Cobia

about

How does a heavy band manage to set itself apart in an era when anybody with an Internet connection can upload their riffs for anyone to hear? For Chicagoland modern rock quintet Cobia, it’s a much more hopeful approach to a traditionally dark genre of music that springs from the camaraderie between the members of the band and a mutual understanding of what they’ve all lived through in their lives. There are two main threads in the history of Cobia, but ultimately, they arrive at the same place. On the one hand, guitarist Mike Potesta, drummer Andrew Nelson and bassist Trevor Greene have known each other since childhood – well in advance of their musical aspirations – and have that kind of unshakeable bond that comes with that kind of familiarity. On the other hand, singer Adam Clarke and guitarist Derek Jones both served in the U.S. military in the Middle East, with Clarke doing two tours in Iraq as a field medic with the Marine Corps. Both of these paths forge brotherhood, either through time, intensity, or both, and that comes through in the band’s music, where the sharing of experiences from the everyday to the extraordinary is funneled through their songs. One of those extraordinary experiences is narrated in the opening track from the band’s debut record Blood, Sand & Oil – produced and recorded by Steven Gillis at Transient Sound in Chicago – in which Clarke recalls the deaths of two of his fellow Marines in Iraq. While that helps describe the emotional gravity tha