36 Crazyfists Hit Mokena

Interview by Nick Panico
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36 Crazyfists debuted on the scene in 2002 with their Bitterness the Star album. Since then they have released two albums, A Snow-Capped Romance and their latest smash release Rest Inside the Flames. During their time together they've evolved a lot over the years in an upward direction. Band members Brock Lindow on vocals, Steve Holt on guitar, Mick Whitney on bass, and Tom Noonan on drums have come together to tour in celebration of their new release and I got a chance to catch up with them in Mokena, IL on Nov. 20th.

36 Crazyfists played at the Colosseum in Mokena where I had the honor of watching their hard-core live show. The Colosseum is a medium sized bar but it brought out the best in the band. The vibe was great throughout the whole show and because it much more intimate than the Metro or Aragon. Surrounded by crashing waves of sound, I was no more than ten feet away from the band and felt as if I were part of the show. It was a good feeling and what made it even better is that they didn't discriminate between songs to play. 36 played a good amount of material from each album so I was familiar with most everything they played allowing me to rock out just as hard as everyone else.

Before the show, I was fortunate enough to get a quick few minutes with the singer. However, I went up to the dressing room and walked in on a situation that I feared I almost shouldn't have at first. The band members were comparing pictures of STD's on Brock's laptop with one of their buddies who was (thankfully) just out of my sight. Despite their focus on the subject, Brock was more than happy to share a few minutes and luckily nothing more. Here's what he has to say about the industry and the concept of their latest album, Rest Inside the Flames:

Buzz - If you could just give me a little background on how the band formed in the first place.

Brock Lindow - We formed in Anchorage, where we're from, Alaska in '94. The music scene is pretty small there, so everybody that plays music basically knows each other. Yeah, everybody was in different bands but everybody knew each other and when those bands disbanded we just started our band and 13 years later I guess we're still barely hanging on by a thread.

Buzz - Before you guys actually made it anywhere, what was the struggle like? What kinds of things did you have to go through to get your name out there?

Brock - Well, we kinda had two different phases of it because we grew up in Anchorage, which is a pretty small music scene, and we were pretty big there. Then we moved to Seattle because we wanted to tour, and no one knew us. So, that was a struggle for a few years just trying to get our name out and do things that bands have to do when you're starting out. So, we kinda had to do it twice. Then we actually moved from Seattle to Portland, Oregon and got in good with a guy that was running a metal radio show at the college there. He was also booking shows and he got us on a bunch of opening slots for national bands. The struggle was like anything else, you know. Broke as hell, eating Top Ramen for years, drinking way too much. That was the struggle. I guess it wasn't too bad.

Buzz - I’ve been listening to you guys for about a year or so. I started on "A Snow-Capped Romance". Then I got your first CD and I just recently heard your new album, which I think, is the most different out of the three. Can you explain the evolution of your guys' sound for me?

Brock - Well, we're not trying to alienate the fans we already have but at the same time we're not trying to write the exact same record each record. Some bands that I like, I’ll really like the first record and then the second record comes out and they went somewhere else. So, I never wanted to do that. But I think the main focus for us was to just make the more melodic parts as melodic as we could and the heavier parts as heavy as we could for us, not being that extremely heavy band per say. We just had to try and juggle it and make the elements that we enjoy about the band as good as we could. There wasn't really a main focus, though. We didn't just get in the room and say, "Okay guys, we gotta do this but we can't do that." That's not how our band is. Basically, I think with our band we can do pretty much any thing we want to do musically as far as styles because we're kinda flirting in a few different ones anyway. Basically we just tried to make the best collection of songs that would run into each other in and out well. If we did focus on any one idea that was probably it.

Buzz - Did you guys have any conflict on what sounds or songs you wanted? For example did you have any songs written that you might have liked but someone else wanted cut?

Brock - No, not really. I think everybody was on the same page. The thing is, with our band-- I always hear about these bands who are writing and they have like ninety songs to chose from and I’m like, "How?" With our band, if we write a song and there’s parts of the song that people start to hate, the song disappears. We don’t keep a song if we don’t like the song. I never really understood that. Are those bands saying they have ninety different riffs and they couldn't put them into a song? I don’t see how people can write like that. Our band writes slowly so some people were maybe blessed with easier writing skills. For us we basically get the eleven to thirteen best songs we can do and then eleven or ten usually make the record and the others are usually covers we did for B-sides and things like that. as far as everyone being on the same page, we've been writing together for so long that I’m pretty sure everybody knows what everybody's into. It's not too much of a struggle mentally.

Buzz - Do you have a set goal of how many songs you want for an album or at some point do you just say, "This is enough to put on a CD"?

Brock - Well there basically becomes a deadline with recording sessions and getting available producers and things like that. So, you're just trying to write up until the deadline. That's basically how be do it. We don't really stew over it too much. Every once and a while we ask "What kind of new song do we need? Do we want a slow song? Do we want a heavy song? What does everybody feel like?" Sometimes that's asked, but for the most part whatever happens in the jam room happens. But then again we don’t jam that much. We don’t just get in and start jamming. Steve, our guitar player, has ideas for things and he'll write with our drummer and put something together. Then me and Mick, the bass player, will add our own two cents. We're not really a jam band. I wish we could do that. It'd probably be a helpful thing.

Buzz - Have you ever been forced to do something you didn’t want to do but had to do maybe based on contract issues?

Brock - On the last record, the second single was a song called "Bloodwork" and there was a screaming thing on the original and they wouldn't give us money for a video unless I sang. That was something that I didn't want to do but it was one of those things where we either did it or we didn’t get the video. Basically it's one of those bullshit record company things. That was one time in my life when I did something against my will and I’ve never been happy about it and I would never do it again. That's one of those things about this business, you live and learn, and you know that ultimately the record company is the enemy. They're not there to high five you unless you're selling millions of records. It's their way basically and if you don’t abide by it, you'll be given less promotion and just be fallen by the wayside.

Buzz - You're kinda forced to give 110% as opposed to just doing your job.

Brock - Yeah, exactly.

Buzz - On a different note, do you have any interesting tour stories?

Brock - Well, last night, two out of the six people that are in this band and work for this band puked in the RV on the way here last night. So, this tour has been full of it, man. I mean, you guys just walked in on the whole STD talk, so you can just imagine what the fuck is going on there. Lots of drinking, having fun. All the band on the tour are really good friends so it's been a lot of fun. A lot of bad hangovers like today.

Buzz - Do you have any certain bands that you like to tour with in particular?

Brock - Well, our best friends in music are like Killswitch Engage, Candiria, God Forbid, 12 Tribes. We've made so many good friends, but we've toured multiple times with the bands I’ve mentioned, so we've become good friends with those bands probably more so than just the one-month tour with a random band and then you don’t really see them for a couple years. For the most part we've made friends with all the bands we've been out with. We're pretty easy going.

Buzz - Is there any advice you'd give to any up-and-coming artists trying to make it?

Brock - I mean, I dunno. I guess if you're in the process of possibly being signed I think the most important thing is to get the best legal help you can get because they write these contracts in a language that no one understands. Not the regular person anyway. It sounds like The Bible or something you know? All the "thee” and "thou" stuff. So you need a good legal team to sit through and get you the best opportunities possible for your band because as soon as you sign, you're gonna become in the hole. But once you get a record company it becomes a really big business and you have to be on your toes. Everybody learns quickly what to and not to do. Lawyers, get the good ones.