With the latest classic ‘Street Lethal’ upon us we caught up with Crazy Lixx’ main man Danny Rexon to find out more about the new record. Their seventh studio album sees Crazy Lixx show no signs of slowing down, and their trademark sound continues to hit the spot. Is there a better sounding 80’s influenced Arena Rock band out there at the moment? We don’t think so… Did we mention that they’re coming to Australia in 2022? Read on…
Danny: Hey Mark!
Mark: Hi Danny, I hope you’re well?
Danny: Very good.
Mark: ‘Street Lethal’ is another wonderful album, I honestly don’t know how you do it time after time!
Danny: Thank you. I’m excited about it! Two days before release and we’re ready to go.
Mark: Out on Friday people are in for a real treat! You’ve done it again and anyone who has seen the videos for the singles will know they’re in for something special! How long did it take to put this record together?
Danny: Well actually when we started writing for this album I was not too happy about doing it because when we finished the last one a lot of the tour due to the pandemic was first postponed and I hoped that we would be able to schedule it again. But then it was of course cancelled all together and then soon it became evident that we really had to start thinking about the next album. So I wasn’t too stoked about it at first especially since I’d just done the Chez Cane album which took a lot of effort when it came to song-writing. Also I actually used some songs that were originally demoed for Crazy Lixx for her album so I was coming from a bit of a dry spell when it came to song-writing, and so I felt I wasn’t ready. But I think that the inspiration came back quite quickly. The recording were done almost ten months ago, something like that, in January this year and by that time all of the material had been written already, so I would say the writing began last Summer after the Chez Cane album. But it took a while to get it released because the pandemic had made it that a lot of albums were ‘standing in line’ waiting to get released. So when I turned in her album to Frontiers I started writing for Crazy Lixx, but at first I wasn’t too happy about it as what was planning for was the tour that was supposed to happen in the Fall and was supposed to take us to the U.S. and Australia and possibly Japan. So at the time I felt like the biggest part of the tour was actually ahead of us.
Mark: It’s incredible to hear that and how the pandemic has affected everyone’s plans. But I think for a lot of people you have probably written two of the best albums of the year. The feedback you must have got from the Chez Cane must have been phenomenal as well?
Danny: Yeah very much.
Mark: I was going to ask if you wrote separately for each record, but it sounds like from what you say that some songs intended for Crazy Lixx songs made it onto Chez’ album.
Danny: Yeah there was some overlap and that was an issue that I encountered quite early because I didn’t want to do something… You know when Frontiers first reached out to me about doing a project aside from Crazy Lixx I felt that it had to sound different enough to make it worthwhile you know. I’d been thinking about the possibility of doing a solo project but I always felt it would be too close to Crazy Lixx unless I did something really crazy! (laughs) Which I really didn’t want to do. So I wanted to basically to do something that would fit Crazy Lixx, maybe something a bit on the lighter side – songs that we would typically reject because we wouldn’t want to have too much of that on our albums. It does something to an album when you have too many lighter melodic songs on it. But at the same time I didn’t want to do something too similar so I opted for going with a lot more keyboard driven on her album, and it also had a female vocalist, so I told Frontiers quite early on “I don’t want to be a member of another band, I want to be on the sidelines. I want to write the stuff, produce the stuff, but I don’t want to be in the band. And I want it to be a female vocalist” because I think there is a bit of a void when it comes to retro-sounding 80’s Metal. Whereas in the 80’s you had a bunch of female-fronted acts, solo artists and bands like Doro for example. So we drew a lot of inspiration from bands like Vixen, 80’s Heart, and Saraya – bands like that. And it think it came out different enough from Crazy Lixx even though it seems to attract the audience we have also, who seem to enjoy it very much.
Mark: Definitely. Another thing I have to mention is your production it’s sounding fantastic.
Danny: Thanks, that means a lot because it’s my first all the way through production. What I usually do with Crazy Lixx is I leave the last bit – the mixing to another person to get their input. But this was the first time I did everything from the start – playing all of the instrumentation more or less (laughs) I don’t play the saxophone yet!
Mark: (laughs) that will be next on the list!
Danny: (laughs) But of course I also used some backing vocalists who are external, I always like to blend in a different set of voices to give it the right feeling. SO a lot of the instrumentation was done by me and also the production and songwriting and ultimately the mixing – so this was a big project for me and I’m very happy at the reception – people seem to be enjoying the sound of what they’ve heard so far.
Mark: One of the best things about a new Crazy Lixx album is the chance of getting to see the band play it live, and we almost got to see you over here just before the pandemic, but there were a few issues with the set up of teh Festival. But the great news is that we have you booked to come over in September 2022 to finally make your debut Downunder.
Danny: I’m very much looking forward to it. The two guys that actually got to go there, I don’t know if you know about that?
Mark: I do they came over early for a holiday didn’t they?
Danny: They did they came over a week early for a vacation and when the shows didn’t happen they were kind of stuck there till after the pandemic and they were kind of worried about getting home! But they told us it was one of the top places they have been in their lives so I can’t wait to see it myself. We loved Japan, and I love travelling and seeing other parts of the world, so it will be great.
