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03.24.04 If there's such a thing as musical justice in this world, 36 Crazyfists should be turning the music scene on its head. Their sophomore release, Snow Capped Romance, is such a triumphant leap forward from their debut Bitterness The Star that the band has catapulted itself beyond labeling. What's that mean? I'm not sure. I think it means 36CF has left their screamo/aggro/nu-metalo/whatevero peers in the dust with an album that defies categorization, soothes the savage beast and kicks you in the teeth. We chatted up vibrato front man Brock Lindow. Show & Tell: How you doin', Brock? Brock: Good, how you doin'? S&T: Good. We met about two years ago at the Birch Hill. B: Yep, I remember. S&T: I love the new album. Congratulations, its really a great piece of work. B: Thank you. S&T: When did you guys come off the road from Bitterness? B: Early December last year? No, no, no. 2002, December. We wrote and recorded most of last year. S&T: Where'd you guys record? B: We recorded in Flordia, this town called Davie. And then we mixed the record in England. S&T: Okay, now you went to England when it was mixed? B: Yep. S&T: The whole band? B: No, just me and my guitar player. S&T: Okay. You worked with James Wisner (Dashboard Confessional, New Found Glory), he produced, and Andy Sneap (Opeth, Machine Head), he mixed. I don't know much about those guys but I do know that they're kind of opposite ends of the spectrum musically. B: Yeh, right. S&T: Was that part of the decision-making process? "We want to have two guys that aren't anything alike?" B: Well, sorta. I mean not initially I don't think, when we were trying to figure out who we were gonna be able to work with. Andy was like really easy because if Andy would work with us, then we definitely wanted him because he's kinda like a legend in our eyes. He has like the metal aspect down really well. But we wanted another guy to produce the record that was kind of, just that was more melodically in tune I think, and when we interviewed James, he was extremely passionate about the band and we gelled real good with him. He wanted to know exactly what the lyrics were and that really sold me because before nobody ever cared about what I was talking about. And that wasn't like I needed that, but I thought that was really cool that he wanted to get involved that much so it was another big selling point. S&T: More than just this is the song and this is what it sounds like, he wanted the content to actually help steer the song. B: Yeh, totally and, uh, he's really into like pronunciation and speaking clearly kind of, which is kind of ironic in this type of music I guess. He would sometimes be like, "hey, you're saying this word but I can't really understand it, maybe you can try it a little bit clearer." I just enjoyed that he was just so involved with the whole visionary aspect of the music. S&T: One of the first things I noticed was... I don't think it's more diverse musically as a whole but per song... On the first album, a song would have a vibe or a direction and it would stay in that. On this album, there seems to be a lot more "bouncing around" inside each individual song. Was that more him or just your natural progression? B: Yeh, I think it was just a natural progression; becoming better musicians maybe, trying to stay a little bit fresher, y'know... I don't really know, there wasn't really ever a format or a formula. Like when we first decided writing the record we were, "okay, we're gonna make it sound like this." Everything that's on the record just kinda happened in rehearsal and James didn't really come in and say, "try this." The music was definitely done before we got him. He just came in and was like... He was really important vocally for me, I think. But as far as like musically, (the band) definitely did their own thing, and I don't have anything to do with (writing the music), I'm a terrible musician. S&T: (laughs) B: Definitely I think it was just the growth of the band, y'know, just hopefully getting a little bit better as songwriters. S&T: What changed for you vocally because there seems to be a lot less emphasis on the "quiver quality?" B: (laughs) S&T: (laughs) I guess that's a good enough name for it. B: Right, right. I don't know. I mean, I've never even thought about it but now that people have brought it up saying that it's not there as much, y'know, I guess it's not there as much a little bit. It wasn't that much of a conscious effort to not have it be there but I think slowly I wasn't using it as much, I don't know. It's still there in some spots. S&T: Well it's definitely there. And I know that you don't have as much control over it as people think you do. B: Right. S&T: I think it's probably a lot less intentional than people actually think it is. B: Yeh, it's just so not thought about for me and people focus on it. I can't really... Some days it's there more than others, you know what I mean? It is pretty unconscious, it came out that way. S&T: Now tell me about heading out to England to mix this thing. How much did Andy change it from when you went it to when you came out? B: Well it was definitely like, the tones I think were there, the raw aspect of it but, I mean, he makes it the big metal rock sound, that it definitely didn't have the punch before Andy... He's got his trade down pat, it was fun to watch him and just how he made it, made the drums sound waaay bigger, just the whole thing, the guitar tones way heavier. I think we just basically brought in raw sounds and Andy just kinda sculpts it somehow. It was really a treat for us to get to work with him. At this point, we lost our connection with Brock. He would call back in from a land line minutes later. B: Scott? S&T: Hey, how are you? B: Piece of shit cell phone, man, sorry. S&T: Not a problem. So what's your favorite tune on the record? B: Shoot, I don't know, man. I've heard it so many times, it's so long ago, it's been around for so long... I like "Installing The Catheter" a lot, I like "Waterhole." S&T: And when did it wrap? B: We finished in August of last year and it was initially supposed to come out in January and then, you know how those things get pushed back a million times. S&T: Right. Now are they (Roadrunner Records) doing right by you, are they promoting it well? B: They're doing better than the last record, I'll give them that. And this is just the first weekend. We're thankful just to be able to be on a label and still be able to put out a record so I'm not really bitchin' about any of it. S&T: Right. You've been off the road since you came off from Bitterness? B: Yeh, but