Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are opening
up a file that smells distinctly like hairspray,
neon fabric, and maybe the inside of a tour bus
in 2007. I can smell it from here. We are looking
at a band with a name that just, it sounds like
it was generated by a sci -fi randomizer, Cobra
Starship. It's a name that makes absolutely zero
sense, and yet for a very specific slice of the
population. You know, it means everything. Exactly.
And look, if you were on the Internet, and I
mean the Wild West Internet of MySpace between,
like, 2006 and 2011, you know this band. Oh,
yeah. They were the kings of neon pop punk. But
even if you weren't part of that scene, you definitely
heard them on the radio. They had legitimate
top ten hits. But what I found so fascinating
going through these notes is that their origin
story isn't your typical friends meet in a garage
story. Well, it's weirdly spiritual. It is. It
involves a vision quest, a desert, and a complete
philosophical pivot on what a band is even supposed
to be. Let's get into that. Because usually when
we talk about emo or pop punk from the mid -2000s,
we're talking about very serious emotional music.
Right. Wearing your heart on your sleeve, crying
in the rain type of stuff. And Gabe Supporta,
the guy behind Cobra Starship, he came from that
world. He was in a band called Midtown. A very
respected, driving pop punk band. Right. Midtown
was successful, but they were serious. And by
2005, supportive was feeling. You know, stifled.
This is where the story just takes a sharp left
turn. He doesn't just quit and start a solo project
in a studio. No, he goes to the Arizona desert.
This is my favorite part. A literal vision quest.
The notes say he spent time with Native American
tribes and famously smoked peyote. And while
that sounds like a total rock and roll cliche,
the result wasn't just, I want to make more rock
music. Yeah. The epiphany was specific. He realized
he wanted to abandon the rigid rules of the emo
scene. He wanted to mix synth pop with hip hop,
music that didn't take itself so seriously. Which
is a huge risk. I mean, in 2005, if you played
guitar, you played guitar. You didn't mess around
with synthesizers and hip hop beats unless you
wanted to be, like, laughed out of the warp door.
Exactly. He was planning to alienate his entire
fan base. So he comes back from the desert. rents
a house in the Catskills, and starts writing.
But this is where we see the first glimpse of
Supporter's real genius. He wasn't just a musician.
He was a master of the early internet. The Hollaback
Boy story. Yeah. So Gwen Stefani releases Hollaback
Girl everywhere. Supporter records a parody response,
Hollaback Boy, and just throws it up on MySpace.
And for our listeners who might have missed the
MySpace era... We have to explain how different
this was. Oh, yeah. You couldn't just go viral
on TikTok. You had to build a page. Yeah. Code
your own HTML. Get people to share your song
and their profiles. It was work. And he crushed
it. That parody song gave him instant internet
notoriety. It proved he could capture attention.
And that buzz caught the eye of Pete Wentz. Of
course. The bassist of Fall Out Boy. The godfather
of the scene. Essentially the kingmaker of that
whole era. Wentz ran to Cadence Records and he
saw what Sephora was doing, signed him immediately.
But even with a record deal, Cobra Starship didn't
launch like a normal band. They didn't tour dive
bars for two years. No, they launched as a corporate
product. It's so brazen. I love it. They launched
with a song for the movie Snakes on a Plane.
You can't make this up. It sounds cynical, doesn't
it? A movie soundtrack tie -in. But it was brilliant.
Midtown's management got support of the gig in
2006. And the song was Snakes on a Plane. Bring
it. But supported didn't even have a band yet.
So who plays on the track? It's a who's who of
the Decadence roster. It's William Beckett from
the Academius. Travis McCoy from Gym Class Heroes.
Maja Iverson from The Sounds. It was like the
Avengers of Eyeliner. That is a perfect description.
A super group of the scene. And because the movie
had this massive internet hype. Oh, everyone
was talking about it. The song just rode that
wave. The video was in the closing credits. So
before they even played a real show, Cobra Starship
was a brand. Which creates a problem, right?
You have a hit song, you have a brand, but you
don't have a band. You've just got Gabe Saporta
and a backing track. Precisely. He needed to
assemble a crew fast to support the album. While
the city sleeps, we rule the streets. And the
way he did it is just. It's hilarious. It wasn't,
I called my buddies from high school. It was
so situational. He found the drummer, Nate Navarro,
selling merch for another band. He was the merch
guy for Hidden in Plain View. Supporta literally
plucked him from the t -shirt stand. And then
you have Rylan Blackington on guitar and Alex
Suarez on bass. They didn't even meet him in
person first. No, they saw a picture of him in
Entertainment Weekly and just emailed him. Hey,
saw you in a magazine. Need a bassist. The confidence
of that email. And it worked. They joined up.
