Over the years Crazy Lixx has produced five excellent studio albums and a sizzling live record that are all right up there with the best of old school 80’s Hard Rock. Thirty years ago these guys would have been superstars. This month sees them add a sixth studio album and I have to be honest and say that I think it’s the band’s best to date: and with records like ‘New Religion’ and 2017’s excellent ‘Ruff Justice’ under their belts I don’t take that statement lightly. As soon as I heard it I had to call Danny…
Mark: Thanks so much for the chat at such short notice Danny.
Danny: My pleasure.
Mark: Well what can I say, I’ve been listening to the new album these last few days and as a fan from way back I never thought I’d say these words to you but I think this one is your very best so far!
Danny: Oh thank you, I actually agree. Usually I’m sure you know when you talk to bands they have to say their latest is their best, but from what I gather, and from the reviews I’ve seen so far I do believe that there is actually something behind that statement this time so I fully agree with you.
Mark: I definitely think so, and it’s your second album with the same line-up as well, which I think is a first, do you think that played a part?
Danny: I do think this time it’s a bit different for us, as you say it’s the same line-up and actually we’ve been able to use the same studios and I actually produced this album like the last one and we also used Chris Laney for mixing so all of the process was very much the same. So what I could do as a producer was to build on what we did with the last album, you know, re-do some stuff that maybe I was not happy with last time around, and that was the first time that we were able to do this. So we had some momentum for the first time when we went into the recording process. So it was a bit different for us this time.
Mark: It’s a wonderful album, and there’s a bit more variety on there as well. Found myself loving all of the tracks that I see as vintage Crazy Lixx, but there were a couple of tracks on there that really caught my ear that I thought were a bit different and as such just added a little bit more. They really connected with me- the first of those was ‘Eagle’ – what can you tell me about that song?
Danny: Well first of all I agree with you that it is a bit different. When I showed it to the guys I was a bit hesitant at first because as you say, it’s not the typical Crazy Lixx song and it is a bit keyboard-driven, and the guitars are not playing the usual riffs. But they instantly fell in love with it as well. So I was really happy that they agreed to moving with it in that direction. I mean it really fits in very well with the kind of music I listen to but it’s not something that we’ve tried before so I was really happy that I could get it onto the album, and I actually think it’s one of the strongest songs on the album. Maybe not the obvious hit but it is a song that I think a lot of people will like.
Mark: Oh definitely, I absolutely loved it, it was the one song that on first play through that made me just instantly go back and replay it. Wonderful stuff. And the other track that I thought was a little bit out of character, but equally cool was ‘It’s You.’
Danny: Yeah, I mean that is the most Pop-driven song on the album definitely, but when looking back on an album like ‘New Religion’ we had some stuff that was moving in that direction as well ,and here I’m thinking about a song called ‘She’s Mine.’
Mark: Absolutely!
Danny: But I don’t think we’ve done anything like that since then, but again for me, I listen to a lot of stuff like that so it’s natural for me to be influenced, but at the same time I wasn’t sure how far in that direction we could move, but I do think it fits on the album, and as long as a song is well written I do think that fans will allow for a bit of variety.
Mark: I completely agree especially when they work so well, and of course everything else on there I guess is just what we’ve come to love over the years from Crazy Lixx all the way from the opening track to the final one ‘Never Die’ which is another great song. And like I said first up I can’t believe that I’m saying it and hence my call, but this is the best so far in my opinion!
Danny: Awesome, I hope that we can supersede ‘New religion’ because that was always the benchmark, and always the one that people say was the best, but maybe we’ve finally come to make an album that’s actually better?
Mark: ‘New Religion’ was always my favourite album, so at least for one fan out there I feel you’ve now topped that! (laughs)
Mark: Are you taking the album out on the road, I saw that you’ve a few dates already lined up there?
Danny: What we have confirmed so far is mainly Festivals, but we are doing a release show next Friday on the release date in our home town of Malmo, but then we’re doing our first Festival the weekend after and after that we’re basically doing Summer Festivals until early September. The only shows we have confirmed after that is we’re going over to Japan and doing two shows there for the first time so that will be our first visit to Asia. Japan has always been quite a good market for us but we haven’t been able to get over there and play so it will definitely be something special. But other than that we don’t have anything else confirmed – we’re looking at a bunch of different alternatives, but we’re kind of waiting for the album to drop and to see how it’s received and then see what kind of offers we can get after that.
Mark: It would be wonderful to get you down here, we had Eclipse a few years back so it would be great to see you too, especially as Japan is only a relatively short flight away.
Danny: We’d love to come and play for you.
Mark: Thank you so much for talking to us today Danny, best of luck with the new album and if fans want to hear more from this interview they can check out our new ‘Off the record’ section on the website.
Danny: My pleasure, now fire away!
YOU CAN CATCH MORE OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH DANNY IN THE NEW ‘OFF THE RECORD‘ SECTION OF THE WEBSITE WHERE WE THROW A FEW CURVE BALLS TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE MAN BEHIND CRAZY LIXX AND QUITE PROBABLY OUR ALBUM OF 2o19…
For more on Crazy Lixx check out: https://www.crazylixx.com/
