Take Tudor, a Transylvanian singer looking for inspiration in the UK. Add in Wayne, a Mancunian songwriter, and his amazing set of fellow Mancunian musicians, James, Shaun and Ryan… and right there you have all the ingredients that make up five-piece guitar band The Cuza. The band live, love and hang out in the musical city of Manchester. Their latest single is the uplifting "A Life Full Of Colour” – out now.
It was Wayne who, back in 2018, in a quest to form a band, had been working on a wealth of material and so brought together cohorts James, Shaun and Ryan to develop it. After nearly giving up on their search for a vocalist they came across Tudor in 2019. The chemistry was instant: The Cuza was complete.
Since that moment, the band have revelled in originality (a rare thing) and pride themselves in being both prolific and innovative in the studio, drawing from collective eclectic musical influences: from Northern Soul to Death Metal, from Bowie to Slayer. You get the idea: the band love anything that makes them, think, feel, dance, sing, cry, jump - and more besides: a.k.a. “no barriers”. This glorious fusion of cultures and personalities has resulted in a seemingly unstoppable flow of fabulous music. Sumptuous melodies, captivating lyrics, soaring guitars, energy, beauty, edge and pathos; all delivered with hook, after hook, after hook.
They are also incredible live, supporting the likes of New Model Army, never seeming to play the same set twice with their own unique delivery of an ever-growing musical catalogue. Having already recorded at Abbey Road, Metropolis and Larkins Farm, they’ve pulled twelve tracks from that catalogue for the long-awaited debut album to be released later this summer, produced by the legend that is Adrian Bushby (Foo Fighters and Muse). Wayne explains the rich layers in this forthcoming body of work: “The debut album is a great representation of our early development as a band, there’s a variety of moods in there and every track has a story to tell..”
We decided to find out more about the band, their thoughts and their future plans…
Hi there - who are we speaking to and where do we find you today ? I'm Wayne .. one of the 5 Cuzoids ..We are in the tropical northern English city, and centre of the musical universe .. Manchester.
The Cuza is a cool name for a band, what made you choose it? Our singer Tudor is Transylvanian, and we stumbled across the name Alexander Cuza, founder of modern day Romania & also a top guy. Cuza is such a great word, so we turned it into a kind of secret society.
How would you describe your sound? Unique to ourselves as we all have very different Musical influences, from Metal to Funk to Bowie. But if you had to pin it, you'd describe it as hooky melodic thoughtful energetic interesting alternative Rock that likes to tell a story. I guess ?
The new single 'A Life Full Of Colour' is out now; it is a very reflective song. What inspired it? I attended a funeral of a friend who chose to leave us all way to early. I can only imagine that he had somehow lost sight of the colours of life, the beauty, the wonder, the hope. So rather than write about the loss, the pain & the heartbreak, I wrote about those colours, and how we all somehow must find a way to keep them in sight.
The video is quite chilled. What was the concept for it? Our singer Tudor & his girlfriend Ana came back from a trip to Lisbon & Porto with incredible footage of people, like themselves, just enjoying being alive, living in the now, taking in those colours. Tudor put the video together quite brilliantly from that footage & we all thought ... Wow... that’s the perfect video for that song.
Your debut album is due to land later in the year. What's it called and what can we expect from it? Our Manager Andrina loves the song A Life Full of Colour & suggested we use that as the Album title also ... and so it became. The Album is a collection of 12 very different tales, stories, inspirations. No two tracks being the same. It has thoughtful moments and lots of jump around moments. It reflects our formative years perfectly.
What are your plans for the rest of 2023? We are putting together a European tour later in the year to support the Album release. We also have upcoming gigs in Manchester & London ... news to follow ... and festival season will be seeing a lot of The Cuza this year ... again ... watch this space. Plus 2 further singles, Leeches ( 23rd March ) & Bones ( 23rd May ) coming out prior to Album release. We had a lot of fun making the videos for those.
