INTERVIEW: Brock Lindow – 36 Crazyfists

Having established themselves as one of the first trailblazers of metalcore, and enduring over 20 years as a constant fixture of the genre, it’s fair to say 36 CRAZYFISTS have seen it all. Accruing every accolade and milestone a band can achieve, there is very little left that the band have yet to conquer. Their lasting effect on the scene can be seen through the prolific bands that exist today – with the majority of them owing some part of their existence to the direct influence 36 CRAZYFISTS had on the inception and evolution of the genre. Before their show in support to BURY TOMORROW in Manchester last month (read our review here), we caught up with frontman Brock Lindow to talk everything from pushing themselves creatively after getting eight albums under their belt, the massive international reach of the band and their fanbase, and what comes next for a band that has achieved (almost) everything.

It’s been just over a year since your last album Lanterns, do you have anything in the works for album nine, or is it too early to say?

Brock: We have a couple of things which are in their infancy, we’ve got the structure of a few tracks down, but we’re going to start really writing at the start of the year [2019].

Lanterns was your eighth full-length release in your impressive span as a band, what’s the writing process like when you already have such a wide back catalogue? Do you ever feel pressure to switch it up to keep things fresh?

Brock: No not really. I mean, I think we’ve always been this band that has stayed in a position, good or bad, where the labels that we’ve been with and the people that work with the band have always allowed us to do our own thing. There was never people pushing us and being like “We need that single, we need that next single”, maybe in the early days, but now I guess people call us a lifestyle band and we have that core group of fans. We don’t have any massive, grand delusions of attaining METALLICA status, we are just a band that keeps chugging. That’s great for us, we’ve had a killer career, we just hit our 24th year; so yeah, no pressure to do anything other than what we always do, which is hopefully the next branch on the tree, no directional needs just whatever feels right, but at the same time not trying to repeat ourselves. So just trying to keep things fresh mostly, in an organic way.

About Lanterns you said “Lanterns is about the fight within us all – forever refusing to sink”. Do you always have a theme in mind going into the writing sessions for an album? Is it normally rooted in what you’re going through at the time?

Brock: Yeah it seems like it always is, it seems like there is always something to gripe about. Certain albums definitely had more damaging life years on them for myself personally. But I always tried to keep that light at the end of the tunnel still lit. So I would never stray from that because for the most part, I’m trying to live my daily life as positive as possible. But music and an outlet lyrically for me has always been about getting stuff of my chest. So yeah it’s always about my life in some sense: I’m not a political writer, I’m not a religious writer, it’s always about just this vague poetry of my mishaps. I think where I’m at in my life right now, I’m in a much better space than I was on the last two albums which is challenging for the new album, like I can’t make up bad stuff, I don’t want to do that. So I’m not really sure what I’m going to write about yet, I haven’t got to that point. Obviously, there are things that aren’t perfect in everybody’s life, so I’ll figure it out eventually but I’m not totally sure of the lyrical direction yet. It’ll be vague, and lyrics are open to interpretation in my opinion. Like when I was a kid growing up on METALLICA I didn’t know that Master of Puppets was about cocaine and drug addiction. I just knew that when we put it on in my hockey teams locker room we got fired up. So yeah lyrics are open to interpretation and I like to keep it vague so people can find what they need in it.

This year you’ve done quite a bit of touring, what has the fan response to Lanterns been like, is it what you hoped?

Brock: I think so, I mean as far as accolades and sales we don’t pay attention to any of that because it’s all super irrelevant these days, especially for us. It’s all about the conversations with people after the shows and it’s always positive. We have a pretty awesome connection with the people that have supported our band, it’s the reason we’re still doing it. I mean if after every album came out and we were talking to them and they were like “eh that sucked”, we’d be like “man, maybe we suck” or maybe it’s not worth it or whatever feelings could seep in that way. So its always been an amazing connection with our people, they always pump our tires and that’s awesome.

Do you have any personal favourites from the album?

Brock: Yeah, at different times I liked certain songs more than others, you play certain songs live and there are other songs that don’t get to get played live. The live songs have special meanings because you know certain parts will make people do certain things. There’s a track on the album that we don’t play at all, we’ve never played it, called Bandage For Promise, and it’s probably my favourite listening song if I listen to the stuff, I haven’t checked out the album for a while now. But that song I think is maybe just a little more unique than the other songs in my opinion, I think it shows more facets of the band and what the band is capable of doing and it’s just a really cool rock song.

