The Old Ceremony

The Old Ceremony
Origin	Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
Genres	Pop noir, rock
Years active	2004–present
Labels	sonaBLAST! Records, Yep Roc Records, Alyosha Records
Website	theoldceremony.com
Members	Django Haskins Dan Hall Mark Simonsen Gabriele Pelli Jeff Crawford

The Old Ceremony is a Chapel Hill, North Carolina pop-noir musical group fronted by Django Haskins. Formed in 2004, the group has released five full-length albums, Our One Mistake, on sonaBLAST! Records; The Old Ceremony, Walk On Thin Air, and Tender Age on the Durham, NC label, Alyosha Records; and Fairytales and Other Forms Of Suicide on Yep Roc Records. They have also produced a live album and an album of "remixes" of their first record, produced by bassist Matt Brandau. Their fifth album, "Fairytales and Other Forms of Suicide," was released by Yep Roc Records in August 2012. Through unique live performances, radio airplay, and positive critical reviews, the group has risen to regional prominence, touring extensively throughout the US, Canada and Europe.

In the summer of 2004, Django Haskins, then a member of North Carolina rock supergroup International Orange, decided to form a 'mini-orchestra' to explore music that would be difficult to play in a traditional rock band. For this effort, Haskins gathered numerous musical luminaries from the NC Triangle region and the end result was dubbed 'The Old Ceremony,' after Leonard Cohen's 1975 album, New Skin for the Old Ceremony.

The fledgling group was soon granted an extended residency at Chapel Hill's West End Wine Bar, where they worked to develop their unique sound and refine their musical skills. These residency performances became popular due to the group's unusual instrumentation and on-stage presence (all band members wore suits) and the group soon gained a local following. Several months after their first residency, the group recorded and released their first full-length album, The Old Ceremony.

Soon after releasing their first album, the group embarked upon a tour of North Carolina and the Eastern US, playing venues such as Joe's Pub and IOTA. At one of their New York performances, the group attracted the attention of filmmaker Gill Holland, who offered the group a contract on his record label, sonaBLAST! Records. The contract was accepted, and in 2006, the group released their second album, Our One Mistake, on this record label. Our One Mistake was chosen by Paste Magazine as one of the 'Top 100 Albums of 2007.'

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