played the main stage of Warped Tour and sold massive amounts of neon-colored merch. After Warped Tour they were like, Shit! It's almost October! We owe the world a new record!

The band started writing and recording new songs in New York in September 2008, but nothing was working. October arrived and no record. Fail, as they say on the Interweb; Epic Fail. They went back into the studio in December only to discover a cyst on Gabe's vocal cords. Surgery ensued. Gabe was silent. Everyone was happy. Except still no record. While unable to speak, Gabe had a lot of time to think. He thought the band could benefit if they had some time to think too. So in January 2009, Cobra isolated themselves in a house in the Poconos, hooked up a web cam so fans could watch them waste valuable time, and spent several weeks working on new songs. Success. They recorded throughout January, February and March in New Jersey and los Angeles, with the band functioning as the producers. This was good because Ryland and Suarez are like totally awesome at producing.

While in the studio in lA, Gabe was told that a "top line writer" was coming in to collaborate. He thought they said "topless writer" and was bummed when American Idol's Kara DioGuardi appeared fully clothed. Still, Gabe gave her a shot, and together they penned the new album's first single "Good Girls Go Bad" (which features that girl who plays Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl). "That wasn't so bad," Cobra thought. So they collaborated a bunch more on the record (kind of like a hip-hop record with a lot of synth and no street cred). You're thinking: What? Gabe plays well with others? With that ego? But he does and he did and the result is Cobra Starship's third album, Hot Mess.

That's the story so far. It's mostly true. Except the part about Gabe's head. There's no way that thing can fit on a tour bus.