In November 2007 when Crazy Lixx released their first album ‘Loud Minority’ the highs and excesses of 80’s Hard Rock were already almost two decades in the rear-view mirror, now in 2022 their seventh album ‘Street Lethal’ is on repeat at The Rockpit – the band just get better and better and whilst the sound has evolved it still captures the beating heart of 80’s rock! We first spoke to Danny Rexon back in 2010 (he was actually our ninth ever interview) and we’ve caught up every year since right up until last years chat about ‘Street Lethal’. Over the years we’ve also caught up with other members past and present. Here’s our latest interview ahead of the Australian Tour we talk to bassist Jens Anderson for the first time!
Mark: Hi Sir, so good to get to talk to you, thanks for checking in at The Rockpit how are you?
Jens: I’m all good Mark, thank you.
Mark: I must admit I am so looking forward to finally seeing you guys Downunder. We almost had you in 2019 but it didn’t quite work out?
Jens: Almost! (laughs)
Mark: I think a couple of the band got over for a holiday just as that Festival started to fall apart. It’s great to see you with Silverback this time!
Jens: We’re so looking forward to playing for you!
Mark: The Rockpit hits its 14th year just as you land Downunder and we’ve been talking to Danny each year with every release and tour so it’s great to get the chance to talk to you today Jens. We had the wonderful ‘Forever Wild’ in 2019 ready to tour before the pandemic hit and you’ve given us the wonderful ‘Street Lethal’ ready for the Australia Tour! I’m hoping that you’re going to be playing a lot of tracks from both of those releases for us. What’s the plan?
Jens: Yeah the plan is to do our best setlist and show you guys what it’s like to see a Crazy Lixx show. It’s always hard to make the best setlist especially when we have 7 studio albums now. So there are so many songs you can pick and play but we’ll try to make the best hour that we can for you.
Mark: If I had to pick my favourites I think you’d be out there for about 4 hours!
Jens: (laughs) That would be awesome we’d be like Bruce Springsteen! (laughs)
Mark: We’d have two or three sets and a couple of breaks in there and you might even get a bass solo!
Jens: (laughs)
Mark: I think that one of the best things about Crazy Lixx is that you get better with age, I think the last two records are right up there with your best. It must be hard to release a record like ‘Forever Wild’ and not be able to tour it. How soon did you start writing for ‘Street Lethal’ after ‘Wild’ dropped?
Jens: We tend to work on albums, do all the videos and stuff then release it, then we like to have a year where we can tour and play it. So with the pandemic we had more time for the whole process – we took more time with the videos. It’s always hard when we are recording to tour as well, you can break and fly to gigs, but we like to be focussed on the album. So we prefer doing it that way – recording, spending time on the videos and promotion then touring without interruptions.
Mark: The pandemic really robbed the majority of us around the world of two years of live Rock and Roll – what was it like to finally get out there after restrictions were lifted?
Jens: It was, I can’t say it was weird because you ‘have it in your spine’ you know, so you get up and play and it feels right. It was a bit rusty maybe, but five minutes into the set it was like you hadn’t even had a break!
Mark: It must have been fantastic to get back on stage. We’re looking forward to your first visit with H.E.A.T. – we’ve not had either of you down here before but we did see Erik (now with Skid Row) and Jona from H.E.A.T. a few years ago who did an acoustic thing but it’s great to be able to see full sets from you both. When I spoke to Jona the other day he mentioned that you were all good friends and had been on the same bill before, I think they supported you on one of their very first gigs.
Jens: They did, we’re from different parts of Sweden they’re from Stockholm and we’re in the South so we do bump into each other – I think they’re playing Germany just before they come out but we’re flying out a few days earlier just to be sure! (laughs)
Mark: One of the things I love to ask when we first speak to people is where their love of music comes from. What were you listening to growing up Jens?
Jens: I was that kid that was listening to Status Quo! (laughs) When I was really really, young! My parents had a lot of vinyl records and they were listening to Status, and Alice Cooper and stuff like that. But I was first hooked by the album covers like most people. And since then I discover new bands all the time, but I still listen to my first heroes like Kiss and Iron Maiden and Alice Cooper and all the classic acts.
Mark: I hear you have a soft spot for Shania Twain too?
