The Burning Crows are by far one of my favourite up and coming bands at the moment. After seeing them tear it up with Glasgow earlier in the year with Estrella and Komatoze the Norwich lads got a great slot at this year’s Hard Rock Hell festival and blew both myself and about a good chunk of the festival goers completely away with their 45min set of rock & roll perfection.
After their set and a few pints front man Whippz was kind enough to take some time out and talk to us here at RockFusion about the current tour with the Quireboys, the up coming album and what’s in store for the band next year. I have to say Whippz really has to be one of the nicest guys I’ve met during my whole time of doing this. Genuinely a really nice chap.
How’s the tour with The Quireboys going at the moment?
Incredible mate, incredible. It’s pretty much selling out every night if it’s not sold out before hand. Both bands are just about going out there and having a good time. Keith from The Quireboys is playing with us on a song in our set. Keith was on the recording of Time so it sounds how it should sound. I mean it does sound great without Keith but with him there it just takes it to the next level. It’s a good buzz, good energy, good vibe. It’s a good night all round.
How is your EP going down on the tour?
The EP is going great. We have a short set, about 45mins I think as apposed to the usual 90mins or so you should normally do so we have to condense it all down and do as much as we can in the time we have. We just have to get out there and go for it, make it people feel like there’s fireworks going off. The reaction has been great, there’s been people requesting songs on the tour off the EP. It’s going really, really good.
So the show you just played for us here at Hard Rock Hell is pretty much the kind of high energy show you’ve been doing all through the tour then?
Yeah, pretty much. It’s essentially the show you would’ve got last night in Glasgow. Regardless of how many people we play to or how long we play for you always get 110%. So many bands I’ve seen have been a bit of a let down so we’re trying to be the kind of band we’d want to go and see.
Well that set was incredible, really glad to have caught you guys here. You sounded great in Glasgow the last time I saw you but that was really tight, sounded great.
Yeah Glasgow was a bit weird last time because we had our set cut short. We only played about 6 songs or something that night. On a headline tour we played 6 songs how crazy is that! But hopefully we kind of made up for it last night with what we gave.
You’re currently working on your debut album using PledgeMusic. Do you think that’s the way forward for a lot of bands these days as a way to embrace the internet?
Yeah, I mean there’s so many people doing it. The Union, Ginger Wildheart for example. I think Ginger cleared up, he absolutely smashed his target. There’s not the same kind of money in the music industry as there used to be. I mean it’s flattering when we get these labels coming up to us saying they want to sign us but there’s never the kind of money you need to do the album that you want to do.
By doing it this way, you ask people to pre-order it and invest their cash in it and then by doing that they guarantee themselves a copy of the album but a lot of other really cool stuff as well. It just puts everything in the hands of the fans, if they want something they get it.
I like the idea of the exclusive videos, songs, updates, stuff like that that can be offered as part of this sort of thing. It gets the fans more involved and more invested in the music.
Well we’ve always been really lucky, all the fans we have have always been really into what we’ve been doing. If you want to get involved then come and get involved. If someone wants us to come play an acoustic gig in their front room then we’ll do it. It’s really cool, the feedback has been really positive.
How are you doing on the target at the moment?
I think we’re about 70% at the minute and we’ve got about a month left on it.
How’s it going in terms of writing and what sort of release date are we looking at?
It’s all written. We’ve done a pre-production session about 2 or 3 weeks ago and have another one just after Christmas. So yeah, it’s all written and ready to go, get straight in there and record it. If you pre-order it, or Pledge should I say, you get it on April 24th a couple of weeks ahead of the iTunes general release near the beginning of May.
How did the band first get together back in the beginning?
Well we kind of know each other for years. Me and Lance have known each other since we’ve been about 12 and kind of played together in bands through high school. The whole bands been involved in different projects here and there and it got to a point when about 3 years ago or so Lance gave me a call, none of us were doing anything and decided to do something.
You work quite closely with Matt Goom obviously, how did that relationship come about?
He lives in the same place we do. I mean he’s done everything and had a bit of spare time and said he was interested in working with the band and has been working with us ever since really.
Apart from the album, what’s next for The Burning Crows?
Well touring, headline tour, maybe go out with The Quireboys again and then after that another album. Try and keep the ball rolling.
What about Download or something along those lines? Would that be possible because I know you‘d entered one of the competitions for a Download slot.
Yeah, and we came really close actually and that’s kind of a testament to our fans and their dedication. We could turn around and say “Yeah, it’s all us” but it’s not. It’s all down to our fans. I mean we started off as a bar band and has went crazy over the last year and a half.