But then we have to talk about the most controversial
instrument in the band. The key car. The keytar.
You cannot have neon pop punk without a keytar.
It's like legally required. It was the symbol
of their whole aesthetic. But the role of keytars
was apparently volatile. The original member
was Elisa Giordano. She's in the early photos
part of the lore. But she was gone by December
2006. And the reasons are just chaos. Supporta
claimed she was bringing random strangers onto
the tour bus hosting Britney Spears dance parties.
Which honestly sounds kind of fun. Maybe. But
on a tour bus, personal space is sacred. And
the final nail in the coffin. Supporta suspected
her of stealing the bassist's iPod. That is a
capital offense in 2006. Your iPod was your life.
If someone took your click wheel iPod... That's
it. You're out of the band. Trust is everything
in a confined space. So Elisa is out and in comes
Victoria. Today, everyone is a bedroom producer.
But in 2007, bands were still spending hundreds
of thousands on studio time. Cobra Starship was
doing it on a MacBook. It gave the album this
very specific sound. It's gritty. It's electronic.
It's loud. They call them unabashed party jams.
And Patrick Stump from Fall Out Boy was the architect
behind it. Totally. He produced it. He sang backup.
He's even in the Guilty Pleasure video. He was
like the sixth member. He understood that Sapporta
wanted to blend genres right. They were mixing
disco, pop, and punk. And they were having fun
with it. They covered Katy Perry's I Kissed a
Girl, but changed it to I Kissed a Boy. Such
a campy, fun move. They were leaning into the
absurdity. And this is when the fangs up thing
started. Yes, the two fingers curled like fangs.
It's a small detail, but from a marketing perspective,
it's genius. They gave fans a physical way to
identify each other. You'd see it in every MySpace
profile picture. Yeah. Viral marketing before
we really use that term. And speaking of marketing,
I didn't realize their album art was used to
promote the iPod Nano. The fourth gen purple
one. It's a perfect circle. They fire a keytarist
over an iPod and then they become the face of
the iPod. It just shows how commercially viable
they were. Okay, so they're riding high. But
then 2008 hits. The pressure starts to mount.
Label wants another hit. Soporta has a cyst on
his vocal cords. Writer's block. It's the classic
panic. So they do what bands do. Retreat to a
cabin in the woods. The Poconos in Pennsylvania.
But because they are Cobra Starship, they don't
just go off the grid. They broadcast their entire
lives on the internet. This is the part I think
is most historically significant. They used a
platform called Stick 'Em. Oh, man. Stick them.
That is a deep cut. For those who don't know,
it was live streaming before Twitch, before Instagram
Live. It was raw, unmoderated, totally chaotic.
And they just set up cameras and streamed for
four days straight. Why? To break the wall between
the band and the fans by letting people watch
them eat, sleep, and write. They created this
intense parasocial bond. The fans who watched
weren't just listeners anymore. They were insiders.
Exactly. And that group of fans became known
as the Shelf Kids. The Shelf Kids. I love that.
It was an unofficial fan club born out of that
live stream. It proved support understood that
engagement was just as important as the music
itself. And that cabin trip worked. It broke
the block and led to the album Hot Mess. And
Hot Mess changed everything. This is where they
go from famous on the Internet to famous at the
grocery store. And the catalyst was one song,
Good Girls Go Bad. I can hear that synth line
in my head right now. It's undeniable. And they
brought in Leighton Meester to feature on the
track. Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl. The absolute
peak of pop culture in 2009. If you wanted to
signal you were cool and party ready, you referenced
Gossip Girl. Having her on the track was a massive
coup. And the song just exploded. Top ten on
Billboard, double platinum. It peaked at number
seven. This is the moment they officially crossed
over. No longer just a warped tour band. They
were pop stars. And usually when a scene band
gets that big, the original fans revolt. They
call them sellouts. Did that happen? To an extent,
sure. But Cobra Starship had always been about
selling out in a way. Their first song was basically
a movie commercial. That's a good point. You
can't accuse someone of going pop when they started
with a keytar and a dance beat. They were always
a party band, so they ride this wave into 2011.
But the music landscape is shifting. The emo
thing is dying out. EDM and DJs are taking over.
And Supporta, being the trend watcher he is,
feels the stagnation. He goes through a breakup,
feels uninspired. And takes another trip. This
time to South America. Another vision quest.
