Gibraltarian mafia

Breed 77

Breed 77 (pronounced "Breed Seven-Seven") is a band whose music is a fusion of rock, metal and flamenco.

Origin

Breed 77 comes from the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. Old Gibraltarian school friends; Paul Isola, Danny Felice, Stuart Cavilla met up in London and became informally known as the Gibraltarian Mafia. When, in late April 1996, this circle of friends formed a band, they wanted a name to reflect their joint origins and called themselves simply Breed. The band were forced to change their name because it was previously registered by Steve Hewitt (formerly of Placebo) on his vanity record label. Stuart Cavilla, the band's bass player, had previously worked as a motorcycle courier under the call sign of Kilo 77 or K77, and the band became Breed 77.

Awards

In 1998, Kerrang! readers voted Breed 77 the 'Best Unsigned Band'. In 1999, they won both the Metal Hammer and Kerrang! awards for the best new band. Then in 2001 they signed a five album deal with Albert Productions, the legendary Australian publisher of AC/DC.

Music releases

Breed 77's self-titled debut album was first released in November 2001 and due to a high demand was re-released in April 2005. Their second album Cultura was released on 3 May 2004 and went to number 61 in the UK album charts and number 3 in the Rock Album Chart. Cultura produced the singles "La Última Hora", "The River", and "World's on Fire". "The River" managed to secure their first UK Top 40 position, getting to number 39 in the UK Singles Chart. "World's On Fire" just missed out scraping in at number 43, but was number 1 in the Rock Singles Chart. Neither song received any mainstream radio air-time and the videos were featured only on the Scuzz and Kerrang! TV music television channels.

Breed 77 released their third album In My Blood (En Mi Sangre) internationally on 11 September 2006. In My Blood (En Mi Sangre) was produced by Ron Saint-Germain (The Saint) noted for his work with Soundgarden, Tool, Creed and Bad Brains. Two bonus tracks were produced by Greg Haver (Manic Street Preachers). The first single from this album, "Alive") was out on 12 June 2006, also known as Download Monday, and reached number 6 on the Rock Singles Chart. The second single was "Blind", released on 4 September 2006. Their last single to date is "Look at Me Now", released on 23 April 2007. The single includes a special cover of the song 'Zombie', by The Cranberries.

In early 2007, the band released the iTunes exclusive album Un Encuentro (to coincide with the launch of "iTunes Latino". The album featured 11 songs from previous albums but all sung in Spanish. This album was re-released in physical CD format on 7 May 2007.

The band is currently writing and demoing their 5th studio album, as of yet un-named. Recording is planned for summer-time and release for early Autumn 2008. The first two tracks have been announced as "The Horns of Hattin" (April 2008) and "Wake Up" (July 2008).

On tour

Breed 77 have toured consistently over the years, and have supported bands such as Black Sabbath, Machine Head, Danzig, Ill Niño and Napalm Death. Now as a headlining act in their own right are Download Festival favourites and have built up a loyal following.

They headlined a UK tour in September 2006. Breed 77 played at Santa Cruz X 103.9's Jingleballs concert on December 6 2006, in Santa Cruz, California. It was their second live U.S. performance. Their first performance was at the South-by-Southwest (SXSW) music festival in 2005 in Austin, Texas, at the now defunct Hard Rock Cafe. In 2008 they were invited to open mago de oz's concerts in Mexico.