Interview mit Juli Bazooka von Crisix

Hello, thank you for taking time to do this how are you. How are you the days?
Man, it’s just great. I like the name of your magazine. Metal uno in Castellano, Metal one in English or Metal ein, zwei, drei in German (laughs). We are catching so much deadlines before leaving for the European tour. We start in Switzerand on September 10th, same day as „The Pizza EP“ comes out in Europe. Last week we did two exclusive parties in cinemas in Barcelona and Madrid with premiering four videos. We also did our first ever stand-up comedy show. On the same day we launched CRISX pizza in Catalunya in nine pizzerias, a day earlier in Madrid. Before leaving for the tour we will also do personal pizza and EP deliveries in Barcelona. Totally crazy if you consider that we were home for so long, and now this explosion of activities.

“The Pizza E.P.” is your first EP after five full-length albums. Why did you choose the EP format this time, what’s cool about it?
It’s just cool. Any vinyl is cool. The touch, smell, when you open it, play it and enjoy the cover and lyrics. We like vinyl as a format and own many EPs such as „Garage Days“, „Dr Stein“, „Penikufesin“, „Haunting The Chapel“… I mean it is a great format that we wanted to have. We had a bunch of cool material for the next full length and lots of songs were standing out. Somehow we did a conceptual culinary release, that we saw in a pizza box with all the activities behind it. Videos, cinema, stand up comedy, a book, a game, licensed pizza, licensed hot sauces that come along with a tour.

What is your favorite pizza and what is the worst you can put onto a pizza?
We will release „Spped Metal Kitchen Of Doom“, the first ever band-written cooking book with 70 recipes and food stories from the tours. We write a lot about pizza. Me personally. I am a vegetarian, so any vegi and cheese pizza I will taste with pleasure. We made a philosophy out of it. You know, five members, five different tastes, but there are certain pizzas we all love, such as Margarita or Siciliana. The worst you can get is an industrial type pizza topped with hamburgers, three fold lasagna pizza or kebab pizza.

I think “The World Needs Mosh” is one of your best tracks ever and perfectly represents your attitude and music in general. What do you think about that and the song?
Thank you. It is the song that represents us and our scene, the huge mosh community. The message is very straight and clear, but this is exactly what we think. When we were preparing the whole EP idea and the concept, we knew that we wanted to have fun and make people happy. We didn’t want to write boring stuff about politics and the virus, but rather send out a motivational and positive message. Mosh is love. World needs love.

“Raptors In The Kitchen” is by far your shortest track ever with under one minute. How did this come about?
Man, you know, this song came to life so spontaneously. Javi brought the riff. I wrote the lyrics. It is the song where we pay tribute to S.O.D and M.O.D and „Jurassic Park“. I was a kid when I saw the movie for the first time. I was like seven years old. My parents took me to the movies and the kitchen scene stayed in my mind forever. It is so good, so scary. I always wanted somehow to recreate it for CRISIX and this time I finally got a chance. People love it. It is still conceptual, you know, it fits to a culinary EP concept.

You recorded “Raptors In The Kitchen” and “It’s Tough To Cook A Song” with all band members at the same time in the studio and the raw energy can really be felt. How did the idea to record the songs like this come about?
Yes, that’s right. We were playing with that idea for quite some time. But the songs from “Against The Odds” were not right for this type of recording. The B side of the EP that we call „Slice B Extra Raw“, was perfect to do it. It is very different feeling, you know. Everyone in the same small room, recording it. It feels more like an intimate live show. Pla was pushing it since the first day, and when we started recording we knew we did the correct decision. We were looking for a generic, organic and live feel of these songs, without any metronome, but pure feeling. And as you say, for the listener it is easier to get our rawer side. We are a live band, first of all. We recorded one song without telling it to Javi, BB brought the idea about a song I cannot reveal, because it is available on physical copies only. But we were jamming it and ordering pizza at the same time. Javi didn’t even know we were recording.