we've done a little bit of stuff here and there, some west coast runs. We live in Portland, Oregon so we played out there a lot. S&T: Mostly local stuff to keep your chops up. B: Yeh, yeh, you gotta keep playing. Like if we play these songs one more time in our rehearsal studio we're gonna kill each other. S&T: (laughs) B: So it's definitely time to go and we leave in a couple of days now so it's almost time. S&T: Are you anxious to get back out? B: Oh yeh, definitely, definitely. S&T: The tour kicks off next month? B: The 9th is the first night. S&T: And I saw dates posted I guess through the end of April? Was there anything lined up past that? B: Yeh, we're... We just got confirmed on that Weapons of Mass Destruction Tour, with Machine Head. Some of those dates that are on our site are even wrong because we're jumping off that tour right before it ends to get on the Machine Head tour so... All those dates will get posted pretty soon. S&T: You still out in a van? B: Here, yes. We're going to Europe again in June and we'll be in a bus then. S&T: That's cool. So the new web site looks great. B: Ah, cool, yeah. The guy that did the whole record cover and everything did that. S&T: The artwork is excellent, that frozen stone kinda look? Who came up with that? B: Well, the guys that did, um, it's actually the guys who are in the band Demon Hunter, the brothers have that company. They're just awesome artists. Definitely we didn't come up with it. We're not too good at that aspect (laughter). We gave ideas and they came up with the images and we just loved the first image they gave us so that turned out pretty cool. S&T: What kind of involvement do you have with the web site? B: Obviously they did the imagery again but we have a lot more control on our web site now... Last time we couldn't even post pictures on our web site. I'm really glad the web site was revamped and we can have a little more hands-on with it. S&T: I saw there's a contact page where fans can email you guys directly? B: Yeh, we've had that since the beginning so they've always been able to do that. S&T: That's cool. How often do you get to respond? B: In the beginning I was so on it, always replying. I still think that I do a pretty damn good job of it but sometimes, like this week since the record came out has been a little crazy and I haven't gotten to a lot of it yet. I think it's cool. The reason we did it is because we want to be able to be accessible... I think if I could have talked to James Hetfield when I was a kid I would have freaked out. I'm not saying I'm James Hetfield but I still think that there's a cool connection with us and the fans this way. S&T: How about the message board at the site? Do you get to check that out? B:Post or read it? I don't really post on it, I read it occasionally. I don't really get into the whole message board but I'm glad the kids can get on there and talk about whatever they wanna talk about. Our drummer gets on there quite a bit and talks with them so... I occasionally will get on there if there's a hockey topic on there... S&T: (laughs) B: (laughs) ...but other than that I stay out of it. S&T: I remember, you're a Flyers fan, right? B: Yep, yep. S&T: You're like 1 point out of first, right? B: I think 2 actually, Tampa Bay's got us by a couple. S&T: You're timing's just perfect. You'll be hitting the road and miss the playoffs again. B: Exactly. We were just really upset about it. Actually the first night of the Machine Head tour is on my birthday in Philly, and that will probably be the second round by then... I already caught two games this year, went out to see the Kings/Flyers game. I would love to see a playoff game. S&T: Now I'm gonna pay attention, if I see in the news somewhere, "36 Crazyfists cancelled a date on the 28th..." B: (laughs) S&T: How about your reading list? What's on your reading list these days? Last time we talked you were reading (Lance Armstrong's) "It's Not About The Bike." B: Yeh, well I read the second one that came out, "Every Second Counts" and it was really good as well but not as good. I just read this crazy book called "The DaVinci Code." S&T: I've read it. B: That was pretty good. There's another one called "Angels and Devils?" Do you know about that one? S&T: Yeh, same author. B: Right. I haven't read it but I heard its pretty awesome. S&T: I know you like non-fiction. There's a book that "The DaVinci Code" was based on. I think it's called "Holy Grail, Holy Blood?" B: Yeh, yeh, I just saw that in the book store. S&T: If you liked "The DaVinci Code," pick that one up, that'll blow your mind. B: Okay. There's another book called "The Bible Code II." It is actually pretty frightening. This guy figured out this crazy grid in Hebrew. All this stuff, it's Nostradaumus-esque. It's really pretty crazy. S&T: Any other recommendations? B: I haven't really got into this book but I'm a big soccer fan and David Beckham's (autobiography) that came out, I've skimmed through it a little bit here and there and, I don't know, he's got a pretty crazy life. He's a pretty big superstar in Europe. He's got a pretty good life so it's kind of an interesting story. S&T: He's a rock star really. B: Yeh, definitely. It seems interesting. It's nothing like Lance's story but he's a pretty amazing athlete as well. S&T: Now you're up in Alaska now? B: Yeh. S&T: Just visiting? B: Yeh. One of my best friends just came back from Iraq. He's only here for two weeks and then I'm leaving on tour so I wanted to come up and see him before he had to get back into the grind that he's in. S&T: He's gotta ship back out? B: No, he's done. He spent like 15 months over there, it was really nuts for him. So now he goes back to Italy and he's stationed over there. S&T: And how's he doing? B: He's great, just wonderful. It was really hard to keep in contact with him because they didn't get a lot of phone time so I talked to him randomly throughout the year. I was kinda worried to see how he would be when he gets back to where all his friends are and stuff. We've gone out the last three nights and he's the same great person so it's good. S&T: Very good. B: Nobody's really asked him anything even though I want to. I think it's maybe a little sensitive, you know? S&T: Yeh, I would imagine. So does the tour bring you to the east coast? B: Yeh, that Machine Head tour. We gotta get east coast, we came over like twice in our existence so we gotta spend a lot more time over there. S&T: Sounds good. Best of luck with the new album. We'll see you when you get out this way. B: Looking forward to seeing you guys. S&T: Thanks for your time, Brock. B: Hey man, take care. interview by scott sisti |
