The Sick Puppies are hard rockin' Aussies that are perhaps more well known for their softer side than for their angry guitar riffs. They first hit it big in 2006 with "All The Same", the first single off of their second and breakthrough album, Dressed Up As Life. The song reached the eight slot on the U.S. Modern Rock chart, aided by the "Free Hugs" campaign video - a video that won the 2006 "YouTube Video of the Year" which features a friend of the band, an Australian known as "Juan Mann" delivering free hugs to strangers as random acts of kindness. The campaign helped spawn an international holiday known as "Free Hugs Day" on the first Saturday of July as well as thrusting Sick Puppies into the American eye. Follow-up single, "My World" offered a taste at what much of the rest of Dressed Up As Life sounds like - hard riffs with heavy bass licks and angrier, darker lyrics than one would probably not correlate with free hugs.

Singer/lead guitarist, Shimon Moore, and bassist Emma Anzai started the band together in high school when they connected because of their shared love for fellow Aussie-Rockers, Silverchair. Upon finding a drummer, they became the Sick Puppies, named after the book of the same name by Carl Hiaasen that was popular amongst people Moore knew. Although the band has been compared to the likes of the Smashing Pumpkins for their female bassist (a pleasantly growing trend), the band has a much harder sound. An Australian TV show even called Emma the "Female Flea" due to her complex and compelling bass lines and liveliness on stage.

Sick Puppies hope to continue and build upon the success of Dressed Up As Life with their new album Tri-Polar, to be released on July 14. The album's first single is called "You're Going Down" and has been used by the WWE. Moore says of the song, "I asked myself, when you're getting pumped up to get into the ring, what would you want to hear? And that's what came out." "Street Fighter (War)" is another song off of the new album that was released for the commercial for the Street Fighter IV video game and may be a future single. The band is currently on tour with fellow hard-rockers Hurt and Veer Union.

Official Sick Puppies Website
Sick Puppies Myspace
Sick Puppies Twitter Page

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