Wolfshead : Interviews : Crazytown

Does everyone call you that or do you have real names?
S- We have real names, Epics real name is Brett
E- and Shiftys real names is Seth

You don't look very Shifty, why do they call you that then?
S- Cos I used to be very shifty, my track record shows I'm a shifty character except now I channel my shiftiness through my music
E- I've been Epic ever since I was 15, DJing in a club in LA somebody gave me the name and it's stuck ever since

You've been out touring across Europe for the last three weeks?
E- Yeah Europe's been a lot more exciting than the States
S- Definitely it's been cool to see everything out here I've never been to Europe
E- Shifty's been here but I've never been here

What have you been doing in America because this is the first time we've heard you in this country
E- Our record just came out in November in the States and we've been doing promotions for it there
S- At our most recent shows in America kids have been coming to see us and knowing the lyrics to our songs and that's the dopest thing about going on stage at this point, when we go out there and they know what they're coming to see, they already know about the band and they're coming to hear exactly what we do. Y'know it's one thing when you just go out there and rock a show, that's a great feeling, to take somebody who doesn't know your music and have them leave saying I love it, but to have people come and know the words to your songs and have been hearing it on the radio, we did a lot of radio interviews and a lot of the feedback has been really cool

Who've you been playing with in the States?
E- We've just been playing with Buck Cherry

That's a bit of a bizarre coupling
S- They're all like a little bit too mellow for us, even when we've played with Sugar Ray and Smashmouth. It's just because there was nothing really going out and the most important thing for us was to get on the road and play as a band, it wasn't so much about us being on the right bill because the right bill will be coming up soon
E- Now we're looking forward to going out with RHCP and NIN
S- We're going to be doing the big day out festival in Australia next year

How many people in the band then?
E- Seven, two vocalists, two guitarists, bass player, drummer and a DJ

How come you ended up with two guitarists?
E- Musically to be able to do what we wanted to do on stage, we had to have two guitar players, musically there's more room to manoeuvre there's usually two contrasting guitar parts one really heavy and one lead so we need that coming from both sides of the stage. That's why the band exists at all to begin with, 'cos we used to just be a hip hop group Shifty and I, musically we wanted to do a lot more so Crazytown then became the full band

Where did you pick the other guys up from?
S- We knew them from around they had been people who knew we were serious about our music, actually my younger sister brought Doug into the picture he's our bass player, Doug brought Faydoh into the picture and once Faydoh came into the picture he brought in Rusty Peak, we had JBJ who also played with the Beastie Boys..
E- And we smoked a lot of crack with DJ M
S- Yeah we used to do a lot of drugs with M so he was coming with us whether he was good or not, but luckily he was really good and I found Trouble at my work we both quit together
E- They were working at American Rag a clothing store, like an expensive thrift store and we just got a rehearsal space and we'd just decided we wanted to get another guitar player and were like we need another guitar player and Shifty said dude I got this guy at work he looks so dope I don't know how good he really plays but he looks the part
S- He was a skater and he and I would go skateboarding and we'd hang out but I just knew the music he was into and the vibe he was in, I was like we've gotta get this guy, we brought him in and he was bad ass

And then you resigned from your job?
S- Walked out the same day, he got into an argument, he walked out and then I waited to see if I could get his position and when I couldn't, I walked out too (laughing)
E- So Trouble was his boss

What else did you used to do before you were in a band together did you ever have real jobs or always music?
S- I was selling a lot of drugs and lotsa odd jobs, I was a club promoter, hip hop clubs basically, a mixture, I had DJs that played a little bit of everything but basically just parties where I could sell drugs and then that got boring and the whole time I was basically working on music but that was the easiest way to make money so I could do my music and then I got arrested and I went to jail and y'know and I tried getting normal jobs

How long were you in jail for ?
S- Different times but I was in prison for like three months

