Pre-1998 Flynn Gower and
Lucius Borich (the son of renowned Australian blues guitarist
Kevin Borich) were friends at their Bondi
high school in the 1980s. Borich being a
drummer, and Flynn being a
guitarist, they would occasionally jam. As their school careers finished, Borich formed the band
Juice while Flynn formed the five-piece
metal band
The Hanging Tree, popular in the Sydney live circuit. In 1995, after the release of Juice's debut album, Borich left the band and joined The Hanging Tree. Shortly after the release of their debut, Borich left the band and the country, travelling to the United States to follow a career of session drumming. There Borich did session drumming for a large range of genres, writing songs on his guitar all the while. Flynn, in Sydney, wanted to form a band and contacted Lucius, eventually resulting in the formation of Cog.
Formation and early releases (1998–2003) Initially, the band was to form in the United States, but Borich chose to travel home. He'd find a disappointed Flynn, who had already sold all his gear in preparation for the move. The drum, bass, and guitar parts for what would become the
Just Visiting EPs were recorded shortly after, in 1998, with Borich assuming bass duties. The vocals would be recorded two years later. To fill out the bass in live shows, Flynn recruited his brother Luke, formerly of the Sydney band Tax. After they formed this legitimate lineup, they toured aggressively, clocking up thousands of kilometres of weekly driving between
Sydney and
Melbourne. Their first residency, at the
Forrest Inn Hotel in the Sydney suburbs, was without a vocalist. They encouraged people to send them demos for the vocal job, but the band were so unimpressed with the demos that Flynn trained his voice to fill the vacancy. Their breakthrough gig was a Wednesday headlining slot at
Excelsior Hotel in
Surry Hills, where they packed out the club consistently for 4 months. They were recognised with a nomination for "best emerging live band in
NSW" at the Australian Live Music Awards. In 2001, the band signed with underground label Little Samurai Records and prepared to release the
Just Visiting Part One and
Just Visiting Part Two EPs. The two EPs, despite the slight differences in style between them, were written and recorded at the same time. The band chose not to release the studio session as a full album so they would not lose their debut album virginity, and would get twice the publicity. They grabbed a breakthrough gig just before the release of
Just Visiting Part One, supporting
System of a Down at the
Hordern Pavilion.
Just Visiting Part One was released in February 2002 and was still consistently appearing in the
ARIA Top 20 Heavy Rock/Metal singles/EPs chart over 2 years after its release. In July, the song "Bondi" was added to Andrew Haug's Triple J 3 Hours of Power Compilation.
Just Visiting Part Two was released in October that same year and was also still appearing in the ARIA Top 20 Heavy Rock/Metal singles/EPs charts after two years. That year, Cog also won "best emerging live band in NSW" at the Australian Live Music Awards. After an extensive tour supporting the two EPs, including a slot at the
Big Day Out in 2003, Cog recorded a cover of "Open Up", a single released in 1993 by
Leftfield featuring
John Lydon. This song had been a live favourite for the previous year. Shortly afterwards, Cog continued to write and demo for their debut album.
The New Normal (2004–2006) While the vast majority of the material for
The New Normal had already been demoed by late 2003, with some songs first performed live as far back as May 2002, Cog did not have the kind of financial backing needed to record their album as they desired. However, after months of limbo, Cog were signed by Aloha Management (
Shihad,
Killing Heidi) and subsequently, former Universal Music Australia head Paul Krige's label Difrnt Music. During the later months of 2004, Cog recorded their debut album,
The New Normal, in the small logging town of
Weed, California with
producer Sylvia Massy (
System of a Down and
Tool). Shortly afterwards, the band performed a short tour of the east coast and played at the inaugural
Pyramid Rock Festival. The album was released in Australia in April 2005, to a debut of No. 19 in the
ARIA Charts, and a No. 1 debut in the
Australian Independent Recordings (AIR) album charts.
The New Normal was one of the nominees for the 2005 Triple J J Award. In support of the album, the band headlined a full Australian tour in April and May with supports from
Karnivool and In the Grey. During July they supported
Shihad on a tour of
New Zealand. During October they toured the country with supports from The Fumes, Grand Fatal, and
Jakob. They finished the year with appearances at
Homebake, the
Pyramid Rock Festival, and the
Big Day Out. Cog supported Australian rock group
Grinspoon at the
Adelaide race event
Clipsal 500 and appeared at the
Rock-It Festival in
Perth on 19 March with
Silverchair,
Grinspoon, and Shihad amongst others. During March and April, the band toured the country in support of the final radio single from
The New Normal, "Resonate".
