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The Crimea entered the music business in an unlikely fashion. Initially called The Crocketts, the band was dropped from V2 following a 'rationalisation' plan enacted by the label.
They later survived another fall out with major label, Warner Bros, and continue to produce material without a label.
Since opting to go it on their own, they have enjoyed support from two notable Radio 1 DJs, Colin Murray and Annie Mac, the latter of which is frontman Davey MacManus' sister.
Davey answers our same six questions below. |
Q1 How did you start out making music?
I went to university in Aberystwyth in Wales to study agriculture, I got a guitar and started writing songs, got a band. Chris Parry who owned Fiction Publishing travelled seven hours from London in a limousine to see us play, and we got signed to V2 when I was nineteen. I never planned to make music when I was a kid, it just kinda happened, so took a while to learn the chords, about three years to start using a plectrum instead of my hand, and a decade to understand that by putting a capo on, you can change the music to a place where you can sing in tune
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
It was inspired by having to fight for our right to party, being stoically rejected by the music industry, and forced to build a cottage industry or return to Sainsbury's.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating an album?
This album seemed to take forever, we were making demos and doing pre-production for about six months, then we spent seven months in a row making it. We recorded the drums in London, then went to an empty house in Norwich in the middle of nowhere and recorded all the instruments. Then we went back to london for more instruments and strings and choirs of our friends, and on to Latvia to record some grand piano and mix the album. But we didnt like the mix, so we spent two months remixing it in my house, in which time we completely lost our minds. The only good thing was that it was available online free the day after we got it mastered, so we didn't have to wait around for ages for the label to release it.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
On this record we weren't very much influenced by other artists. If I even hear another song, I'll end up subconsciously stealing it. With the sound of the album we were trying to go for something spooky and cinematic, a cross between the Twin Peaks theme tune and Neil Young's 'Broken Arrow'
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Listen to it at least five times before you decide, please.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album/single, and for the future?
We release 'The 48a Waiting Steps' as a single in the UK on 30 Jun, then we are releasing the free album officially in America this summer. Our ambitions are to slowly climb. The record's been creeping virally and stealthily into peoples conscious, the counter can only go up. When we have the album launch in LA, Venice Beach isn't gonna know what hit it - the Vikings are coming! The Dunkirk landings are going to look like the Boston Tea Party. 'Secrets Of The Witching Hour' is free for all eternity, and for the future I just want to be edited kindly on Wikipedia by whoever actually does that, make a living, and never have to work again, either through music or incapacity benefit.
published june 2008