Less spiritual, more musical. He gets really
into Major Lazer, the electronic dance hall project.
He comes back wanting to infuse that energy into
the band. The result is the album Nightshades.
And they strike gold again. Yeah. You make me
feel. Featuring Sabi. Another massive hit peaked
at number seven again. Triple platinum this time.
That is incredibly hard to do. To have a massive
hit in 2009 with one sound and then pivot to
a more straight ahead club banger. in 2011 and
hit the top 10 again it shows serious adaptability
they were performing on dancing with the stars
they appeared on 90210 they were a radio pop
staple but peaks are just that peaks and the
come down seemed pretty swift after nice shades
things get quiet they tried in 2014 they released
a single with ikona pop never been in love which
is a bop by the way very piano heavy It is, but
it didn't catch fire. The album that was supposed
to follow never happened, and then the lineup
started to fracture. Right. Late 2014, Alex Suarez
and Rylan Blackington both left the band. Losing
your bassist and guitars at the same time feels
like a death knell. It really was. And about
a year later, November 2015, Supporta made the
announcement. Cobra Starship was done. I read
his statement and it was so honest. Usually bands
say creative differences. He said the magic can
start to fade. That is rare self -awareness.
He realized that Cobra Starship was a project
built on a specific, youthful, chaotic energy.
You can't fake that. If you try to drag it out
past its expiration date, it just becomes embarrassing.
So he pulled the plug. And he didn't just quit
the band, he quit performing entirely. He pivoted
completely to the business side, right? Started
a talent management company. Yep. Ted Shee, the
artist group. He wanted to take all that knowledge
about viral marketing and branding and use it
to help new artists. Which makes total sense.
The guy who navigated MySpace and Stick 'Em in
the top 40 clearly knows how the industry works.
So for a few years, Codra Starship was just a
memory. Until the 2020s. Because if there is
one force stronger than gravity and music, It
is nostalgia. The Elder Emo revival. It's huge
right now. My Chemical Romance, Paramore. It
was only a matter of time before the snakes came
back. It started slowly. 2021, fueled by Ramen,
their old label, celebrated its 25th anniversary.
They released two unreleased B -sides. Beautiful
Life and Party With You. And we have to mention
the parody. Of course. Party With You got a Hanukkah
-themed parody version called Party With the
Jews. Classic gave support of humor. But the
real news was the stage return. 2024, the When
We Were Young Festival. The epicenter of the
nostalgia economy. It's tens of thousands of
people in their 30s reliving their teenage years.
Cobra Starship reunited for it. And they didn't
just play the hits and leave. They did something
that proves they still get the internet. They
brought out Tara Yummy. Such a smart move. Tarayemi
is a massive influencer for Gen Z. She's huge
on YouTube and TikTok. So by bringing her out
to sing Good Girls Go Bad, they bridged the gap.
They connected the MySpace generation to the
TikTok generation. It's the same playbook. In
2006, the It platform, MySpace. In 2009, the
It girl, Leighton Meester. In 2024, the It influencer,
Tarayemi. Consistency is key. And it's working.
They're confirmed for Warped Tour 2025 Riot Fest.
They are fully back on the circuit. So when you
look back at it all, a lot of critics at the
time dismissed them. They were seen as a joke,
a guilty pleasure. Or just a manufactured pop
act wearing punk clothes. But I think time has
been very kind to them. I mean, look at the landscape
now. Every artist is expected to be a brand.
Every artist is expected to be extremely online
to create viral moments, to collaborate across
genres. Cobra Starship was doing that in 2006.
They were blurring. the lines between internet
celebrity and rock star before we really even
knew those lines could be blurred. Exactly. They
treated the internet as an instrument. They played
the algorithm just as well as they played the
music. Were they the coolest band in the room?
Maybe not to the purists. But they were certainly
one of the most visionary in terms of understanding
where the culture was going. And they wrote some
absolute bangers along the way. Good girls go
bad. Still fills a dance floor. You can't argue
with that. So here's my question for you listening.
Was Cobra Starship a product of their time, a
hot mess of the MySpace era? Or were they actually
pioneers who wrote the blueprint for the modern
pop star? It's a fine line between a gimmick
and a genius strategy. I think they might have
been a bit of both. I think I'm leaning towards
genius. If you need me, I'll be trying to find
my old purple hoodie. Thanks for listening to
this deep dive into Cobra Starship. Keep your
fangs up. Goodbye everyone.