Hot Cross came to be in the winter of '00. Greg (drums, formerly of Saetia, Southpaw, She's Hit! and Interpol), Matt (guitar, formerly of Off Minor and She's Hit!) and Adam Marino (guitar; formerly of Saetia, Errortype:11, and instruction now bassist for Fires) got together with the intent of playing stripped-down, lighting-fast, early-Gravity records sounding hardcore. We wrote about 3 songs with this lineup then asked our friend Josh (bass, formerly of Neil Perry, Joshua Fit for Battle, present Superstitions of the Sky and The Now) to play bass. At this point, Adam was strapped for time with other bands and wasn't able to continue rehearsing, so we again went at things as a 3-piece with a new lineup. We wrote about 5 songs at which point we asked our friend Casey (guitar, formerly of You & I and Sky Falls Down) to play 2nd-guitar. We had one practice as a 4-piece, Casey showed us the material he'd written and we dropped the rest of our songs at that point because they sounded so radically different to what Hot Cross was writing with our new lineup. We wrote "A New Set of Lungs" in it's entirety with Josh and Casey trading off vocal duties and sent a practice demo to Billy (vocals, formerly of Saetia, She's Hit! and Surrounded) who was studying abroad and working on his accent. He was into the songs and all of us were into his vocals. It just made sense to add Billy. He listened to the practice CD, returned to the states on a Monday, practiced with us on Wednesday, and we played our first show with this lineup that Friday. Those songs were documented as the A New Set of Lungs 10" which was released by Robotic Empire (then known as the fledgling Robodog) and was gone in a matter of weeks.

A small 10-day tour tour of Europe followed as well as shorter regional excursions in the states. We did a split with friends, the now defunct Light the Fuse and Run, did more regional shows and wrote and recorded our full-length, Cryonics which was followed by a tour of Japan with label mates Envy and City of Caterpillar. Cryonics was much vaster in scope than lungs because well, Matt learned how to play guitar, and Josh and Casey's vocals became more prominent and complimentary to Billy's.

While Hot Cross was certainly proud of Cryonics, we knew we could do better, and writing commenced on a follow-up. Matt and Josh switched places back to their native instruments and Fair Trades and Farewells was the result. Since that record came out, touring went into high gear with Hot Cross hitting North America for 5 months in late '04 - early '05. Josh's schedule as a recording engineer wouldn't allow for this sort of touring, so we both parted ways amicably in the summer of '05 and forged ahead as a 4-piece.

Shit's going to get crazy in the '06. Look for a new LP sometime next year.