Interview with The Crimea :: Wessex Scene Online

Interview with The Crimea

26th January 2006

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Feb 06 - Single Reviews January 2006, part 2 (Mogwai, Starsailor, The Crimea)
Dec 05 - Interview with Alkaline Trio
Mar 06 - Interview with the Mystery Jets
Dec 05 - Album Reviews November 2005 Part 4
Apr 06 - Interview with We are Scientists

When The Crimea frequented the fantastic Railway Inn in Winchester last month, The Edge popped down for a quick chat with Owen and Joseph on alternative urinary devices, Fern Cotton, and ‘talking b****cks’…..

-Where did the name The Crimea come from?
"There wasn’t really any scientific method to it, we looked for a name without any other associations. Obviously it has relevance with the war, but we thought it could be linked quite easily with the music we were producing. It seemed the most serious and most apt."

-Would you say you take your music quite seriously then?
"Definitely. There are not many things we take seriously but yeah definitely our music. Davey has a good lyric to describe it: ‘honest despair with a wry smile’."

-Would you swap it for a 9 til 5?
"No way, f**king hell no! We’ve all done 9 til 5 jobs before, and we wouldn’t trade it. It’s just as hard being in a band though, waking up at the crack of noon and trying to decide which t-shirt to wear…. Seriously though, we are a pretty hard-working band I would say."

-What’s it like touring, do you get on each other’s nerves?
"Definitely. It’s a bunch of seven guys travelling around in a van. We’re with each other twenty-four hours a day, getting very little sleep, eating badly and probably abusing various substances. It really is a recipe for falling out. We had a great journey from Coventry on Saturday though, everyone decided to get a bit tanked up and we were using condoms as sort of portable urinary devices, and just generally talking b****cks! Then the flipside is that you’re on top of each other all the time and you just get a bit ratty and annoyed with each other."

-How does it feel to be one of the last bands championed by John Peel before he died?
"Well he’s extremely well-respected, and I think people appreciate his taste. We’re definitely proud to be associated with him, and I personally have always enjoyed listening to his festive 50. I think ‘Baby Boom’ was number 8 last year, which just completely blew me away. He was amazing, he was just really encouraging and supportive. You just really need that little bit of recognition that you’re onto something good sometimes."

-What do you think about the UK music scene at the moment?
"What I really like about the music scene now is that bands are doing something really a bit different, and playing huge shows and breaking into the charts. It wasn’t like that fifteen years ago. Bands like Bloc Party who haven’t made a hugely commercial album are managing to sell thousands of records, and similarly with bands like Franz Ferdinand."

-When you were dropped from the V2 label as The Crockets, did you think it was the end of your music career?
"No not really, because even after V2 went pear-shaped we still carried on. It was never gonna be The Crockets again, but the songs that Davey was writing were too good to turn your back on. It was just a matter of regrouping and having a bit of a break, then really getting stuck in again. I’m happy that The Crimea is being seen as a band in its own right though, it has nothing to do with The Crockets and I’m glad that we’re being judged on the merit of the new material."

-Are The Crimea superior to The Crockets then?
"To be honest, I think our album ‘Tragedy Rocks’ absolutely s**ts on anything The Crockets did. I enjoyed The Crockets and I’m enjoying The Crimea, but if I can be pretentious: as a piece of art I think ‘’Tragedy Rocks’ is far superior."

-Where did the album title come from?
"Well there was originally a song called ‘Tragedy Rocks’, which ironically isn’t on the album. ‘Tragedy rocks, misery rolls, disaster stands on my doorstep’ was the lyric. I think it sort of captures the mood and the subject matter as well. There’s no denying the fact that people just love misery, people love a crisis. I think it’s a universal human trait."

-What can we expect from the second album then?
"It might be a bit more rocky. We might also tone it down a little bit. We recorded the first album in the house with a big sixteen track recorder, and we got a bit carried away and just started stacking the tracks up and up. The last batch of demos we recorded - we sort of reacted against that slightly and concentrated on recording things properly, rather than using loads of tracks to cover the sonic flaws. It might be a little less layered than the first album, but this is all subject to change."

-Do you see The Crimea destined for the charts or are you happy playing smaller venues and smaller crowds?
"I think we’re definitely going for the stadiums and the charts, we’re trying to go as big as we can really. The reality is though, we’re on Warner Brothers now and if we don’t sell a significant amount of albums then we’re in trouble! I think the songs on the album are good enough for the charts though. Yeah I’m up for Top of The Pops, bring on some Fern Cotton!"