In our next Band Spotlight, we chat to Newcastle indie-punks, Crux.
Hi guys, how are you today?
Alreet! We’re not bad thanks; we’re clinging onto the hope that normality is on the horizon resulting in the reappearance of gigs and festivals.
Talk us through the development of ‘Living In Dystopia’?
I think ‘Living in Dystopia’ started off as a guitar riff I wrote in third year at university, way back in 2018. I then started to develop the guitar riff by adding extra parts which I could hear fitting with the riff, and came up with some cool chords which eventually became the basis for the middle 8. By this point the song had some form of structure, and when we approached producer, Max Heyes, in April 2019, I recorded a demo of the track on my laptop. The process of recording it as a demo meant I added drum parts, vocal melodies, lyrics, etc. ‘Living in Dystopia’ was one of ten demos I sent to Max, and the reason we chose ‘Living in Dystopia’ was because it was topical, had strong guitar riffs, and was probably the most unconventional song too.
I then took the song to the rest of the band where Jake added an insane Tom Morello-esque solo, and Hallam added some cool bass licks. We eventually got the song recorded at Lynchmob studios with Max, and programmer/engineer, Paul Knight-Malciak at the start of November 2019. Max and Paul took the song to a new level during the production. We had to delay the release of the track significantly due to lockdown; we were hoping to release it in September 2020! But it feels more relevant now than ever!
How do you guys define success as a band?
Some would define success as fame and wealth, but we’re not very materialistic. For us, we would say our efforts have been successful when we can afford to commit a full time career to the band, and have a fan base big enough to regularly tour and play at festivals.
What stuff inspires the band outside of music – think people, places, and art for example?
Politics, social issues, and our region have a huge impact on our lyrics, as well as literature, mainly dystopian novels, as you can probably tell from the title of the song! 1984 by George Orwell, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and many of Sylvia Plath’s poems were major influences on the lyrics for ‘Living in Dystopia’. Films and television series are also a big source of inspiration to us. The dark synths in Blade Runner had an influence on our song, ‘Bigg Market’, and you can see a reference to Ridley Scott’s Teesside inspired smoggy universe in the music video for our song ‘Slaving Away’.
I’ve recently watched Mr Robot, as David and Doris from A Kenny Film, who produced the music videos for all of our tracks, recommended it based on the sound and lyrics of ‘Living in Dystopia’ as they created similar montages from Mr Robot in the video for the song. I have to say, Mr Robot is the best series I’ve ever seen, and I’ve binged the majority of Netflix, so that’s definitely going to be a source of inspiration for future tracks.
Do you have a message for those who have supported you so far?
Thank you so much for sticking with us; if we had no support we wouldn’t exist as a band, and the band is our passion, so we are eternally grateful! And a massive thanks to everyone who has listened, shared, and sent feedback on our new release ‘Living in Dystopia’ so far.
