Cursive (band)

Cursive
Cursive performing at the 2007 Siren Music Festival
Background information
Origin	Omaha, Nebraska, United States
Genres	Emo, indie rock,post-hardcore
Years active	1995–1998, 1999–present
Labels	Saddle Creek, Big Scary Monsters
Associated acts	Bright Eyes, Commander Venus, Lullaby for the Working Class, Mayday, Okkervil River, Slowdown Virginia, The Good Life, Tim Kasher
Website	www.cursivearmy.com
Members	Tim Kasher Matt Maginn Ted Stevens Cully Symington
Past members	Clint Schnase Gretta Cohn Steve Pedersen Matt Compton

Cursive is an American indie rock band from Omaha, Nebraska, on Saddle Creek Records/Big Scary Monsters (UK). Described as emo-tinged post-hardcore, Cursive came to prominence with 2000's Domestica and found commercial and critical success with 2003's The Ugly Organ. The band has released seven studio albums, a compilations album, and a mix of singles and EPs since 1997.

Cursive formed in the spring of 1995, shortly after Slowdown Virginia broke up. Slowdown Virginia members Tim Kasher (lead vocals, guitar), Matt Maginn (bass), and Steve Pedersen (guitar) had parted ways, along with their drummer, a month prior. The three members decided that they were not ready to give up making music, and wanted to give music a serious try, with Kasher saying, "[we] decided with Cursive we would write the best we could, believe in it, and if everyone ended up hating it – well, we would deal with it."Clint Schnase, who played with Pedersen in a band called Smashmouth, joined as the drummer. Kasher has said that the band's name was inspired by a passage in a book by V. S. Naipaul, in which the British were forcing subjugated Indians to learn how to write English in cursive penmanship, symbolic of a pointless exercise with no value, and Kasher compares this to the band forcing music as a discipline, taking it seriously.

With an initial sound characterized by one reviewer as similar to At the Drive-In, in 1996 Cursive recorded and released The Disruption EP on Lumberjack Records, followed in 1997 by the Sucker and Dry EP on Zero Hour Records and their debut album, Such Blinding Stars for Starving Eyes, on Crank! Records. A follow up EP, The Icebreaker, was released in early 1998. The Katz brothers of Sputnik Music summarize Such Blinding Stars and Cursive's sound at the time as "11 distortion soaked, emotion ridden songs, comes off as a younger, worse, version of the band's breakthrough Domestica" while AllMusic's Peter D'Angelo said the album "lays down the framework for the Cursive method: delicate guitars that erupt into frenzied explosions, a rhythm section that consistently keeps each track barreling forward, and the harrowing vocal contributions of Tim Kasher."