Sharing Space (2007–2010) Cog, from June 2006 onwards, planned to spend a portion of the year in the
United States, promoting a release of
The New Normal there through extensive touring. However, this release was pushed back to 2007. On 9 January, Cog began to record and write tracks for their second album, entitled
Sharing Space, at Weed, California, once again with
Sylvia Massy producing. They took a break from recording in June, bouncing back to Australia for the
Boomerang Tour for a number of shows. The short tour run included Fremantle, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, where several new songs were premiered, including "Bird of Feather" (then titled "Double Triple") and "What If". Cog toured Australia more extensively in November 2007, in support of "What If?", the first single from the new album due April 2008. This tour marked Cog's first trip to North Queensland. On 3 November, Cog released "What If", the first single from
Sharing Space with the title track to the album as a b-side. On 12 November, this song debuted at No. 21 on the physical ARIA singles chart, the only new entry debuting higher being
Alicia Keys.
Sharing Space was released on 12 April 2008. In February, the band announced that they will be touring around
Australia in support of Sharing Space in May and June. They performed shows around the country with two
New Zealand bands,
Kora and
Jakob, as well as local
Melbourne prog-rock band Sleep Parade and
Brisbane's Melodyssey. Despite the conflict and difficulty of the recording process of
Sharing Space, Borich commented on the process saying "You can’t really put a timeframe on creating art...sometimes you have to struggle through in order to come up with the goods musically. Otherwise it’s not going to have any validity or longevity". In July 2008, Cog performed in
England for the first time at
Shepherd's Bush Empire and
GuilFest with
New Zealand band
Shihad. They also expressed interest in releasing
Sharing Space in
Europe. In 2008, the band had the opportunity to re-release their 2002 EPs
Just Visiting Part One and
Just Visiting Part Two as a full album;
Just Visiting, with the intended track listing and the never previously heard original (long) version of
Bondi.
Lucius Borich spent time at
Studios 301 mastering the album so the recordings sounded their best. In June and July 2009, the band toured Australia with support from British-based band
Oceansize. The tour was the band's most successful headlining tour to date. The band at the 2009
Big Day Out, performing at all the Australian dates. In 2010, the band released
The Sound of Three: 12 Years With You, a CD/DVD produced by Lucius Borich. Containing a recording from the band's "Between Oceans" tour, and a documentary on this history of the band (on the DVD only). The band toured the album in early June; Lucius Borich had hinted in several interviews that these might have been the last shows Cog would play as a band. Cog played what many had believed to be their last show at The Tivoli in Brisbane on Saturday 12 June 2010, thanking their various crew members one by one between songs. The band finished with "No Other Way", the opening track from their second album,
Sharing Space. However, the band played four more shows - one at the Full Noise Festival in
Townsville, one at a Sydney nightclub, and two smaller shows in the outer Melbourne suburbs of Frankston and Ferntree Gully. Their Sydney show on 22 December 2010 was Cog's last show until they reform six years later.
Hiatus (2011–2016) Lucius Borich soon joined
Floating Me, a band featuring ex-members of
Scary Mother and Jon Stockman of
Karnivool. Floating Me released their debut self-titled album in 2011. Flynn and Luke Gower went on to form The Occupants in 2012. Their first single, "I've Been Thinking", was released in April 2013. It was followed by an EP in 2014.
Reunion and The Middle (2016–present) In late January 2016, the official Cog Facebook page was updated for the first time in nearly three years with new photos. In the weeks that followed, the band put up entire photo albums of previously unseen photos taken on tours from over the years. This subsequently lead to speculation regarding the band getting back together. The following month, it was confirmed that Cog would reunite for a run of headlining shows in July 2016. Throughout 2017, Cog have been working on new material, posting regular updates to the band's Instagram account of the album's progress. The band's single "The Middle" was released in 2018, making it their first new music in ten years. They have since released two more singles titled "Altered States" and "Drawn Together", the latter being the focus of the upcoming 2019 Drawn Together Tour.
Controversy In 2021, Cog stirred controversy when frontman Flynn Gower shared posts of
anti-vaccination rhetoric and
conspiracies surrounding COVID-19 on social media, while also publicly voicing his support for the
anti-lockdown protests in New South Wales. ==Discography==