Creech
Well Creech is one of those
bands I admire for their devotion and love for the music they like. They've
been through hell and high water and yet never thought of quitting. All
those difficulties only made them stronger and more determined. Musically
now call them what you will, but as soon as you listen to them, you'll
grant them the fact that their compositions consist of many controversial
and interesting elements. Here's what Roddy and Taz revealed to us...
1. HELLO THERE! CONGRATULATIONS ON “TAKE IT
ALL”! SOME MONTHS HAVE PASSED SINCE ITS RELEASE DATE. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT
IT?
Roddy: We still love it, but it’s been well
over a year since we recorded that EP. Our new stuff is gunna rip that
EP a new arsehole!!!! Work on our new album is well underway, and should
be complete by the end of the year.
2. SINCE THIS IS OUR FIRST INTERVIEW I THINK IT
WOULD BE NICE IF YOU POINTED OUT THE MOST IMPORTANT MOMENTS OF THE BAND’S
LIFE TILL NOW. PLEASE PRESENT THE CURRENT LINE UP AS WELL.
Roddy: The band has a long and sometime traumatic
history. Our singer, Taz, started the band in England in ’99. They achieved
some success there, and in around ’02, they decided to make a new start,
and came to Australia. Personal tragedy struck one of the members, and
he had to return home to England. So Taz basically had to start the whole
band from scratch, or head home. He chose the former, luckily for us!!!!
Over time he recruited our bass player, Ron
Curran, our lead guitar player Ash, and finally, in early ’04, myself Roddy
Scarr on the skins.
3. WELL, THE FIRST THING THAT STRUCK ME, BEFORE
EVEN LISTENING TO YOUR MUSIC, IS THE COURAGE OF 2 OF CREECH’S BAND MEMBERS,
WHO LEFT ENGLAND AND SETTLED IN MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA. IT NEEDS A LOT OF
GUTS TO MOVE FROM ONE HEMISPHERE TO ANOTHER AND LEAVE EVERYTHING BEHIND.
SO, WANT TO TELL US MORE ON THAT? WHY DID YOU DECIDE SUCH A MOVE?
Taz: I can take the blame for that. I was
having a pretty rough time in England and the band was having a break.
After I came to Australia, the drummer Nick decided to follow and we started
looking for new members, it wasn’t a master plan or anything like that.
It did take 9 months for Nick to arrive and almost 11 months for our gear
to get to Australia! The gear got here the day after Nick went back home,
which was shit.
4. DESCRIBE YOUR MUSIC IN A FEW WORDS. LET’S SAY
THAT YOU HAD TO WRITE A REVIEW OF “TAKE IT ALL”. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY, TRYING
TO BE AS OBJECTIVE AS POSSIBLE?
Roddy: I call us ‘Big Rock’! But I reckon
there’s more going on in our stuff than meets the eye initially. It’s Rockin’,
of course, but there’s a darkness, and quirkiness to it as well. The influences
within the band’s members are very varied, and we all bring them to the
pot, throw them in, stir them round and see what comes out!
5. WELL, CONTINUING ON THE SAME TOPIC, I “LABELED”
YOUR MUSIC IS PURE, RAW AND PASSIONATE ROCK WITH STRAIGHTFORWARD AND CATCHY
RIFFS. IS IT MORE OR LESS OK WITH YOU? ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH YOUR SOUND
OR ARE YOU THINKING OF EXPANDING AND ENRICHING IT?
Roddy: On the new album, you will hear a bit
more of the same, and then a WHOLE lot more!! The album will be far more
varied and dynamic, with tunes ranging from short, sharp, in your face
ballsy Rockers, to 8 minute epic ballads, to some harder and heavier shit,
and plenty in between. If you liked ‘Take it All’, you will CREAM over
the new record.
6. WHAT KIND OF PROCEDURE DO YOU FOLLOW WHILST
COMPOSING YOUR SONGS? WHERE FROM DO YOU DRAW ALL THIS ENERGY AND INSPIRATION?
Roddy: We’ve found a really good way of working.
Taz is the number one songwriter of the band, and he writes the basic riffs,
melody lines and lyrics. He and I then get together and jam on the ideas
as rhythm guitar, vox and drums. We get the song to around 80% arranged,
and the other guys come along and add their voices to the piece. It works
extremely well, and lately we’ve been really prolific, song wise.
