“It started to become a way of life and then to be back doing coffees again I was very p**sed-off." - Lucius Borich on why he wants to keep making music with Cog or a new project.
"The long-term goal was always to see how far we can push it." - Lucius Borich on 12 years of Cog.
June 3, 2010. by Pete Wood
IT was a hard decision to put hard rock act Cog on the backburner.
Drummer Lucius Borich makes that no secret and the passion for his band of 12 years can be heard at every candid turn.
“It’s not what I wanted to do but I had to cop it,” he says. “After this long you get to a point where everyone has different ideas about what to do with life – for some people that is music and for others it’s not."
Rumours of a hiatus came without warning for fans. In July 2008, Cog hit the UK for the first time with Shihad and come 2009 the band smashed Big Day Out stages on all Australian dates.
A few months later the band toured Australia with English group Oceansize. It would be the band's most successful headlining tour to date. The momentum was as apparent to outsiders as it was to Borich perched upon the drum stool, taking it all in after so many years.
VIDEO: Check out the clip for the Cog tune "Are You Interested"
“When you kind of keep growing like that and you’re not going backwards and your dreams are becoming more fulfilled – for someone to put a stop to that it is hard," he says. “You kind of go, ‘ok’. It started to become a way of life and then to be back doing coffees again I was very pissed-off. But as hard as it is to respect people’s positions you have to because you don’t own anyone.”
For Borich, it seems an outlet has come in a couple of forms – a new Cog DVD and the medium he knows best – music. Gathering members of mid-90s outfit Scary Mother and adding Karnivool bass player Jon Stockman to the mix, Borich has formed the group, Floating Me. A new record is almost finished and the band has plans to tour.
In the meantime, Cog is hitting a few stages in support of the new DVD, The Sound of Three – 12 Years with You.
It’s a project which came as a record label idea but, in true Cog form, Borich and fellow band members Luke and Flynn Gower, collected as much footage as possible to make the release something which would reflect the integrity of the band. It features a 47-minute documentary on the trio, a photo gallery, live footage from the Whiskey in Los Angeles, every film clip the band has ever made and a bonus full-length live CD.
“To be able to be our own spokesmen for the band on a project like this shows who we are as a band,” Borich says.
Groups which Cog has befriended on the road also seem aware this tour is something of a milestone. Most shows have been tipped as featuring some “special guests”. Various bands have mysteriously graced street press gig listings but nothing has come from official channels. In Adelaide, defunct nu-metal act Snap to Zero has even reformed for the chance to play.
The excitement around the current tour and new projects seems to overshadow any uncertainty about where Cog will be in the future. “Don’t hold your breath for any new release from Cog,” Borich says.
There’s no hint of a defeatist tone from the drummer – rather the opposite. After all, these are musos who started their band by trafficking cassette tapes via snail mail. This is a band which had a vision and a following long before MP3s could float across the ether and spark interest on internet forums.
"The long-term goal was always to see how far we can push it and, for a while, we got to a position where all we did was the band," Borich says. When you finally get to that stage you know you want to continue to try and be a musician. I will keep creating music.”
Check out Cog on The Sound Of Three – 12 Years with You Tour:
Thursday June 3 – UniBar, Woolongong Friday June 4 – Billboard, Melbourne Saturday June 5 – The Governor Hindmarsh, Adelaide Friday June 11 – The Metro Theatre, Sydney Saturday June 12 – The Tivoli, Brisbane
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