Interview: The Crookes

By Jake Lowes on July 23, 2012 in Music

Chase Park Music Festival is back this year, bringing together the community of Whickham in Newcastle. It’s in the (hopefully) sunny second week of August 11th at 12-9pm. The event is run by Whickham Villa in partnership with Percy Hedley and offers a very vibrant line up of bands and artists, DJ sets and fun things for the family and children to enjoy.

Including, but certainly not limited to, The Crookes.

Describe what the listeners are going to experience listening to your new album?

It’s more of an optimistic album, written last summer on their tour when they toured around Europe. Music is a lot more playful and making people dancing.

How do you interpret the emerging NewPop scene? And how it differs from the ordinary indie scene we already know and love?

Essentially it’s the bands that do stuff for themselves and don’t rely on the big record labels with all the money and distribute themselves more freely as you wouldn’t with a big time record label. A good example of this Frankie & The Heartstrings

Is there any bands and artists that you think inspired your album? (I personally noticed: Buddy Holly, The Smiths and The Jesus and Mary Chain similarities) and any other?

Yeah, they’re all bands we admire and there’s hundreds more bands and artists we love and aspire to:
The Pixies, Elvis Costello, everything from the sixties and fifties for defiante.

To what degree are your lyrics are of a personal nature? Or is ambiguity key theme throughout the new album? If rephrase (Would the listener make their own judgment and perceptions of the song’s lyrics?)

A lot of the lyrics on this album are references to what happened in the last six months with the guitarist leaving and lot of it was lifted I guess from the last album as we we’re touring and not in England in our house in the middle of winter, we were in the sun and seeing people and meeting new faces. I think this really helped our development than the last album. The album kind of reads like a diary or a journal we all went on and I think that everyone listening to it will kind of take them on our journey and give you a retrospective.

How many times have you played Newcastle? If Yes: Do you still get the same buzz as opposed to playing home crowds and venues?

3 or 4 times, and yeah, defiantly. Playing Sheffield gives us a lot more pressure when playing to our home town. You never know who’s gonna turn up to our gigs in Newcastle and no one up there are really afraid to dance and sing back to us on stage. It’s always a pleasure to play Newcastle.

What can people expect from your live show at Chase Park Music Festival?

I would say lots of dancing, especially footwork from our guitarist Daniel. He lives above me in our house and all I can hear is him upstairs practicing. We try to lift people’s moods with it I guess. A bit of a heads to the fans at the front we do end up sweating a bit so watch out!

Are you going to focus on playing your new album or will your old stuff have a key place during your set as well?

It’s going to be a bit of a mix, we’ve been playing 4 new songs down and we’re practicing some other ones. Defiantly playing some old stuff too, because I know how it pisses people off when other bands don’t play their old stuff.

Are there any rituals you do before you play live?

We always have Bruce Springsteen playing in the background and our drummer Russell has a high demand for bananas before we play. He’s got the stage now where he’ll have a hissy fit if he won’t get any.

So Bananas and Bruce primarily.

Will Newcastle see you anymore this year?

Yes, we plan to do a proper tour of the UK and we would see Newcastle when touring I’d hope. Probably around October/November.

What’s next for The Crookes and where would you like to go?

First of all we’ve got our fingers crossed for the album ‘Hold Fast’ as it comes out Monday. There’s been some good reviews already. So we hope that continues. Possibly a new EP at the end of this year and yeah just gonna keep on touring meeting and playing to some new and old new crowds! Fingers crossed for us.

Chase Park Music Festival is back this year in Newcastle a,ringing together the community of Whickham in Newcastle. It’s in the hopefully sunny second week of August 11th at 12-9pm. Arranged by Whickham Villa in partnership with Percy Hedley, this festival offers a very vibrant line up of bands and artists, DJ sets and fun things for the family and children to enjoy.

The line up consists of the drummer from the North East band Futureheads David Hyde, and the ex drummer from the Golden Virgins Neil Bassett, combining the mould that creates the funky blues-pop band Hyde and Beast. Other bands are The Crookes, Let’s Buy Happiness, Boy Jumps ship, Amy Holford, Cattle & Cane, Athletes in Paris, Collectors Club, Tom Doughty and DJ sets throughout.

Aimed at being inclusive for people of all abilities, this will be the third consecutive outing for the booming festival that is the biggest event of its kind in the UK. In 2011, it attracted over 2,500 people.

You can even register for free tickets for Chase Park Music Festival:

Chase Park Festival Awarded Silver Accreditation

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