Can you hear that? It might be somewhat foreign by now, but it's the sound of the Dallas Cowboys scoring a touchdown. You know, thousands of fans cheering in Cowboys AT&T Stadium and that one song blares through the speakers.
Well that song is California-based band The Burning of Rome's "Cowboys and Cut Cigars."
The band stops in Dallas on its tour Thursday at Dada to play that song among many others.
The band's partnership with the football team all started when Matt Coy, executive producer for the Cowboys, heard the song and thought it would be a perfect fit because of the interactive chorus, "Hey, hey, hey, hey!"
"We've been looking for the crowd to get into everything we do," Coy said, "and the song has a great call-to-action with a cheer in it." Adam Traub, lead singer of The Burning of Rome, said while none of the members are Texans, the producer of the song grew up a Cowboys fan.
The first time he experienced hearing his band's song on TV was after receiving a text from a friend. Skeptical of the text, Traub headed to a sports bar to see for himself. "I thought it was just a band that sounded like us," he said, "and sure enough, I found my way to a bar where they were playing the game and I was like, 'Wait a minute. That is our song.'"
Fans cheer and Cowboys players perform a victory dance to the song, but then there's the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders dancing to it. What could that feeling be like for any man? "Hallucinatory," Traub says. "It's quite surreal."
And as it should be. The Burning of Rome, who have released an acoustic record in the past because of the positive feedback from its stripped-down show, will play Thursday in Dallas to promote their new album, Year of the Ox.
Traub said concertgoers can expect something different from past records and shows. "We try to change it up just because it seems like there's so many times you'll go to a show and it's almost like they're just doing a karaoke to their own songs," he said.
"There's nothing really unique to the experience of being at the show and not really knowing what's going to happen, so we're trying to switch it up and we have people expecting the unexpected when they show up to a Burning of the Rome show."
And bring your pom-poms because the band will be sure to play the touchdown anthem. "That one usually goes over pretty well with the crowd," Traub said.
