Crooks | Interview

Everyone listens to every end of the spectrum, so nothing we listen to really sounds anything like what we play, at all.

Cheltenham five-piece Crooks are almost at the end of what has been a brilliant UK tour, supporting brit-rock favourites Mallory Knox and Blitz Kids. I caught-up with the band after their set at Plymouth’s White Rabbit to discuss touring, influences and songwriting.

According to the band, Crooks are simply, “A bunch of friends who owned instruments and wanted to play loud music.” Frontman Josh continues, “It was a good excuse for us to spend more time together and it’s a bit more productive than just playing video games and listening to other bands.”

For the first major run of UK shows that Crooks have ever done, this tour has definitely been one to remember. “It’s been wicked, really really good. It’s definitely something that we’re not used to, and to be on this line up with Mallory and Blitz is incredible. Everyone’s looking after us, making us feel at home, so it’s been good.” A specific highlight for the boys was the show at The Fleece, Bristol. “We’re from Cheltenham so that was pretty much our hometown show, there were loads of friends and family and we’ve grown up going to shows at The Fleece, so it was great.”

While touring with Blitz Kids and Mallory Knox has given Crooks some incredible exposure, the band are still working towards getting their name out there. So, for anyone yet to hear their music, I asked the guys to describe their sound. However, the answers I recieved were mixes of ‘upbeat post rock’ and ‘melodic hardcore’ - an interesting sound for a band who’s influences come from the likes of Ellie Goulding, The Smiths, Death Cab For Cutie and Korn. “Everyone listens to every end of the spectrum, so nothing we listen to really sounds anything like what we play, at all.”

When asked what the band’s favourite release was so far, Josh replied with “Above Me, definitely. We’ve played it kind of safe in putting out stuff we’ve put out before, and once we knew that we’d be playing a bunch of shows with bands that were a little bit lighter than us, we thought we’d put something out that was a bit rougher I guess, just so people knew that we weren’t going down that route. Not that it would be a problem, but we wanted to keep to the sound that we were orginally going for.”

As for 2014, Crooks have a number of things lined up for the start of the year. “We’ll be allowed to announce things soon, but we have to keep it under wraps at the moment,” says guitarist Cub. I ask if there was any chance of an album release, to which Josh replies, “We’re contantly fussy about songs and end up re-writing them, so it takes us forever to write a song. To anyone that likes us, we’ve probably written a good record worth of stuff, but we can’t put it out because we’re not happy enough with it yet.”

Finally, I asked if the band has any last words for the interview. “A massive thank you to the guys at Blitz Kids and Mallory Knox because they’ve been ridiculously kind to us on this tour and they are honestly some of the nicest guys we’ve met on the road before. Not that they need the shout out. Just thanks to everyone involved and anyone that bothered to come out to the shows early and have said nice things about us and just been really cool. We’ve met a ridiculous amount of people at these shows so just thanks to everyone.”

Check out ‘Above Me’ right here: