Cyclefly

Cyclefly (typecased as CycleFly) were an alternative rock band from Cork, Ireland. The band had a cult underground following across the UK, Ireland, and the U.S., and were famous amongst fans for lead singer Declan O'Shea's wild on-stage persona and intense live presence. He was often known to climb to the top of lighting rigs and jump into the crowd. The band's work is also recognizable for the high-pitched, almost synthesized-sounding voice of O'Shea.

The band toured the UK and Ireland many times, including headline tours and support tours with Bush and Live. Two full-length albums were released over Cyclefly's career?Generation Sap in 1999 and Crave in 2002. The band also produced a now extremely rare and hard-to-find Dogabone EP and various singles. The second album, Crave, featured a guest vocal spot on "Karma Killer" from Linkin Park vocalist Chester Bennington. Cyclefly also collaborated with a Turkish rapper, J?nt?rk, on his song "Refuse, Resist, Say No".

Background

Once the band were signed to their label for their first two albums they became increasingly frustrated by the confines of being a 'signed act'. They spent a lot of time touring, especially in the United States, where they not only toured with Linkin Park but became a source of inspiration (for Linkin Park), forming a close friendship with Ciaran and Declan O'Shea also lending their own audio and mixing skills to the band on a number of occasions. Their frustrations with contractual obligations continually increased yet also managed to inspire the song "No Stress" which was nominated for numerous audio and video awards once released in 2001. The video (shot in Cork) featured and made a star of Kate Kelton who actually modeled her role in the video on an addict she had been watching in the alley below her hotel room window. Kate also gained notoriety as the 'Tic Tac girl' in a well known American advertising campaign.

Hueman and Mako

After Crave,and once free of the contractual obligations that hindered them so much the band disassembled and returned to Ireland. Once back in Cork Declan and Ciaran O'Shea built their own recording studio before going on to form a new group, Hueman, in 2004, replacing members Nono Presta and Jean-Mi Cavallo with Aiden Lee and Kieran O'Neill. As with Cyclefly, even though Hueman have not officialy disbanded, the band members increasing musical expansion into the world of production,sound engineering and band management have meant that Hueman and Cyclefly releases and ventures have become increasingly few and far between.In 2007 Cyclefy resurfaced to collaberate with JONTURK and an international team of MC's DJ's and rap artists on 'Refuse, Resist, Say No'-an strong anti war,violence and anti-terrorism song and video project with Declan taking the english speaking lead vocal role in the multi lingual song. Ciaran became increasingly involved in both production and tour management by becoming the US tour manager for the new Cork based Indie Punk band 'HOPE IS NOISE'. As well as touring with the band throughout 2007 he also mixed and recorded their debut album along with countless other projects for and with other up and coming Irish artists.

Subsequently, Declan O'Shea and Christian Montagne formed a new project, MAKO. Their 2007 album, Living on Air was released on their independent label, Drive Records.

Line-up

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Original Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclefly