Born January 31, 1961, in Buxton, England, Cole formed the Commotions in 1982.The band was formed as a quintet that included keyboardist Blair Cowan, guitarist Neil Clark, bassist Lawrence Donegan, and drummer Stephen Irvine, and of course Lloyd Cole on guitar and vocals.
In 1987 Cole disbanded the Commotions and moved to New York City to establish himself as a solo performer. There he started working on his solo debut ‘1990. This album continued much in the vein of his work with the Commotions. ‘Don’t Get Weird on Me, Babe’ marked a major artistic shift that explored lush, string-sweetened cabaret music, arranged by Paul Buckmaster.
Lloyd Cole’s new album ‘Standard’ will come out June 24th and has been recorded in Los Angeles, New York and at his home in Massachussetts in late 2012 and early 2013. On this album he collaborates with Fred Maher, Matthew Sweet and Joan (As Police Woman) Wasser. Next to that the band for this album is compiled of Mark Schwaber, Matt Cullen, Blair Cowan, Michael Wyzik, Negative Dave Dervy and Lloyd’s son Will. Compared to his previous albums, this album is mostly electric. Like he stated himself: “I wanted to make an album with a small fixed palette of sounds, like a Van Gogh, like Highway 61, I like a record to have sound… This is an album for electric guitars, bass and drums, with some piano and a synthesizer. It has a sound.”