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Artist Interviews
Q&A: The Crookes
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 15 December 2009
Formed in 2008 by guitarists Alex Saunders and Daniel Hopewell, and naming themselves after the Sheffield suburb where the pair met, prior to recruiting lead singer George Waite and drummer Russell Bates, The Crookes latest project – ‘The 12 Days of Crookesmas’ – sees them offer a collection of tracks, day by day, in the twelve days before Christmas (even though those aren’t actually the 12 days of Christmas). New track, ‘Chorus Of Fools’ went online on Sunday, with eleven more following on up to Christmas Eve, including Christmas covers and collaborations. We caught up with Daniel to find out more.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
Alex and I met at university, where we both (without any musical know-how) began to write joke songs about friends and comical characters in our lectures. Then we met George, through English seminars and mutual friends. The band sort of came together after our last exam of first year, when George performed a version of the Buddy Holly classic ‘Oh Boy’ to us in Alex’s tiny room in halls. We were all far more nervous about this encounter than the exam that preceded it! At this point, we realised we’d be going nowhere without a drummer and so recruited Russell, a Carlos Valderrama look-a-like and all round good guy.
Q2 What inspired ‘The Twelve Days of Crookesmas’?
I think we like to make things difficult for ourselves. We really liked the idea of making a track available for Christmas [‘Chorus Of Fools’], but the advent-calender-style accompanying eleven tracks was one of those ideas which we jumped into without really thinking about! But now we’ve done it we’re really pleased with how it’s taken shape. Instead of just a single we’re offering people a whole range of material which we think makes it far more interesting.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
The songs as a whole are put together collaboratively, but usually Alex starts the whole process off by writing the initial chord sequences around which the tracks then take shape. After some suitably embarrassing guide lyrics are put in place to cement the melody, I will then shut myself away for as long as it takes to replace them with a set that George would be willing to sing in public. When this is done, and the song is essentially complete, we will attempt to put drums to it. It is usually at this point that Russell will try his hardest to transform us into The Mars Volta, much to our dismay.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
While we are heavily influenced by bands such as The Smiths, Buddy Holly, The Shirelles and contemporary musicians like Richard Hawley, we also draw a lot of inspiration from literature. My lyrics are rooted in the kitchen sink dramas of the 1950s and 60s.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
I think often people are surprised at how energetic we are. Our early recordings didn’t really capture our ‘live’ sound, but I think more recently that’s something we’ve changed. Performing live is by far and away our favourite part of being in a band, and hopefully that shows. I also think it depends on what day you catch us. We’ve had some gigs on the tour when you could hear a pin-drop in the quieter songs followed by a stage invasion the following night! We never really know which way it’s going to go.
Q6 What are your ambitions for ‘The Twelve Days Of Crookesmas’, and for the future?
Having our first single sell out was an accomplishment we were all proud of. But in a sense it’s also been quite frustrating that we had to limit the number available. The great thing about doing the download is that we can hopefully get the songs out to a much wider audience. I think that’s ultimately our biggest aim at the moment.
MORE>> www.myspace.com/thecrookesmusic