Jens: (laughs) Yeah she’s fantastic and still is! (laughs)
Mark: We’ll keep that one a secret between us though!
Jens: (Laughs)
Mark: When did you know that music was going to be such an important part of your life? Did you always know, did it come in a moment of clarity or was it more gradual?
Jens: I remember one time, I don’t know what age but I was really young and I was still listening to these childish CDs like the Smurfs and things like that, and our neighbour where we lived I think it was for a birthday or something, I got the Kiss ‘Lick It Up’ album on CD. And this was the late 90’s when Kiss were reunited (in make-up), everywhere you could read about Kiss and you saw the make-up everywhere and I got this album with no make-up and I really was not happy with that gift, so I put it aside. I thought this was just adult shit! And then my big brother started to listen to it, and as i was a younger brother you always look up to your older siblings and I started to hear these riffs and songs from his room and I thought “This is really good what is it?” Then I realised it was my album! (laughs) And from that point we both got really into Kiss and it went on from there. And we both started to play music as well.
Mark: Kiss started things for so many people. They just touched down in Australia yesterday, sadly they leave us just before you arrive otherwise you could have caught them down here.
Jens: That would have been awesome.
Mark: Why choose the bass? To me it’s the most wonderful instrument, it drives the band along with the drums, but a great bass player really makes a band and its far harder to be a memorable bassist than a great guitarist?
Jens: First I actually started playing the drums and I did that for some time when I was younger, and then I switched over to the guitar, I don’t know why but I felt an attraction to it. At that time I was getting more and more into bands like Iron Maiden and such and I was just really drawn to Steve Harris, he really caught my attention. Then I started to hear all of these Gene Simmons bass lines, he’s actually a really underrated bass-player, most people know him for the silly things he says…
Mark: (laughs) that’s a lovely way of putting it!
Jens: But he’s a great bass-player. So with all that and Iron Maiden being more and more important to me, I just thought ‘I should try the bass’. And at that time there were so many guitar players around, but nobody knew many bass players. So I figured if I was going to become a good bass player I would always have a band, you know! (laughs)
Mark: It’s interesting that you say that because I listen to the last few records quite a lot and I actually love what you’re doing, you’re not just keeping time and your technique is great. Do you have a favourite bass track on the latest album?
Jens: I can’t really pick a favourite, it’s too hard. There’s some great lines. But I do have one favourite hidden thing on the song ‘In the Middle of Nothing’ it’s just a tiny thing and it barely made it through the mix, you can only just hear it, I don’t know what time it is, but I do this thing (Jens hums the line) – you should listen to it! (laughs)
Mark: I love that ballad it’s one that’s right up there with my favourites and I think I may know what you mean but I’ll take another listen and let you know when you get here.
Jens: (laughs) you should.
Mark: The first time we speak to people we ask two questions, I’ll ask one now and we’ll close with the other. The first is: if you could have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for the creation of any great album just to see how the magic happened in the studio, what would you have loved to have seen being made?
Jens: It would have to be some of the early Kiss albums, to see them working in the studio dressed as human beings with no make-up! Because those songs are just so ingrained, when you hear the songs you see them in your head playing live in make-up with fire and all of that. And I just think OK but they didn’t look like this when they were recording it and writing the songs they would have been sat there in regular clothes with no make-up playing, Now that would be really cool to see.
Mark: It would, I never thought of it like that before but it would have been . Those first eight albums – the six studio and two live were it for me as a kid! I loved them all, but they were a big part of my childhood.
Jens: Those were the real classics.
Mark: Getting into the album now. ‘Anthem For America’ was an interesting song and a great video, I completely got the sentiment but I think a few took it the wrong way especially in the U.S. how did it go down over there?
Jens: Actually in the U.S. both good, and I won’t say bad but you can see from the comments on YouTube that some people thought it was some hidden political message or something like that which couldn’t be more wrong! (laughs) The only political message would be ‘stop fucking around and get back to the dance!’ (laughs) Growing up in Sweden, America is such a big part of the culture with all the movies, and you learn English at an early grade in school, and such. So it’s like a salute to American culture – the classic action movies and such. There’s no political point in it. People were thinking we were making fun of Donald Trump and others thought we were supporting him, but it’s really neither, it’s just us trying to make good music!
