Cobra Starship

• 1. Introduction

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  Cobra Starship was not born in a recording studio. In 2005, Gabe Saporta, bassist of the rock band Midtown, traveled to Arizona for what he described as a "vision quest." He spent time with Native American tribes and smoked peyote. The experience shifted something in him.

  Saporta came home and rented a house in the Catskill Mountains to begin writing alone. Before he had a single bandmate, he had a viral hit: "Hollaback Boy," a parody of Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl," posted on Myspace. The song spread quickly and gave Saporta a platform. From that strange beginning, a band took shape.

  Who joined him on that journey, and how did a desert vision and an internet parody turn into something the American music industry actually noticed?

• 2. Decaydance and the Debut

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  Midtown's management gave Saporta an opportunity that proved crucial: a slot to record a song for the 2006 film Snakes on a Plane. Alongside members of The Academy Is..., Gym Class Heroes, and The Sounds, he recorded "Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)," which became a minor hit. The work also helped establish a key relationship. Saporta signed to Decaydance Records, the label run by Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz, a close friend.

  With a deal in hand, Saporta began filling out the rest of the band. Nate Novarro was selling merchandise for touring act Hidden in Plain View when Saporta first spotted him and invited him to play drums. Guitarist Ryland Blackinton and bassist Alex Suarez took a different route: after seeing Saporta featured in Entertainment Weekly, both emailed him asking to join. Elisa Jordana came aboard as the group's keytar player.

  While the City Sleeps, We Rule the Streets was released on the 10th of October 2006. The album peaked at number 125 on the US Billboard 200 but topped the US Heatseekers Albums chart. In October 2006, the band supported Thirty Seconds to Mars on their Welcome to the Universe Tour. By December, Jordana was out. Saporta cited exasperation. Jordana had been bringing strangers onto the tour bus, throwing dance parties to Britney Spears songs, and was suspected of stealing Suarez's iPod. Victoria Asher replaced her as keytar player.

  Fall Out Boy's 2007 Honda Civic Tour was already on the calendar, with Cobra Starship joining +44 and The Academy Is... on the bill.

• 3. Party Jams in Brooklyn

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  Cobra Starship wrote most of ¡Viva la Cobra! before entering a single studio. While touring alongside Fall Out Boy in 2007, each member recorded their parts on their own laptop during bus rides between shows. By the time the band arrived at Mission Sound Studios in Brooklyn, New York, most of the album was already written. The sessions at Mission Sound took just twenty days. Patrick Stump, Fall Out Boy's lead singer, produced the record and contributed backup vocals.

  ¡Viva la Cobra! was released on the 23rd of October 2007. Critics called it "11 tracks of unabashed party jams, full of big hooky electropop, super-produced guitar crunch and the occasional T-Pain-style vocoder thrown in for good measure." The album peaked at number 80 on the US Billboard 200 and went on to sell 119,000 copies in the United States. The group drew on influences from 80s new wave and electronic music, naming Madonna, Depeche Mode, Arthur Baker, and Phoenix as touchstones for their sound.

  In the spring of 2007, Cobra Starship contributed "Awww Dip" to the TMNT: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles soundtrack. They also recorded a cover of the Commodores' "Three Times a Lady" for a Gilmore Girls episode. More unusually, the album's artwork appeared in promotional materials for the fourth-generation Apple iPod Nano in purple. The group headlined the Really Really Ridiculously Good Looking Tour from January to March 2008, with Metro Station, The Cab, and We the Kings as guests. They played Warped Tour 2008 and ran the SassyBack tour from the 7th of October through the 30th of November 2008, with Forever the Sickest Kids, Hit the Lights, and Sing It Loud. In summer 2008, the band recorded "I Kissed a Boy" in response to Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl"; the track appeared on the 25th of August on Fall Out Boy's Citizens For Our Betterment mixtape.

  By late 2008, with the SassyBack tour wrapped and "I Kissed a Boy" out in the world, the label was already pressing for a follow-up.

• 4. Good Girls Go Bad

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  In September 2008, Saporta was diagnosed with a cyst on his vocal cords, and the band did not like how the new material was shaping up either. In 2009, they retreated to a cabin in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania for two weeks to start over. While there, they broadcast live for four days on the streaming site Stickam. The followers who gathered around those streams called themselves the Shelf Kids, an unofficial fan club.

