With the release of new album ‘The Tide And Its Takers‘ on Ferret Records, 36 Crazyfists hit the road in the UK this summer in support of their new album. Aaron Coe caught up with frontman turned tour manager Brock Lindow at The Junction in Cambridge following the closure of the Barfly only a few days previous over a quick beer to discuss Jackie Chan and Download Festival amongst all those other important things.
Tonight is the last night of the UK tour, has has everything been on the road?
Excellent, It’s been great, we always love playing the UK so it has been a lot of fun.
As this is 36 Crazyfist’s first time in Cambridge, have you had a chance to check out the town, have a wander around?
Yeah, but not not too much. Had a wander over the bridge, got something to eat in the little courtyard thing round the corner, but not really too much. All I know is it’s a big college town. I don’t even know which way the town is.
After tonight your off to Europe for a while and back in the States touring till the end of the summer, what are the plans after this? Are you going to take a break, get back into the studio, what’s the plan?
Well really, we’re on tour all the way till next summer, even past that. It will probably be well over a year of touring. The record came out. Were in the States till Christmas and we have Christmas and New Year off, then we’re back over here to do some headline shows, then Europe, Australia, Japan, and South East Asia.
Wow, South East Asia. Not many bands get the chance to play to that part of the world?
Yeah but I’ll be stoked when we get to go there. I have no idea what the rock/metal scene is like there, but hey.
What happened with Roadrunner Records? There have been a few bands who have been quite vocal about Roadrunner after they’ve left the label…
I think as the years went on we got lost in the shuffle on the US side of things. It’s a big business and if your not generating X amount of record sales you kind of fall to the wayside and that’s the unfortunate side of the business, but I get it and became aware of it as the years went on so no harm no foul. They let us go graciously and helped us get onto Ferret; they’re still friends of ours. It’s just a little better place to be at Ferret where it’s a little more low key – a bit more hands on – people who actually work the label are also in bands; there aren’t any suits looking for radio airplay. I’m not bad mouthing Roadrunner by any means but Ferret is just a better fit for us.
So your happy and everything is stable to stay with Ferret for the foreseeable future?
Yeah, we couldn’t be happier to be there. It’s the best place we could be for sure. That is unless someone offers us $1 million or something!
What was the decision making behind letting Steve be the full time producer on the new record, although he has co-produced a lot of your records?
Well as you know he has co-produced the last 2 records. He’s always done the pre-production, and does some producing with local bands where he lives. I guess Roadrunner never paid enough attention to him, maybe they didn’t have complete faith in him to do a good job; although we always did. So when we got to Ferret we said “Hey Steve is recording the new record” and they simply nodded and said “ride on“.
What was it like when you first started the band? How difficult was it getting shows in Alaska as it seems so isolated from the mainland US?
It’s definitely removed from the rest of the lower 48, I guess the world too. We’re kinda like the big fish in a small pond up there; we’re friends with a lot of people putting on shows so its easy to get shows. There’s an awesome music scene up there – really good.
A lot of the time you can be seen sporting an Alaska t-shirt. Do you all still live in Alaska or have you relocated due to the band?
I’m the only one that really lives there right now. The drummer is in the process of moving back and the bass player and guitar player live in Portland, Oregon.
Have you heard much press or feedback about the album yet?
Not too much to be honest with you, besides our MySpace page, which has been really positive, but I haven’t seen any reviews or anything like that.
How has the new material been going down live, Is it mixing well into the live show?
It’s been excellent, they’ve been going down real well. I think MySpace is a nice tool for getting songs known. The record come out only a few weeks ago but a lot of people have been listening to the new music for a while on MySpace. So yeah they’ve been doing really great.
Why did you opt to bring an EP so close to the album release?
That’s another one of the really cool things Ferret did which I know Roadrunner wouldn’t have done. When the album release date had to be pushed back again they came to us and said “We’ll put out a 3 song EP and get people hyped up about the record”. We were just so happy they were willing to do that so that was the reason behind it.
How was playing the Download Festival this year as you’ve been there a few times?
Yeah, it was our third time playing there. If you think about the grand scheme of things, how many bands there are in the world to get asked to play such a prestigious event; we felt honoured, it’s killer. It was our second time playing the main stage, so that was pretty crazy in itself. There’s a lot of people there. This was our best year, the previous time we played I was shitty, was sick, everything was messed up, so it wasn’t as good but this time….I had vengeance.
The band name comes from the Jackie Chan film of the same name, are there any other Jackie Chan films you guys still bring on tour?
I did go through a big Jackie phase in the early days of the band, I haven’t been following him that much lately but I love the Rush Hour films, The Big Brawl, Drunken Master, Fist Of Fury. To be honest, I was a really big Bruce Lee fan before the band started, so I knew all about Bruce Lee and didn’t even know who Jackie Chan was when we named the band. The guitarist did but back in like 94 Jackie wasn’t a household name yet. On this tour we’ve signed a couple of dvd’s of the film, ‘The Crazyfists‘ which is really cool. It’s nice to see that people have gone out and seen the film just because of us.
The Tide and Its Takers is available now from Ferret Records.
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9th August 2006: A hot summer’s day is currently ending in a suitably mock-gory fashion with a Send More Paramedics gig at the Kingston Peel. Leeds finest zombie-core crew have brought along a Watford band called Gallows on support duties; they’re a pretty hard-rockin’ bunch, and the singer has some spectacular tattoos on his chest. I received a promo of their debut album (‘Orchestra Of Wolves’) earlier today – it sounded very promising on first listen, but bands as raw and unpolished as this lot never seem to get the recognition they deserve. Not until years after they’ve split up, anyway. Still, they play well, and the crowd seem to enjoy them…