Cobalt & the Hired Guns is a boot-stompin', tambourine-shakin', irresistibly genuine good time. Seamlessly blending upbeat genres from Americana to Ska, this dynamic four piece puts on a rambunctious show filled with sharp musicianship and emotion. Cobalt & the Hired Guns is about love and guts, energy and enthusiasm - refusing to pretend they aren't having fun.

Their new record Jump the Fence, created at Chicago Recording Company with producer/engineer Brian Humphrey (State Radio, The Hives, Stephen Kellogg), is a fresh blend of dance-fueling vigor and introspective sentiment. Jump the Fence is also a carbon neutral album - all of the greenhouse gases associated with the recording, production, and direct promotion of the CD were offset via investments in wind energy.

� On June 1, their ballad "Up to You," banked the band national recognition and a cool $5,000 by winning the #1 song grand prize for May on OurStage.com, beating out over 20,000 artists and garnering 11,000 plays in the month. Their rock-a-ska song �Boston & Alone� was later voted the #1 song in the Punk/Ska/Psychobilly channel for July.
� Their song "Spotlights" was selected to be on the iGo Audio Emissions compilation alongside Wilco, Neko Case, Kid Sister, Studs Terkel and Brighton, MA. The compilation will be waiting in the CD players of all iGo cars and distributed at festivals starting in July.
� On June 22, Q101's Chris Payne and KMA Management/MOBfest guru Bret Bassi featured "Rome," the first track off Jump the Fence, on Local101.
� On July 3 (July 4th print edition) the Chicago Sun-Times ran a profile highlighting the band�s green work. http://www.suntimes.com/entertain


Bio/History: Cobalt and the Hired Guns formed in 2003 at Oberlin College, but officially settled in Chicago in June of 2007 when Jesse (drums/vocals) and Mike (bass/guitar) packed up all their shit and headed west to join Tom and Matt (vocals/guitar) and play in a rock band. Cobalt & the Hired Guns have already made a big impression with successful shows at The Double Door, Congress Theater, Martyrs', Elbo Room, The Abbey Pub, Subterranean, Uncommon Ground, and the Taste of Chicago festival.

Jump The Fence follows up the January 2007 release of their debut LP "This Way Out," produced in charming DIY fashion. The first twelve CDs sold splendidly. Unfortunately, the rest were trampled and eaten by a flock of rabid alpacas in Breezewood, PA. The band was unfazed, however, and continued their tour of 22 shows in 15 states booked and promoted entirely by themselves. This serpentine path of destruction featured stops in Nashville, Pittsburgh, DC, New York City, Boston, and was capped off by five fire trucks and two police squadrons invading a wild show in Providence, RI.