Cut Glass Kings + Optic Chiasm at Bootleg Social, Blackpool

Name: Cut Glass Kings + Optic Chiasm at Bootleg Social, Blackpool
Start: 2025-02-28T19:00:00+00:00
Location: 30 Topping Street, Blackpool

Schedule

Fri, 28 Feb, 2025 at 07:00 pm

UTC+00:00

Location

30 Topping Street, Blackpool | Blackpool, EN

After a couple of years hiatus Cut Glass Kings are back with a string of new singles planned followed by the release of their second album early 2025 via Run On Records/Modern Sky UK (The Coral, The Royston Club).
Cut Glass Kings’ story is one of childhood friendship and a shared desire to escape their birthplace of Stourbridge, a Black Country town on the peripheries of Birmingham. McMurray and singer/ guitarist Paul Cross have been close friends since the age of five; creative kindred spirits, whose primary bond quickly became music. By their teenage years they were dreaming up ways of finding an outlet for their boredom and creative energy (pro skateboarding being one discarded pipe dream) that led them eventually to form the beginnings of a band.
Early influences were found in PlayStation FIFA soundtracks, ‘unhealthy obsessions’ with Beatles and Bob Dylan records, then later, the garage-fuzz explosion of the 2010s. In 2014 they landed a support slot in Liverpool’s Zanzibar club, where they were spotted by The Coral’s James Skelly. ‘We had no idea how to play our songs live at that point, but James must’ve seen something. I just remember coming off stage and seeing him in the crowd. He came over and asked if we’d want to work with him at some point. We didn’t even know what that meant but we said yeah on the spot. We’ve been working together in one form or another ever since. He’s quite good at giving us a kick up the arse when we need it. We sometimes have a tendency to tie ourselves up in knots and overthink things. He’s good at cutting through all that stuff.’
The result was the release of their self-titled debut in 2019 on Skelly’s then-active Skeleton Key label. It featured frequently playlisted Shadow Of Your Love, which to date, has accrued over five million streams on Spotify.
Whoever they’re compared to, be it the obvious power duos like Black Keys, White Stripes, or the American fuzz-punks – Cut Glass Kings are powered by a definitively British engine, more T-Rex than T-Bone Walker.