Local Band Gets NFL Love

Every so often, a San Diego band will be featured on one of the world’s biggest stages. Earlier this year, for example, local soul/funk maestros the Styletones provided a groovy soundtrack (a cover of Sam & Dave’s instantly recognizable 1966 hit “Hold On, I’m Comin’”) for a Got Milk? commercial on Super Bowl Sunday. And some of you may remember that Chula Vista's P.O.D. played the halftime show during last season's NFC Championship Game in Atlanta. 

 

They’re not the only ones gettin’ some pigskin love, though: This past weekend and many others this season, millions of NFL fans heard the Burning of Rome’s song "Cowboys & Cut Cigars," which is now the official touchdown celebration song for the Dallas Cowboys. In fact, the song played repeatedly on Sunday during the game when the Green Bay Packers squeaked by Dallas. Yup, every time the NFC East team scores a touchdown at home, you’ll hear our hometown boys being blasted over the PA.

 

Turns out the band had nearly the same reaction we did when they first heard it was being used. "I had no idea it was being used until one morning, I woke up and there was a flood of text messages asking me if the Cowboys were using our song during their touchdown celebrations," lead singer/multi-instrumentalist Adam Traub told us. "I looked it up, and sure enough they were using it. And I guess they've actually just picked it up for a second season now." 

 

Even though it’s always surprising and very cool to hear a local band get major exposure (AT&T Stadium holds over 105,000 people, folks -- it’s no dive bar), it’s not altogether shocking that the team chose that particular song to soundtrack their scoring festivities. Traub said, "Matt Coy, the entertainment director for the Dallas Cowboys, is good friends with the owner of our record label [Surfdog Records], Dave Kaplan -- and they were talking shop one day and he heard the song. It made sense to him, and it made sense to us so we gave him the green light to do what he wanted with it. Little did we know it would become the team's touchdown song."

 

If you go to the band's website, you can watch their offical video for the song or hear it being used on the Official Dallas Cowboys Radio. With an immediately catchy sing-along chorus, it doesn’t take much for the team’s fans (drunk and sober alike) to get in on the action,"Our Dallas following sure seems to be growing quite a bit," laughed Traub. "And the Cowboys cheerleaders are always retweeting our tweets, so I guess it's working. They actually have a little dance that they do when it comes on, so they're pumped on it. But every so often, it'll be like 'Wow, we just got a whole lot of Facebook likes' and then we'll notice it's because the team is promoting the song on their website."

 

And if having the song used by one of America's most iconic teams wasn't enough, the band just got back from recording their upcoming 2014 album in -- yup, you guessed it -- Texas. "We were just out there with Paul Leary from the Butthole Surfers. He's produced everything from Roky Erickson, to Daniel Johnston, to the Meat Puppets, and all the Sublime records," said Traub. "He took us on for a few projects, and that wound up turning into 20 songs. So now we've got a full album, and we just finished mastering it. Should be ready for your eyes and ears in March next year."

 

Admittedly, as a resident of America’s Finest City, it’s a little saddening to see one of our own get pulled away by what Dallas residents like to call "America's team" -- after all, we’re huge San Diego Chargers fans here at SoundDiego -- but our loss is their gain.