Speed Dial Hot Picks

Cobra Starship on tour with Opera

Opera delivers Cobra-branded Opera Mini to Cobra fans

By Stephanie Jorgl

Opera's "Rock with Opera" division recently caught up with the fast-rising electronic, dance pop band, Cobra Starship, amidst its sold-out US tour in support of its second release, "iVIVA LA COBRA!" released in October 2007. The record is produced by Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy. This album follows the band's successful 2006 debut record, "WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS, WE RULE THE STREETS."

Cobra Starship. Looking Really Really Ridiculously Good in Opera Mini

While touring, Cobra Starship is known to put on a show ridden with more rock and stage antics than a typical electronic act, and most of the dates on their "Really Really Ridiculously Good Looking Tour" have already sold out, weeks in advance. "Our live performance is a lot more like a rock show," says lead guitarist Ryland Blackinton. "We really like and are inspired by arena rock. We're obviously not on that level, but we have a cool light show and we like to make it feel special every night so it's a lot of fun."

The tour, so far, has been unbelievable for the band. "We have been selling out most of the venues and it's been going really well," says Ryland. "We're getting to revisit a lot of the places that we went to as a support act and now we're selling them out. That's just a gratifying feeling that's been very nice."After this leg of the tour wraps, the band will be heading out to play shows in Europe.

Cobra and Technology

Cobra Starship's love of technology extends well beyond drum machines and the Logic-based digital recording home studio on their tour bus. They know, love and use Opera Mini, and recently partnered with Opera to deliver a custom version of the Opera Mini free mobile web browser to their fanbase. The Cobra Starship-branded version of Opera Mini comes with a Cobra Starship skin and all of Cobra Starship's favorite web sites already set up as presets in the browser's Speed Dial. It also has a Cobra RSS feed built into the RSS feeds section of the mobile browser.

This is one of the reasons that Ryland is excited about the new Cobra Starship version of Opera Mini. "I regularly use Opera Mini on my BlackBerry," he says. "I've used Opera Mini since before BlackBerrys were able to natively handle complex web sites."

Connecting with their fans through technology is not a new thing for Cobra Starship. "A big part of our thing is being able to connect with our fans because we like our fans a lot and we have a really good dialog with them," explains Ryland. "We always take the time to speak with them after shows and to take photos with them. And being able to access blogs and messageboards and information quickly online while on the road makes it a lot easier."

With the new Cobra-branded free Opera Mini mobile web browser download, Cobra fans can now use Opera Mini to get the latest Cobra news, and to check out the band's top web sites. Fans can also use Opera Link to synch their desktop Opera web browser's Speed Dial with their Cobra-branded Opera Mini's Speed Dial on their phones.

Cobra on Speed Dial

Following are nine web sites that Cobra Starship selected to have featured in the free Cobra-branded Opera Mini mobile web browser. Ryland explains what it is about each site that he and the other members of Cobra Starship love so much!

"I just found out about our MyOpera page," says Ryland. "It's awesome." The Cobra Starship MyOpera page links to the latest Cobra Starship tour dates and features a blog, photos, and links. The MyOpera page allows the band to do live MMS blogging via its built-in SMS blogging tool, so the band can upload photos to MyOpera while on tour.

"As a band, we share the responsibility of updating our MySpace page," says Ryland. Prior to being in Cobra Starship, he had never been too into blogging. "I'd never really published anything before, and I wasn't big into MySpace or Friendster," he says. "But I've always really liked Flicker, sharing photographs and stuff like that."

But now, to Ryland, blogging is "pretty cool." He says, "I don't feel like I have to force it or anthing like that. In the last year and a half I've done a lot of fun things and have had a lot of interesting things to share with people. I guess if I was still sitting around in Brooklyn, eating beans... being bummed out about not having any money, I wouldn't have been as into blogging. But I've been able to travel to interesting places, so that's always fodder for an entry."

"Community Live Journal is a site that is run by our fans and is very important to us," says Ryland. "I interact with them and post updates every once in a while about what I'm doing, chat with kids and stuff."

"I Wikipedia a lot," says Ryland. "I like to Wikipedia music-related stuff-like if there is a band's record on my iPod and I want to know more about them. Or I will just Wikipedia other stuff for the fun of it."

But the Wikipedia craze extends well beyond music research for Cobra Starship. "One day, we wanted to know how chewing gum was manufactured," explains Ryland. "So we read about that for a couple hours. We pretty much Wikipedia anything we can think of. We also Wikipedia each other, which is pretty funny."

"MyOpenBar.com is great site and is one of a kind," attests Ryland. "One or two years ago, Alex and I were younger and had more of a lust for nightlife. We could go onto MyOpenBar.com, type in the date, it would tell you all of these cool places that had complimentary or promotional liquor for free. That's how we would decide what to do at night, because we didn't have any cash!" Back then, the site was just for New York, but now it's expanded and they have listings for many more cities.

Ryland has a past as a PA on TV show, "The Bachelorette," so naturally he might want to IMDB himself. But all of the Cobra Starship group members enjoy a little IMDBing from time to time. "I like a lot of movies and there's always that moment where you're going, 'Wait, I know that person! What else is that person in?'" says Ryland. "I also love looking up the biography information. Like, you're going, 'No way...Tom Cruise isn't really 5'3"!' Then you check the stats on IMDB, and you go, 'Wait! He is!' Things like that."

Cobra Starship music has enjoyed placement within films like "Snakes on a Plane" and "Ninja Turtles." So IMDB is also a good place to check for the latest Cobra Starship soundtrack placements.

When it comes to online satire, Ryland feels that The Onion "Can't be beat." He says, "Joe Garden is a really funny satirist-he's the guy that writes the Jim Anchower editorials in The Onion and I love those! I had to find out who the real Jim Anchower was-I probably Wikipedia'd it-but when I found out and then I reached out to him. The Onion always cracks me up."

"Gawker is the best!" says Ryland. "I love to read Blue States Lose. That section always has a lot of really interesting photos of fashion-forward, hipster-type people in New York and elsewhere, and that always really cracks me up. But Gawker in general has some pretty interesting stuff."

"Ebaumsworld is a great place to watch funny videos of people getting hit in the genitals or trying out a homeade ramp for their dirt bike," says Ryland.

"Seanbaby is a guy from Portland and his web site has all of these really old ads for like Frosted Flakes, etc." explains Ryland. "They're all really politically incorrect because they're from the 20's and 30's, and he has this very cyncial, sarcastic and funny take on all of those things. So we love that one. Everybody should check that out. It isn't updated often, but you can spend hours reading it. It is hilarious."