(L-R) Pete Romano, Mark Stallard, and Phil Young
Birds of a Feather For the 40-somethings who play in the bravely named Cocks, success takes on a whole new meaning By Michael Pollock
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here are several reasons why you may not be familiar with the Cocks. One is that, after being together for seven years and occasionally playing live, the Wilmington/New Castle-based power-poppy bar-rock band is just now releasing its first album (Tuesday Morning Hangover, which saw a CDrelease party at Mojo Main in December). Another reason is that the band—guitarist/vocalist Phil Young, 42; bassist/vocalist Mark Stallard, 44; and drummer Pete Romano, 39—comes from the scattered ashes of several other local bands through the decades, including the Rubber Uglies (Young and Stallard), Suckee (Young and Stallard), Pigeonhole (Young and Stallard), the Knobs (Young), and Gangster Pump (Romano), and tracing its origins requires something of a family tree. (Complicating the branches is Young’s involvement as drummer in Bos Taurus.) A third reason is that the band is named, um, the Cocks. And if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you’re in on the joke. It made for an awkward online experience when this writer decided to “like” the Cocks on Facebook: “Michael likes The Cocks.” www.out-and-about.com
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“You can’t have a conversation about the band without the double entendres flowing,” Romano says over a Yuengling at Kelly’s Logan House, where the band will be performing next month. True to spirit, Cocks stickers and T-shirts feature a drawing of a rooster, as if to ask, ‘Who’s the pervert here?’ “It’s a bird—a cock is a bird,” Stallard says of the imagery. “You could say it has to do with being from Delaware,” Romano adds, tongue also in cheek. (The state bird is the Blue Hen chicken, famous for its ability to scrap.) But to call yourselves the Cocks invites more than double entendres. It means being OK with having your book judged by its cover. “The name is sometimes too much for people to deal with,” Romano admits. (Bands like F—ked Up and Pissed Jeans can relate.) “Some of the press kits we’re sending out to get reviews and shows—they don’t know how to take it.” “It’s almost like a car wreck,” Stallard says. “You can’t help look or be intrigued.” And while the name has its disadvantages— Stallard feels it implies a kind of “nasty heavy metal” in the vein of Motorhead—at least it helps the band stand out. “If there’s any type of buzz,” Romano says, “the name will probably be an advantage.” AT THE RISK OF OFFENDING His Majesty Lemmy Kilmister, the Cocks don’t sound like Motorhead. But they do borrow an awful good lot from Cracker, Spoon, Wilco—“I put A.M. on whenever we record,” says Young, who has a studio in his New Castle home, “to listen to drum sounds and calibrate my ears”— continued on next page
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