  Hot Mess was built with an unusually large group of collaborators. Kara DioGuardi, Kevin Rudolf, Benny Blanco, SAM and Sluggo, and Patrick Stump all worked on the record. The result landed closer to dance punk than anything the band had previously released. The album's first single paired Saporta with Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester. "Good Girls Go Bad" was produced by Kevin Rudolf and co-written by Rudolf and DioGuardi. It was added to iTunes on the 12th of May 2009. The song became the band's first entry on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 7. The RIAA certified it double platinum, with two million copies sold in the United States.

  At Los Premios MTV Latinoamérica 2009, Cobra Starship performed "Good Girls Go Bad" alongside Mexican star Paulina Rubio. The two acts shared the Best Performance award, voted by the public, beating Shakira, Nelly Furtado, and Wisin & Yandel. At the People's Choice Awards on the 6th of January 2010, Nicole Scherzinger performed with the band. The former Pussycat Dolls frontwoman filled in for Meester on "Good Girls Go Bad." The band was nominated for Favorite Music Collaboration that night but lost to Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Kanye West's "Run This Town."

  In late 2010, the band contributed "What Happens on the Dancefloor" to the deluxe edition of British singer Alexandra Burke's debut album Overcome. It would be their last new music for more than a year.

• 5. Night Shades

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  Cobra Starship began working on their fourth studio album in September 2010, and the process started badly. Saporta was working through a breakup with his girlfriend following the success of Hot Mess, and he found the early material "uninspired" and "really depressing." A trip to South America altered his perspective. He returned feeling "rejuvenated," with the electronic duo Major Lazer in mind as a new influence.

  The first single from the new album, "You Make Me Feel...," was released on the 10th of May 2011. Written by Steve Mac and Ina Wroldsen, it featured American singer-songwriter and rapper Sabi. The song peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and debuted at number 1 in New Zealand. The RIAA certified it triple platinum in the United States.

  Night Shades arrived on the 30th of August 2011 in the United States and on the 28th of October 2011 in the United Kingdom. The album's first-week numbers were a step back: 9,000 copies sold and a peak of number 50 on the Billboard 200. The band worked to stay visible through television. Appearances on Dancing with the Stars, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and 90210 followed the album's release. On the 9th of September 2011, they headlined the Fueled by Ramen 15th Anniversary show at Terminal 5 in New York. VersaEmerge, The Academy Is..., and A Rocket to the Moon were on the bill. That October, the band opened for Justin Bieber on the South American leg of his My World Tour.

  In March 2012, Cobra Starship appeared at Soundwave, the Australian touring rock festival. Afterward, with no new album on the horizon, Saporta took a break in 2013 to reunite with Midtown and married his girlfriend Erin Fetherston.

  On the 22nd of August 2014, after nearly three years of silence on new material, the band announced a new single. The song, called "Never Been in Love," featured Icona Pop.

• 6. Farewell and Return

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  "Never Been in Love" was released on the 25th of August 2014, but the band was already fracturing. On the 21st of October 2014, both Ryland Blackinton and Alex Suarez left the group to pursue separate careers. They were replaced by Eric Halvorsen, formerly of A Rocket to the Moon, and Andy Barr. The new lineup played their first show together at a Halloween party on the 30th of October 2014 at Saints and Sinner.

  On the 10th of November 2015, Cobra Starship posted a formal statement of dissolution on their website. In it, Saporta wrote: "I know that sometimes when things go on for too long, that magic can start to fade... And as hard as it is for all of us, I would rather close this chapter of our lives and be able to look back on it fondly than allow something that means so much to us stagnate." That same month, Saporta announced on his Beats1 Radio show that he was done performing. He and business associate Mike Carden launched T increment G // The Artist Group, a talent management firm intended to begin operations in the first quarter of 2016.

  The band's silence lasted until October 2021, when they released "Beautiful Life" through Fueled by Ramen. In December 2021, they followed with "Party With You." Both songs were previously unreleased b-sides from the Hot Mess sessions. They were released as part of Fueled by Ramen's 25th anniversary campaign and a limited edition vinyl reissue of Hot Mess.

  On the 4th of March 2024, the band joined Fall Out Boy onstage to perform "Good Girls Go Bad" together. That October, they played the When We Were Young festival. On the second day, influencer Tara Yummy joined them onstage to sing on "Good Girls Go Bad." The returning lineup consists of Saporta, Nate Novarro, and Victoria Asher, with a 2025 Warped Tour date in Long Beach scheduled ahead.

  The "fangs up" symbol, displayed on pins, foam fingers, and clothing since the band's earliest shows, is once again part of Cobra Starship's live performance.