PDA.metalrage.com

On the 12th of April, 36 Crazyfists played in the Melkweg in Amsterdam. Brock Lindow (vocalist) was kind enough to sit down with Metalrage and answer some questions while having some nice beers!

So how are things going?

Awesome, every show was awesome, except last night, which was kind of weird. I remember that it was weird when we were there before..most kids are like "YEAH!" throughout the whole show but but these ones were more like "blah" during a song and went "Yeah!" when its done. We kinda got spoiled in the UK because the kids over there are just nuts, they know every damn word and they sing louder than me. Some times the crowd isnt that excited, but we toured in the UK for a week or so and it was just awesome. The next show was Paris, which was great as well, but Belgium was a bit "hmm". But the tour itself is going great.

Why did you guys toured the UK, like twice or more, before coming over to "mainland Europe" again? Late last year there was a tour announced, but somehow only the UK part of it got done.

Actually we found out about that on this tour. I never knew that we were supposed to tour the rest of Europe last year, until I read some e-mails from kids in Germany who went like "Hey how come I’ve got your ticket and now you aren’t coming anymore". And I thought: "Huh, we’re not supposed to go to Germany..". So I dont know why we never knew about it. I’ve been hearing this every show since the UK. Its like someone "kept" it from us. They pulled the plug on it and we just never got told.

Well over here in Holland, the day 36C was supposed to play, there was also a show in Rotterdam with the Slayer/Slipknot/Mastodon package, and someone said "Well thats a reason why the show is cancelled since no one would go"..

Ah well we’re not trying to compete with that! But I`m just very happy that we got a chance to come back, because this is the last tour on the Snowcapped record. We’ve been to the UK for like, 5 times on that record cycle, so its great to come over here finally. Better late than never!

You are busy with the new album, I believe you are actually playing one or two new songs live..

Yeah we have two but only play one..

But how is the progress of the new album?

Its slow as usual, but we’re very excited about the new songs. It will be done around the end of the year. We’re going to record in the fall and it will probably come out early next year.

Well, if it doesnt get delayed for lets say, 6 months..

Exactly! Well that might happen, it would be typical Roadrunner..

So as a band, how do you guys write your stuff?

We dont really write anything on the road. Usually in the States, we tour in a van, so we don’t even have enough room. And over here..well we’re just so excited to be on an actual bus so we’re more interested in making sure that its like a casino, bar, lounge or a club..so there isnt much for new work on the bus. So yeah, we just go home, rehearse and hash it up.

Will the new album be different, regarding lyrics? Because a choice got made to make Snowcapped a more positive record. Any change in that?

Its definitly going to be on the hopeful side of things. I`m not trying to go back, I’m trying to go forward. I`m trying to get away from depressive things and just try to become a better human being, basically. So thats the path that I’m on. But also I`m not trying to alienate any of our fans. The musical path of this record isnt going to be a complete right turn, people won’t be going "What the hell is that?". It will be a mixture of things we have always done and hopefully something new gets born. I hope it has the same result as the Snowcapped record, but even better.

We’re going to play a new song tonight, and the heaviest things we have done musically, are in both of the new songs. But its not that it are "really heavy" songs, it has stuff like some doublebass, but on the other hand its melodic as well. We’ve always been trying to get "heavier". Its not like we are going to become like Slayer overnight, but we want to incorporate heavy parts. We want our shows to have bad ass moshpits. And being a band that sings about love and things like that, can make it tough. We’re not trying to wave the "flag of evil metal". We would love to see people make out during a show and see hot chicks, but at the same time have people to dance or mosh or whatever. We will definitly try to incorporate the live "essence" into the new record.

Recently the Destroy the Map single got released over here in Europe. It also has two cover songs, Sad Lisa and Workhorse. What is the story about those two?

Workhorse is from a band called Cast Iron Hike, which we loved when growing up. We used to play that song all the time, and when the new record came up, we needed it "b-side" for Japan. And we’re not a band that has alot of left-over songs, so we chose the easy way out. "Lets do covers", you know. I like to hear covers, especially from some obscure bands. Not like some Michael Jackson song or something. So we choose workhorse, and we did play it live for a long time.

Cat Stevens was a huge influence on me when growing up. My parents played him alot and I’ve always heard it around the house. I always liked Sad Lisa, because it was such a depressing song. Me and Steve (Holt, guitar) just recorded it one day but we never played it since, so thats the story about that one.

I remember from the Roadrage tour 2 years ago that you played Digging the Grave from Faith No More. I also remember that those shows were recorded, what ever happend to that?

I got one videotape of a show in Dublin, and thats pretty much it. Well I got tons of pictures. I actually got a videocamera for this trip..man I got some weird shit. Most of it is just partying on the bus, but I had to do an interview in the UK. It was with three guys who have like a cable acces show called "urangatang TV" (ed: or something like that. And they do a thing called celibrity slap. And you have to play a game like rock-paper-scissors, and I lost both times. So the little guy slapped me kind of soft, but the second time he nails me! So we were all kind of laughing about it. But he went like, "well its okay if you hit me". So I said "ahh no man.." and then WHAM! I didnt mean to hit him hard but I, like eared him. But he was a really nice guy and went like "Ah thankyou mate", and I got it all on video. We’re really trying to put out a DVD with the next record. We have so much stuff from 1994 to today. Weird party stuff and just some awesome footage. Good backstage anthics and shenanigans. We really want to put that together.

On the forum there was some word about a dvd being put together from the Egan Center show, what ever happened to that?

The deal was that those guys…well I dont really know them but they’re really nice guys. They got that AK-49 clothing company and give us clothes all the time..they are into bmx and motorcross and stuff. But they approached us if they could film and take pictures, and it went like "Hey we can make a DVD out of this". But I thought "Wait a second, you cant just put out a dvd, we are signed to Roadrunner, we dont want some possibly shitty ass dvd out". Altough the trailer did look really good. I never saw it, but that was my own fault. They tried to get me to look at it many times, but I was just a bit scared about it. And then in the end they went: "hey so can we get a bit of money for this?" and I said: "Uh dude, not like this, bye bye!". Thats the short version of it. Obviously they didnt want a lot of money, but no one works for free. Thats why it didnt really work out, but I would love to see it done.

I remember that most people on the forum said "Wow this is awesome, I`ll be happy to pay this xx amount of money for that!"