INTRODUCING…CRASH AND THE BANDICOOTS
Crash and the Bandicoots…that’s an old retro computer game right?
Yes. ‘Crash Bandicoot’ is a Playstation game that we used to play…a lot. We’ve ingeniously adapted it into our band name.
What was the thinking behind the name?
We wanted a name that people would remember and tell their friends about, so even if they hate us hopefully they’ll say “Hey have you heard of this band Crash & The Bandicoots? I used to love that game…….shame they suck”.
How would you say the Westcountry has shaped you as a) people and b) musicians?
A) We have accents. B) I don’t think its affected the way we behave musically. Soz.
What are your favourite local venues?
The Vic in Swindon- The people there are extremely lovely and the sound is always great. Its a proper music bar. Its always nice when you turn up to sound check and the sound engineer remembers little quirks about the band e.g. what vocal effects we use, who’s pedals always make a noise, where in the set we have lights up/down etc. They have a vocal effect called ‘Crash and The Bandicoots’ in the FX unit now. Haha. And Start the Bus in Bristol- Its just a very very very very very cool venue and where we played our first gig. Its also the first place we saw Ringo Deathstarr.
Tell us about your ties with BBC Introducing…
Ewan used to release his own electronic music under the name ‘Borto’ and Will Walder from BBC Wiltshire played it on the Introducing show after coming across Ewan’s music online. For about 8 months they played Ewans tracks on and off, so because of that we already had a good relationship with them when we started the band. Will and Marie have been really awesome to us, they always play our music and mention our gigs etc on the show and they’ve come to see us a few times too. We owe them a lot. Marie actually just booked us for Onefest, which is going to be our first festival ever. We got lucky when the guys from Bristol Introducing happened to be in the audience for a show we played at The Fleece. They’ve played our tracks a few times, and said some nice things about our music video for ‘Brian Fury Wins!’. A friend of ours Sam Lee (he used to be a part of the Wiltshire Introducing team) gave our tracks to Tom Robinson, and got us involved with him. He’s been kind about our music, and he brought us on the show for an interview.
Your website describes your music as lo-fi, what do you mean by that?
Lo-fi means low fidelity. It essentially means that our recordings have a degraded quality. It’s our attempt at kicking against X-factor style “over produced” music. We record all of our music in a bedroom and we don’t make an effort to record instruments well, or properly e.g. Instead of mixing up an instrument we’ll just stick the microphone in the middle of the room, we use harmonica microphones for vocals, and we run our recordings onto cassette tape before getting them mastered. Imperfection is more interesting than perfection.
What other local bands do you feel an affinity with?
Super Squarecloud: They’re a super cool Swindon band. They use a lot of weird time signatures etc, all they’re songs are beautifully quirky. Really noisy but really innocent at the same time. And Hysterical Injury. They are a brother and sister “bass and drums” duo from Bristol/Bath. They have the most enormous live sound ever. fact. We really like how raw their music is.
And who are your musical heroes?
Lou Reed, Beck, Bob Dylan, Ringo Deathstarr, The Cure, Flaming Lips, Sex Bob-bomb, Lord Voldemort etc.
You’ve got some remixes on the site too, are there any contemporary tracks you’d like to remix?
The Growlers- The Graveyards Full, because its soooooooo hip.
See Crash and the Bandicoots live at the Green Park Tavern on Bath on March 15, Frome Cheese and Grain on March 23, The Louisiana in Bristol on March 29 or The Victoria in Swindon on May 12.