Mark: I think February 2020 was the last time you played live, it’s been way too long and so great to see you have a release party in November – it must be great to be playing live again?
Danny: It is, this is the longest break I’ve had in playing since I was 15, so it’s quite odd. And we haven’t done any live streams or anything like that – we always felt that we need an audience and we need the energy in the room. So we’re doing kind of a slow start now – we’re playing our home town of course and there will be a lot of familiar faces at the venue that we’ve played like a hundred times before. So it will be an easy start for us which is good because when you’ve been away for so long you never know how it will be when you come back.
Mark: I’m sure it will be great, it sounds like a special night. And then there are some other dates already penciled in there including Australia which is great to see.
Danny: We had such a lot planned but still a lot of the venues are quite hesitant to announce anything because they’ve announced and cancelled so many times, but we have a lot more stuff booked or in the works.
Mark: The album is out o many formats, I just ordered my coloured vinyl which will be on the way soon – I can’t wait to give it a spin! Let’s talk about a few of the tracks now. Hopefully everyone will have seen the videos for ‘Rise Above’ and ‘America’ but there was also the single ‘Reach Out’ as well. I remember hitting play that first time and thinking “Danny’s done it again this is great” but for me the album just got better and some of my favourite tracks are in the second half.
Danny: It’s always a difficult thing putting the tracks in some kind of order! I guess it shows the width of the album because I’ve heard people who have loved the opening more.
Mark: It’s not a bad thing in any way, the tracklisting flows beautifully and I loved the first half, I was just blown away by the second half! There’s a lot of diversity on there too and the singles are great but one song that I really liked was ‘Caught Between the Rock and Roll’ it sounded a little different. What can you tell us about that song?
Danny: Well it’s unique in one way because I had very little to do with it. It was mainly written by our guitarist Chrissie Olsson along with one of his co-writing friends. So I only went in at the end and wrote some of the lyrics but I had very little to do with it but I really do think it fits well. Chrissie has been in the band now since 2016, he was one of the guitarists that came in for the new line-up and I really think he understands the style that works for us. He also contributed on another song on the album the closing track – so I’m glad you seem to enjoy his stuff!
Mark: I did and it’s great that as you say the song fits in so well amongst your consistently wonderful material. Now that last song is very interesting ‘Thief in the Night’ when I saw the tracklisting I almost thought it was a misprint – it’s such a long song! But one that holds your attention from start to finish!
Danny: We wanted to do something different and give the instrumental outro a really long run because it was the closing track we wanted a dramatic feel that went on for ever and I think it turned out really well.
Mark: I loved it. If I had to pick one to get the fists pumping though it would be ‘Rise Above’ a song right up there with my favourites from the back catalogue!
Danny: Thank you.
Mark: And of course I love ‘Anthem for America’, particularly the words, tell us a little about that one lyrically?
Danny: Well you know when I was a kid growing up I was fed so much of the American culture – growing up in Sweden you get to see all of those awesome movies, cartoons and comic books and music of course. And we always felt that America was at the forefront of that culture – it was the country that we were looking up to and being inspired by. But I think some time in the 90’s that all started to change and I would say now the U.S. is at times even the laughing stock of the world and they’re certainly not contributing a lot to the positive culture of the world. What I get from the U.S. now is crappy music and cancel culture now. It saddens me that its got to that point and I don’t think it’s past the point when you cant turn it around but its really up to youth to do it – be the counter-culture again, be the rock and rollers and the the ones to say we don’t want this division and poor leadership. I think that through music you can channel all that positivity and hopefully it’s cyclical and it will come back soon, because it definitely left the U.S. a while back.
Mark: I think you’re right and I get what you’re saying. W all know there are some great bands and great musicians over there fighting against that tide of mindless rap and pop but cancel culture is a tool of control and really borders on bullying people into accepting PC views rather than actually really changing things. It’s simply another tool to divide and conquer.
Danny: Yeah.
Mark: The final song I have to talk about is one of my favourites ‘In the Middle of Nothing’ – how did that come about – the hook is incredible!
Danny: (laughs) It’s a bit of a strange thing because it was actually a friend of mine who is a musician but he doesn’t write music at all. He’s a saxophone player…
Mark: Hopefully teaching you! (laughs)
Danny: (laughs) he’s played with some big bands and he does enjoy Rock Music. One time we were sat in a totally different situation and he just blurted out this phrase and he sung it with that melody (Danny sings the line) and I thought to myself – that will make a good song actually! So I went home and wrote something and he’s credited on both the music and the lyrics for that song just through that little phrase! But as that was basically what started the whole song I really had to give him credit for it! So that’s the first time he’s been credited with a song on his life and he’s almost 30 years old now so he’s a late bloomer!
Mark: (laughs) what a great story! And what a great album I have to say Crazy Lixx is one of the only bands I can think of where I’d be equally happy hearing you play the new album live as any of teh classic older albums, the quality never wavers. And what a great way to end, I know you have another call coming in.
Danny: Great talking to you again Mark.
Mark: See you mate, see you next year!
Danny: Fingers crossed we’ll be there in September!
Mark: Take care mate!
Danny: You too!
The wonderful ‘Street Lethal’ is out now!