Did you get bothered by large men who said hey pretty boy....
S- No, no it's not really like that, I was lifting a lot of weights so I actually was really big when I got outta jail
E- Actually we both visited jail for a little while and we both went to rehab. We were in different rehabs and we wrote to each other and said when we get out let's make some sacrifices and really make Crazytown come together. I was always like too busy working on our shit and then we'd finish one or two good songs and then we'd get high and be like look how good this song is and then no one would ever hear it, it would go up on the shelf and then I'd get busy working on some other people's shit and it was just scattered and not too focused so when we had a chance to sit in rehab and reflect on what we've done, it made it all a lot more apparent what we had to do to make Crazytown happen

You used to be a producer?
E- Yeah I used to be strictly a producer but Crazytown was the opportunity for me not to....
S- That's how we met I was working with another producer in the same building of producers, there was like a big huge building... a loft in downtown LA and there was another producer who worked down the hall who we were friends with, who's from a group called the Black Eyed Peas, we had already known each other but he introduced us on a musical level and I was trying to put together a project
E- And I was like this is the dopest fool in LA I gotta do some shit with him..
S- So then he wanted to step up for the plate and do some music himself so it was cool we ended up working on some songs and then we started a group called The Brimstone Sluggers and then he was always busy so I ended up going and doing some things which became Crazytown and he got involved and there was me and one other member who ended up drifting and we stuck to it and here we are today

You got another producer in for the album?
E- So we could step back and be the artists.. be lazy.. we could trust that Josh Abraham would be locking in the right guitar tones ...... we had our hip hop side all in and we had what we wanted our rock side to be but what he was, is the guy who came in and said - right this is what you need to change, he put the cherry on top cos he had done things like Coal Chamber Orgy and he was a good friend of ours, it was good to have just an outside entity come in and say y'know ...

The production is brilliant were you not leaning over him going ..err?
E- For me it was hard to step back but everything was pretty much blueprinted and set out for him

You've got KRS1 on the album
S- We did a song with Mad Lion called Hollywood Babylon
E- Mad Lion is also in Boogie Down Productions and he played H Babylon for KRS1, came back to the studio the next day and said KRS flipped out over this shit, he wants to do a song with you guys and we were like that's cool
S- We weren't gonna like call KRS and say we wanna do a song with you.. we're not gonna call anybody.. we wouldn't even have thought of that, I mean at the same time KRS is one of the all time greats and to have him want to do a song with us was really, let's do it..
E- And then Jay Gordon from Orgy is one of our best friends so that was a given to do a song with him..
S- He also co-produced only when I'm drunk, one of the reasons we did it was we knew that kids would eat it up we eat it up, we love that song it's a cover from an old hip hop song from the Alkaholiks that we did for the Alkoholiks for a rock remix

From a compilation album
S- Yeah kinda like a Judgement night thing

What's going to be the single off this album?
S- Toxic we just did the video for it
E- It's like a stepping stone we're just putting it out there to get a reaction. We put out Toxic as a kinda like - jab boom - hello- here we are and then we got songs like Dark Side which is like a body blow and we got like Butterfly which is like the knock out punch

You could really startle them by putting out butterfly straight afterwards.. have people going and that's the same band
S- Well a song like butterfly is a no brainer everyone seems to love that no matter how hard they are, it's very radio friendly, the female audience loves it and at the same time I think we kept our integrity with it, it's not a sell out song it's very real and cool and I like it

You've got a lot of references to punk rock in your songs as well as hip hop
S- Yeah I grew up skateboarding, break dancing, listening to all kinds of music

What was your worst injury?
S- I just stopped 'cos I bruised my heels really bad I kept doing it and I got to the point where I couldn't really walk, doing big jumps, drops off buildings, so I still skate but I don't think of it the same way

How long before you were signed ?
E- We waited until we had a decent amount of songs, our production work qualified us to the top level A+R people to give it a listen but most A+R people are afraid to jump on anything unless everyone in the industry wants it and we kinda pimped the whole industry in Hollywood to a point where everyone at the same time decide to agree on ....oh wait Crazytown is the shit and all of a sudden instead of looking at each every day like I think our shit is really dope when is somebody gonna offer us a record deal all of a sudden our lawyers calling everyday going Elektra called today, Atlantic called and we got a lot of bands were offering us deals like Korn to Elemetree and Scott Weiland wanted to sign us to Lavish, Fred wanted to do something but Columbia was the most sincere interest out of everyone and they were there from the beginning.