News Crusades: ‘Our Focus Is On The Live Energy’

Math rock may have hit the alternative mainstream over the last couple of years, but the genre that arguably most contributed to its genesis, post-hardcore, remains continually a little further from notice. Following in the trailblazing spirit of the bands like At the Drive-In that defined the original experimental template for the genre, Glasgow’s Crusades are a blast of fresh air; unpretentiously aggressive, capricious in arrangement and righteous in execution.

“We all met on gumtree through an ad Mark placed,” recalls frontman Steven Murray, “I was no longer playing music after leaving a previous project and selling all my equipment.” Then it seems the gods of rock intervened with a double dose of serendipity, “I looked on gumtree out of curiosity one day and noticed Mark and Matt’s ads separately. They both shared the same influences as myself so decided to contact both and sort out a practice. It turns out Matt, Paul and Mark actually knew each other through school which was a coincidence.”

Hard-working from the off, the band have been “playing since September 2011”, but only playing live since March – yet they can already boast an impressive 35 shows under their belt and a début EP due out on Overlook Records. “Overlook records are our friends” explains Steven, “It’s more of a collective, all the bands on the label help each other out, we all go to each others’ shows and support each other. We completely believe in the whole DIY ethos. It’s the basis of our band.”

Creative control is important to the band, who are fiercely territorial about their art. “Obviously if we’re approached by a label and they have complete control over our music and doings then it’s a no brainer, they can fuck off” Steven states frankly, before continuing, “there are however plenty of major independents who produce amazing records - for example Sargent House.” Would Crusades aspire to joining the roster of a label like that? “That’s a position we would love to be in”.
Crusades’ sound may not be math-rock but it certainly bears a number of the hallmarks of the genre. Their first public offering, ‘Pseudo Andro’ from their upcoming Golden Throats EP straddled some of the land hitherto occupied by progressive rock experimentalists such as Oceansize as well as hardcore mainstays like Dillinger Escape Plan.

“I think we’re firmly in the post hardcore camp with tangents of math rock,” Steven agrees. “We all love At the Drive-In, the Bronx, Refused, Torche, Converge et cetera - we just want to write and most importantly perform loud, fast, energetic music. It’s easily recognisable post hardcore yet unique enough to stand out”.

With the potential for an enthusiastic following from the math-rock scene, there remains the question of how they can cut through the current crop of math and math-influenced bands. Steven reiterates, “I really think our sensibilities lie more in hardcore and post-hardcore than that of math rock. For sure we use the odd strange time signature, but aside from that, our focus is on the riffs and the live energy. We want our music to be challenging to play at points, but there’s so much more beyond that… for example, we want there to be a singability to our music, you know when you can sing along to a guitar solo or drum beat? We aim for that much more often than we aim to impress music virtuosos. I guess it’s the same for a lot of musicians, as you grow you begin to appreciate the whole ‘less is more’ thing.”

From bloodied pictures of instruments and blurry, crazed gig photos posted online there’s no doubt that they take their commitment to stagecraft seriously; Steven wryly observes “there’s only so much a band can post on behalf of themselves before it’s really over to the listener to make their own mind up.” A band in the internet age can go out of their way to create an image but ultimately it’s actions and tunes that will make or break a band – luckily Crusades have both the tracks and the no bullshit, let’s-fuck-shit-up attitude. To work out where this energy and inspiration for mad stage antics comes from it has to be asked though: listening aside, what’s the most crazy thing Steven has seen at a show?

“That’s easy! Watching Greg Puciato shit into a plastic cup during Dillinger’s set at Gig in the Green and tossing it into the crowd!”

That explains it then.

Crusades’ ‘Golden Throats’ is out now on Overlook Records. Stream ‘Pseudo Andro’ below.


Pseudo Andro by Crusades