If velociraptors cornered you in a kitchen, how would you act to get out of that situation?
(laughs) I think by now you already saw a video and you can see BB in that situation. „Raptors“ is the third video in the short movie. It comes after „World Needs Mosh“. It is actually a dream, or if you want you can call it a hallucination. It is BB who has dinosaur nightmares and then wakes up from a bad dream. He is hiding in a drawer. When we did a stand-up comedy show last week in the cinemas, we also included raptors. Two raptors were running and touching the public, then they came on stage, put the costumes off and under were Javi and Requena. It was very funny. So a raptor can also be your band member and you don’t even know it.

Your referenced various movies on your albums, for example Alien, Army Of Darkness and now Jurassic Park. What are your favorite horror and monster movies?
„Halloween“, „The Thing“, „Creepshow“, „The Fly“, „The Exorcist“, „Alien“…

Would you consider yourself a movie nerd?
Yes, absolutely. Cinema is one of my great passions. I studied at the Catalan film school (ESCAC). For many years I did „Julivision“ for CRISIX video content, and since the beginning I am involved with the majority of the CRISIX videos. Making four video clips in one story is not a job you get every day. The EP story is based on BB’s experience when he was delivering pizzas. You know, the entire pre-production process: locations, costumes, props, casting, etc. is a world of its own. Since I remember the cinema, movies and all around it fascinated me a lot. I can easily confess that I saw classics such as „Alien“ a dozen times. I am a regular customer of a local cinema. Now during Corona it happened many times that I sat alone in my local cinema and enjoyed the movie on my own.

One can definitely hear in your music that you put your heart and soul into it. What does thrash metal mean to you?
It’s everything, man. I mean metal in general. It is our life. It is what we do and live for. You know, to record and travel the world was our child wish. Now we can really live that. The other day I did an interview and I recalled: When we started with CRISIX we rehearsed from 7 to 10 hours every day. Every day, man. Birthdays, new year, winter or summer. Other friends were partying, we were rehearsing. Many, many years. Till we started to tour so much that we didn’t have all that time to rehearse as we were used to. But we wrote albums in our van, booked studios, went on tours, recorded, toured and so on. For so many years. And we still do it. We are a hard-working band and I am lucky I have friends around me with highest work ethics.

“The World Needs Mosh” – I couldn’t agree more with you! You are a band full of energy. How important is it for you that this energy spreads to the audience?
This is very important. Here we can play a role of doctors or shaman healers, if you like. The world is in a very difficult situation. Many people are scared and lost and feel betrayed, but we try to say that we all should look at the shiny side of the coin and start living positive and without worries. We really believe that mosh is love. In a circle pit, yes it can be a bit violent, but it’s fun and full of love. The unity of friends with same beliefs without any religious or political limitations. No sexism, racism or any misunderstanding. The circle pit a is a place without any other religion than music, where the only god is metal. World leaders should join our circle pit and, as we say in the lyrics, the old lady from the store and tik tokers and all people with problems. They should come to a circle pit, liberate themselves and leave all the problems behind and the world would be much healthier place.

You played a virtual concert for Hellfest At Home, which turned out to be really great, it conveyed some true concert atmosphere for me when watching it. What was it like to play a whole concert without fans?
A lot of people ask us how we could play without the audience. In some cases you have to put your shit together and get professional. We knew that all fans will watch the show from their homes, and the moment we stepped on the stage we felt like the venue is full with thousands of metalheads. When we played live we knew that when people will watch it from their homes, they will headbang and mosh. This is exactly what happened. We all missed the live shows so much. Us and our fans. This was the first show after many months, so it was extra special for us. You know, the whole Hellfest experience, the professional stage with sound and lights. Arte TV was recording it and you could tell the organization was on the highest level. We premiered „World Needs Mosh“ and „No Tip For A Kid“ and brought the pizza motorbike on stage for the first time. We got in a mode as if we played a normal show and it worked perfectly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpMAncegbi8&t=2624s

