Crash Car Burn has been part of the South African music scene for so long that thinking back to when I first heard them makes me want to lie down. The band is busy releasing their 4th studio album, titled Headlights. Just like me the guys have grown up, lost their braces and packed away their inner angsty teen. We caught up electronically with them and got the full low down on the new album.
1. Garth and Brendan you guys have been playing together for years. What are the earliest memories you both have of playing together?
Oh yes, it’s been a while! I think my earliest memories of playing with Bugs are at Roxy Rhythm Bar with Tweak. He was only 15 at the time so we had to get special permission for him to play the shows and then leave immediately! The look on the bouncers’ faces… Bugs was a late bloomer like me, so even though he was 15, he looked about 12.
2. The South African music scene has exploded into something rather spectacular. The “scene” is far different from what it was when this all started in the late 90’s. Please feel free to take a moment to let the flashbacks set in. As artists who have been present throughout this change what do you think was the main catalyst?
Wow, so many factors man! I think the two biggest are social media and the advent of the home recording studio. When we got started back in the day there was not social media, the internet was barely a thing! You needed a label or a manager to take interest in order to generate a platform. These days, the world is your playground with apps like Facebook and Youtube. Back in the day you also needed some financial backing before you could afford studio time. These days, every kid with a PC is a producer/engineer and they are GOOD! It’s much easier to record and release music. Sometimes I feel like my grandma trying to operate a cellphone… out of my depth! Luckily we have some tech-savvy gents in the band to manage that side of things.
3. Your new album, Headlights, will be out on the 6th of April. Congrats! You guys have been working for over 6 years on this album. How do you know its time to put down what you got, stop messing with it and head to the studio?
For a while now, there’s been a bit of an industry trend of releasing singles in stead of full length albums. We did that for a while and, even though we haven’t released a full album since 2012 (yikes!!), we’ve released a good number of singles during that time. The problem with putting out singles though, is that you’re always writing something that might have a chance on radio, so you miss out on those little gems that might not necessarily be picked up by radio, but are nonetheless great tracks! So eventually we we’re like ‘ok the singles journey was fun, but it’s time now for an album!’
4. The whole point of this album was to make yourselves happy and not to stress too much about what other people will think. That must be an extremely freeing experience?
Totally. In the past we might have asked ‘does this fit with our sound?’ ‘ is this right for CCB?’ etc. But this time, the question was simply ‘Does this sound good?’, and answering yes to that took us down some interesting musical paths.
5. Crash Car Burn and great music videos go together beautifully like Avocado and well life. From playing in shopping aisle to a boxing ring and also high-speed street running. Any big plans Headlights’ music videos?
Firstly, you know I don’t eat Avocado yet? As far as I know, I am the only person in the world. As for the ‘Headlights’ video….no plans yet! We already burned (very literally) a truckload of money setting fire to a car in town to make the album teaser video, and we spent a fortune hiring professional TV dogs for the ‘Summer Forever’ video, so we’ll have to sell a few albums and play a few shows before we can think about another video.
6. If you guys could look back 10 years from now what do you hope you remember about this album?
Late nights recording at HighSeas Studios where Sarah makes the BEST coffee! Traipsing into town on a cold winters night to set fire to that car I was just talking about… That first time we heard the mix for ‘In the Sky’ and we’re like ‘WOW, we really like this!!’, picking up the first copies of the printed album (yes, we still print physical albums in 2018… for the grandkids one day you know?).
7. Where can we all get our hands on the new album? Any shows in the pipeline?
We’ll have physical copies at our shows, or you can buy physical copies at new-hope-clothing.com plus it will be on Itunes and all major streaming services.