Lanterns was your second release on Spinefarm Records, you’ve been signed to quite a few labels over the years, do you feel like you’ve found your home with Spinefarm?

Brock: Yeah Spinefarm have been great, we’re doing the next album on Spinefarm again. The cool thing about Spinefarm is, we had been on a few different labels – well I guess just two really: Roadrunner and Ferret. There was a DRT release but that only lasted for a second. The thing about Ferret and Roadrunner is that over the years we made a lot of good friends at both of those companies, and now a lot of those good friends are over at Spinefarm. So there was a familiarity there to begin with and it still feels like an old friendship/business relationship. They believe in the band and that’s why we’re there, I mean you want to be where somebody gives a crap about your band, you don’t want to be in a place where you just get lost in the shuffle – and that has happened to us. At Spinefarm we feel like they really care and they really do their best with what they have to be able to promote the band given the state that the music business is in now. We love everybody at Spinefarm and we’re so grateful to be there for sure.

You’ve achieved a lot over the years, is there anything you haven’t done yet that you have your sights set on for the future?

Brock: I mean mostly these days it’s mainly places we haven’t been to. We haven’t been to Russia and a lot of our friends have been to Russia now, we’d love to go there. We went to South America and South Africa, and Europe numerous times. That’s the coolest thing about touring, getting to go to a place you’ve never been to. Like in 1994 when the band started, if you’d told me we were going to go to South Africa twice I would have never believed you – it was pretty mind-blowing and life-changing to be in those kinds of places. We did a meet and greet the first time we went to South Africa and there were people from all these places that I’d never heard of, people that you’d look at just their physical appearance and think that there was no way that person grew up listening to us – like I don’t even know what that means. We met these two guys from Mozambique and they were telling me that they were 30 years old now, and when they were 14 they first heard us – and that was really mind-blowing to me. I met a guy from Pakistan the other night at one of the England shows, a pretty devout Muslim area where there isn’t a lot of rock and heavy metal, and our music really shaped who he is. Just hearing those kinds of things is crazy and that’s the coolest thing about all of this stuff.

If you could pick one particular high point from your career so far, something you’re proud of, what would it be?

Brock: I mean when we got signed, that was it. When we got signed in 1999 I was like “no way!”, no one from Alaska had ever even done that, so that was the initial thing. Then as the years went on and we started doing the festivals in June, the main stage at Download Festival three times when like METALLICA was headlining, and they’re the reason I’m even in a band, and those kinds of things continued to happen. But I would never, never say I’m old and jaded and like been there, done that, because it seems like every time you think you might know everything, something changes. So every new album brings different opportunities and it’s been something we’re tremendously grateful for.

You’ve done a lot and learned a lot over the years, so what advice would you give young bands today that you’d wish you’d known when you were starting out?

Brock: Man, I mean I really feel for newer bands these days because it’s just such a messed up industry. But the bottom line is, creating music with your friends from an honest place is the coolest thing ever. Anything is possible, anything is fricking possible. If you wanna be in the biggest band in the world, you might as well just keep thinking that way and you might get there, who’s to say you can’t be. My only advice is to just do something that comes from the most honest core of your body and get a group of people want to do that same thing, and just have fun with it – who knows what can happen.

What do you like to do away from music when you’re not on tour?

Brock: Yeah I love to be at home, I have a nine-year-old little girl who is everything to me so I just like being dad, that’s my thing. I don’t really love being gone from home that much any more. I mean I love doing these kinds of things [touring in support of BURY TOMORROW] and coming to Europe where it actually matters, going to the UK where it actually matters. Like touring the states has never been good for us, we’ve done it a zillion times and I don’t really have a lot of patience for that stuff any more. You know there are certain things to do, it’s great, it’s a great bill, I do it, but like doing the low-level tours even if we were to headline is fun for a week then I’m just like “I can’t wait to get home”. There’s only like a certain handful of people that are coming and I love that they do, but you come here [the UK] and there’s like a thousand people a night, you know you’re in the right spot.

With 2018 now at an end, what are your plans for 2019 and beyond?

Brock: I think just write the new album and that will be most of 2019, so we’ll be doing that. Just stay healthy and enjoy our lives. Life is fleeting, you see every day how precious it is, so you just have to enjoy what you have, live in the moment, and hopefully we have a lot of years left.

Lanterns is out now via Spinefarm Records.

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