Taz: I have a lot of bottled up anger. When
I write a song I make myself feel so angry and guilty that stuff just pours
out of me, sometimes the pain makes me cry, sometimes it makes me shout
and other times I just get really down for days on end, but the result
is always the same.
7. DO YOU WANT TO FILL US IN LYRIC-WISE ON “TAKE
IT ALL”?
Taz: The lyrics are about life without being
too specific: arguments, anger, judgement, laziness, smoking, pain, suffering,
addiction, growing up, torture, hangovers, love, skeletons, vampires, embryos
and other such stuff that you find in every day life.
8. IS THERE A SPECIFIC MEANING BEHIND THE ALBUM
TITLE?
Taz: It’s all about the amount of effort that
we as a band have to go through, to produce good music without the luxury
of the big corporations backing us up.
9. WHAT’S THE BEST AND WHAT’S THE WORST PART OF
YOUR MUSIC, ACCORDING TO YOU?
Taz: The best part would be the pure energy
release and the worst part would be the satanic messages when you play
it backwards.
10. WHAT KIND OF FEEDBACK HAVE YOU RECEIVED THIS
FAR? WHAT WAS THE MOST FLATTERING AND WHAT THE WORST COMMENT YOU’VE READ
ABOUT YOUR MUSIC?
Roddy: We’ve had many reviews, probably 95%
of which have been extremely positive. On the positive side, we’ve been
called such things ‘thunderous Rock n Roll insanity.’, and ‘power pop through
a heavy Rock grinder.’ On the neg side, someone called one of the tunes
on our EP a ‘piss-poor grunge-athon!!!’ Now that’s FUNNY!!!!!
11. HAVE YOU SENT YOUR EP TO ANY LABELS? ARE YOU
UNDER NEGOTIATION WITH ANY? WITH WHAT CRITERIA WILL YOU SELECT THE LABEL
YOU ARE GOING TO WORK WITH?
Roddy: Yeah, we’ve had some discussions with
some Aussie and European labels. Our major criteria will be that we want
to be pushed over your part of the planet. It just makes sense, our singer
is English, it’s obviously a MUCH bigger market over there than here, and
Europeans just seem to LOVE Heavy Rock and Metal music!
12. DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR LIVE SHOWS? I THINK
YOUR MUSIC IS IDEAL FOR LIVES. WHAT KIND OF ATMOSPHERE IS CREATED IN YOUR
SHOWS?
Roddy: Like our sound in general, our live
show is ever expanding. We wanna put on arena sized shows, the way very
few bands are these days. Our show already features smoke bombs, backing
music, instrument destruction and whatever other crazy shit we can think
of. As our notoriety, and budget, increases, so will the size of our stage
shows and antics!!! We’ll never be the type of band that just gets up on
stage, plays their tunes while gazing at their shoes, and gets off!
13. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE WITH CREECH? WHICH
ARE THE DREAMS YOU WANT TO MAKE TRUE?
Roddy: We wanna write and release great Rock
albums and tour the world for the next 20 years or more. This band, and
its members, has seen, and overcome, massive adversity already, and whatever
doesn’t kill us makes CREECH stronger. Our album will be out by the end
of the year, and we will be touring Europe next year. You can count on
that.
14. HMM... BY THE WAY WHAT DOES CREECH MEAN? HOW
DID YOU SELECT IT?
Roddy: CREECH is a slang term meaning dark,
weird and indescribable.
15. IF YOUR MUSIC WERE AN EMOTION, WHAT WOULD
IT BE? IF IT WERE A PAINTING, WHAT WOULD IT SHOW?
Roddy: There’s no single emotion. Of course,
there’s angst and darkness, but there’s also some light and hope. There’s
tunes on the new record that will make you cry your eyes out, and then
some that will make you stand up and raise your fist to the sky!!! Then
there’s some that will make you wanna break your hand punching the wall.
All sorts of stuff going on there.
Can’t think of a specific painting that would
represent us, but something dark, quirky but in your face at the same time!!!!
16. WHAT TITLE WOULD YOU LIKE THIS INTERVIEW TO
HAVE? A TITLE SUITABLE FOR YOUR MUSIC AND WHAT YOU STAND FOR…
17. THANK YOU! LEAVE A MESSAGE TO YOUR FANS AND
TO OUR READERS…
Roddy: CREECH are coming, so get ready to
laugh, cry, go crazy, and Rock out until the sweat drips from every pore,
and you drop dead with exhaustion!
Christine Parastatidou
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