Mark: I just read it as wouldn’t it be great if culture was back to being fun like it was in the 80s!
Jens: Exactly.
Mark: I love ‘Rise Above’ its a great opener to the album and ‘Anthem For America’ and ‘Power’ that follow make it one of the best starts to an album I’ve heard in a long while!
Jens: Thank you.
Mark: I love the fact that Crazy Lixx make music that captures the feel of bands you’ve loved in the past yet adds to that feeling rather than just trying to replicate it. I love ‘Reach Out’ that has a real vintage Bon Jovi flavour.
Jens: Oh yeah.
Mark: But then you get a song like ‘In the Middle of Nothing’ with the bass line I’m going to be checking out later…
Jens: (laughs)
Mark: Which I reckon is one of my favourite Crazy Lixx ballads seven albums in!
Jens: Yeah, it’s one of my favourites too. It’s a shame because we don’t play it live now but I really want to do it some day because it has such a great groove to it. I’d love to play that one live.
Mark: One song I asked Danny about but I’d love your input on too is the final track ‘Thief in the Night’ it’s a song that blows out to almost seven and a half minutes but there’s no a second I would cut of it – it’s a great song in itself but the expanded instrumental outro is like the credits at the end of a great 80’s movie!
Jens: Yeah, that one is actually Chrisse’s which he co-wrote with an Australian guy! We wanted it on the ‘Forever Wild’ album – the end song was called ‘Never Die Forever Wild’ which ends with this bombastic twin guitar solo and we wanted to do a similar thing. The song is pretty short but the whole outro thing just feels like a great ending to the entire album.
Mark: It is and I love that idea. Tell us about life before Crazy Lixx, were you in local bands prior to joining?
Jens: Yeah I was in a local band called Solity, it was more of a Metal band and we tried to tour when we could. We did one tour in Russia – three weeks in a bus in the East, there’s great stories but it was tough! (laughs)
Mark: By the time you get out here we’re hoping it’s a little warmer for you! It really is great to have you down and we’re so lucky this year to have a few from your part of the world coming Downunder – we have so many Swedish and Scandinavian Hard Rock bands its like every week is Christmas till the end of the year!
Jens: (laughs) We are really looking forward to doing it together with H.E.A.T. they’re such good guys to hang out with and they’re super talented musicians, so it’s gonna be a really good Swedish package for you guys I think! (laughs)
Mark: I’ll be heading East for that! After 12 years of supporting the band it will be great to actually get to see you all for the first time.
Jens: I look forward to it.
Mark: As promised we always close with an easy question: what is the meaning of life?
Jens: (laughs) That’s an easy one! (laughs) I think the meaning of life is maybe different for everyone but for me it’s doing something meaningful and to know if something is meaningful for you. When you feel passionate about something you should do it, you know. I have a wonderful family so being a father and a touring musician and all the other bits I do, I make a good life out of it you know. It’s like a sculpture or trying to make a piece of art. And of course trying to have a good time! Meeting good people and sharing experiences and learning new things all the time. And that’s one of the perks of being in a touring band – it’s meeting the audience and the fans and making new friends. Some people we see many times, some have seen like twenty shows, some people have never heard of us and just stumble across us. Some people will be long time fans and some people are just getting to know us.
Mark: Well in my opinion Jens one of the very best bands around today.
Jens: (laughs) Thank you.
Mark: It has to be show of the year – Crazy Lixx and H.E.A.T!
Jens: For us too we are really excited.
Mark: Two wonderful bands in Australia for the first time, let’s hope we impress you enough to get you over again.
Jens: Yeah definitely.
Mark: Take care mate, good to get to talk to you. See you soon.
Jens: Thank you for having me Mark.
Read our review of ‘STREET LETHAL’ HERE
Read our interview with DANNY REXON about ‘STREET LETHAL’ HERE
Crazy Lixx and H.E.A.T – Australian Tour September 2022
Thurs, Sept 8: Manning Bar, Sydney
Friday, Sept 9: The Prince, Melbourne
Saturday, September 10: Woolly Mammoth, Brisbane
Sunday, September 11: The Gov, Adelaide
Tix from
www.silverbacktouring.com.au/heat-australian-tour-2021/