Fused - Archive - The Crimea

Last year The Crimea, a band rising out of the ashes of The Crocketts, released the album ‘Tragedy Rocks’ to widespread, if somewhat quiet, critical acclaim. Fused ran into three of the five of them in what can only be described as a tour minibus before their gig at The Barfly in Birmingham.

Why did you form The Crimea after disbanding The Crocketts?
Davey: I have absolutely no education, not enough education, sorry: not enough education to get a job for more than five pounds fifty an hour, so there was just no other choice really other than to try and continue in the music industry, despite the state of the industry. I just felt like we had to just go back and reap the rewards of everything we’d learned over the years. We’d also been a bit more of a heavier band and I wanted to do something a bit more musical.

John Peel was quite a fan of yours wasn’t he?
Andy: Yeah, he was. We did a gig on John Peel day - an acoustic show for his favourite charities and stuff. It’s nice to give something back. Yeah we gave a shitload of money, we were gutted!
Davey: Zane Lowe was there and he cried. Our music was so emotional it made him cry! He bought us shots of Jaegermeister as well, which was a bonus.

How come Tragedy Rocks is such a dark album?
Davey: I wouldn’t describe it as dark I’d say it was more kind of realist. Reality is quite dark. I just think people are obsessed with a morbid fascination of death, and there’s some kind of sexual thing linked to death and destruction and everything. It’s just trying to capitalise on people’s love of everything gruesome.
Andy: It’s sort of strangely uplifting as well.
Davey: It’s sort of tongue-in-cheek.

Why didn’t the song Tragedy Rocks make it onto the album?
Davey: What made it onto the album were a few songs that the record company thought might be hits, like ‘Girl Just Died’, that now are sort of redundant. Then all the other songs were the ones we did ourselves on the 16-track. So of the ones that we recorded at home the best made it onto the album. It was kind of hit-and-miss and depended on whether I’d borrowed some good microphones that day.

Who writes the actual songs?
Davey: Well, now we’ve got a full band set up, we try and write together, with each other. Everyone writes bits and parts… we just stick anything together that we possibly can.

I’ve heard you have a love-hate relationship with the male of the species…
Davey: Yeah, definitely. I think it’s just because someone called me a misogynist years ago and it stuck with me for life. I definitely think man is the weaker of the two, definitely the more evil. I guess I just know man more intimately, so I’m more in touch with his thoughts. We’re definitely more vulnerable, and we’re also quite weak in the face of danger. I think men are constantly obsessed with the sexual side of things, the need to have sex. It’s just really prevalent in the thought cycle.

Is there anything you’d like to change on the album?
Davey: We’d change the entire thing. We’d make it completely different, but you can’t win them all. It’s never going to sound exactly like it’s supposed to in your head and you just have to get on with it.
Andy: It’s a good representation of how we’ve come together, because there have been a few different members and it took a while to record. We like it, definitely, but it’s hard to be happy.
Davey: I think sometimes an album represents a time and a place, and if you think of it like that, then it’s a pretty good representation. Without getting too miserable.

You’ve been compared quite regularly to The Kinks.
Joe: The Kinks comparison does crop up quite a bit. I think it was because they were renowned for writing proper songs which seem to span the generations.
Davey: The Kinks wrote a lot of good songs which people forget about. If you listen to their ‘Best of,’ every single song sounds like The Beatles. I guess they were The Beatles poor little brothers.
Andy: Dirty little brothers, I think. They were renowned for fighting on stage as well, weren’t they? I mean we do occasionally hit each other - accidentally of course.
Davey: We were in Ray Davies’ studio once, years ago, and everyone in there absolutely hates him. He didn’t speak to anyone he just employed personal assistants to his bid and call. So whenever he was getting anything edited, he’d make them go and sit there the whole time, because he was paranoid that someone would steal the tapes at some point. They had to watch them the whole time, to just guard the tapes, even though no one actually cared about them. He was just completely deluded.

Tragedy Rocks is out now. www.thecrimea.net.
James Bayliffe