COWBOY HUNTERS SHARE HIGHLY REQUESTED SINGLE “PUNCHED IN THE HEAD“
TO PLAY LAUNCH SHOW AT CAMDEN’S THE ELEPHANTS HEAD TONIGHT
Cowboy Hunters by Lucy Craig @lucycrgart
Glasgow’s Cowboy Hunters have finally released Punched In The Head, the single that’s been racking up requests for months before a single stream was available. The band mark the release with a free-entry show at The Elephants Head in Camden tonight, Wednesday 30th September, with the room already spoken for after a ballot that far outstripped capacity.
Listen to “Punched In The Head” HERE
Characteristically not mincing their words, on the single, Megan Pollock and Desmond Johnston said, “
EVERY 1 CAN STOP WHINGEIN AT US THAT PUNCHED IN THE HED COMIN OUT.”
“Punched In The Head” is punk meets grime dragged through a demonic fairground ride, the vocal sitting somewhere between a sneer and a shrug. It’s the fullest expression yet of Pollock and Johnston’s infectiously crass brand of distorted, grizzly nonchalance, both in performance and personality, the kind that’s rabble-rousing crowds across the UK, stirring discourse in the comments, and sending their streaming numbers to new heights.
The track’s pre-release numbers tell their own story. It clocked up over 3 million Instagram views before today, with fans flooding the comments demanding to know when they could finally hear it. Over the past four weeks alone, Cowboy Hunters have picked up 1.3 million Spotify streams and seen their monthly listeners more than double to over 200,000, all without so much as a debut album to their name yet, while their Instagram content has reached over 7 million views in the same period. That demand has been building across two live sessions released in recent months. A Beach House Sessions set filmed in Brighton three months ago sits at 187,000 views, while a session from Glasgow’s Treacle Sessions, released just a month ago, has already reached 287,000. Both sets lean heavily on unreleased material, and the comments are the same story each time: fans begging for the songs to come out.
It’s not just the numbers either. Oli Sykes, Kesha, CMAT, Frank Carter, Machine Gun Kelly, Florence Pugh and Juliette Lewis have all shown support for the band recently, while Princess Superstar gave her approval to their cover of “Perfect (Exceeder)”.
Tonight’s show also brings news of PENGSHUi joining as support, following the pair’s live collaboration at Burn It Down festival earlier this year. Expect a rowdy one. Further live news is on the way…
Watch the Treacle Live session version of “Punched In The Head” below.
Praise for Cowboy Hunters
“exuberant rave-rock hybrid that’s messy, nihilistic and oodles of fun.” – Rolling Stone UK
“It’s absurd. It makes me laugh, but the music is so weirdly aggressive it makes me want to smash something, or maybe jump into a mosh pit of clowns.” – Stereogum
“It’s a rambunctious, manic punk show full of unpredictable shenanigans.” – CLASH