You’ll be going on tour with Insanity Alert soon, how excited are you to finally be on the road again? Do you still have any concerns about Corona or are you just excited to destroy all these stages?
Insanity Alert are our mosh brothers. We played a lot of shows with them, also in Japan, and cannot wait to finally do this tour. You know, it was rescheduled three times and one part is getting the fourth change, but this is the reality of today’s concert situation. We like to play in any conditions and our management is working hard with each promoter to make it happen, so you know if we have to do a show with special conditions we will do it. We will deliver the same show and people will have the same fun, just a bit restricted. But it is important that fans support live events now. Even if it’s a bit weird with a mask or PCR test, it is necessary for a scene to survive. We all had our second vaccination and you know we did it mainly for one reason, to be able to play, to be able to travel and enter festivals and venues. We of course respect the decision of those bands who don’t wanna do it. We are very ready, we rehearsed a lot, because we were preparing for studio recordings and our bassist Pla flew from Galicia for three months straight to be able to practice with all of us.

Some of the concerts, e.g. at Backstage in Munich, will be spaced concerts. How do you think about it, will the distance change much about the usual concert atmosphere? What about moshing?
We are really looking forward to the show in Munchen. Are you coming to the show Stefan? It is a great metal city and we would again apply to all our fans to support us and the promoter and come to see the show. We will have fun, we will mosh on stage. With Insanity Alert it is not just any show where we come on and off stage. It is an experience. We always like to chat, eat pizza, and party with our fans. Even in Corona times everyone is welcome. The show is moved to a big venue, so there will be extra space. We will play few new songs and all the classics with complete show regardless the restrictions

When can we expect some information about your next album, are you already planning something?
Well, I kinda revealed that the EP was part of album sessions. In the beginning of 2020 we had like 20 preproduction songs, from that we took a few for the EP and in the meantime wrote a few more tracks. We have been in the studio in Barcelona for a few weeks now, recording what will be our next LP. This is all I can tell you so far.

Can we expect a CRISIX Session Issue #2? What thrash region are you most interested in after American Thrash?
Yes, yes, for sure, but now we have the EP touring cycle, then the new album cycle next year, that will last at least till 2024. So in between or after, but it is not necessary that we will be doing a thrash cover album. We got many options, like doing a heavy metal one, disco or Spanish or Japanese pop songs done in a thrash way. This will come very spontaneously, we really don’t know yet what will happen. But suddenly we will come up with something cool and realize it. We jam a lot of different stuff. The other day we covered „Working For The Weekend“ by Loverboy. Killer song. I would love to do a second part of American thrash. There is so much American bands we didn’t record like Slayer, Megadeth or Metallica. At the other hand it would be great to do a tribute to European originators.

Let’s conclude with our traditional brainstorming. What comes to your mind first when you read the following words?
Current favorite album: Alice in Chains – Dirt
Angelus Apatrida: Good friends, great band.
La casa de papel: I enjoyed it a lot, especially the first two seasons. I love Alba Flores’s performance.
Comics: Marvel and DC mostly and equally, I love classics arcs like „Batman: The Long Halloween“ or „X-Men Inferno“ or „Spiderman Maximum Carnage“.
Nature: I love nature and we have to everything in our hands to take care of this planet before it’s too late. Unluckily, it seems we reached the point of no return.
Crysis: Really good memories from our early days come to my mind every time I see this name.
Something that makes every bad day better: My beloved ones, closest friends and the family I choose, and chocolate.
CRISIX in 10 years: CRISIX

Thank you once again for your time! The last words are all yours. Is there anything left you want to tell our readers?
Thank you for supporting CRISIX. Hope to see you all on our GAS dates. In September we are coming to Winterhur, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Vienna, Munchen and Weinheim. In November we will do another round. Now it’s pizza time.

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Publiziert am 19. September 2021 von Stefan Popp