On 25 May you launched a track from your upcoming album at Tuks. Could you tell us more about the album?
Our album’s [going to] be launched on 26 July and before that we’re doing a Thundafund crowdfunding [campaign], raising cash so that we can just cover the cost of printing, and then give [the album] away as a kind of 21st birthday present to [Oppikoppi] and just in general to our fans. We spent the last two years recording this album. If [people] feel like they want to support this idea then they can go on to our Thundafund page (look for Crimson House) and if they feel like they like the idea then they’ll get a CD themselves [and can also] gift a stranger a CD.
This new album is set to be the band’s third album, but you consider it your first. Why is that?
We really have spent the time [recording this album] together as a band. The first two albums [Riaan Smit, lead vocalist] spent the time writing or we’d write individually and then bring it together, and this is the first time we have Nick [Becker, saxophone player] with us throughout from the beginning to the end as an official part of the band. In the second album he came in and featured on a few songs. This will be our first album as a group, completely together. This is the first one where we actually [had] time to work on it together. [For] the first album, we just walked in and recorded it. The second album [was] the same thing. We spent a week doing the entire album, and [for] this one we’ve really taken our time with [it]. [The] big difference is [that] we recorded it all live in studio at the same time. It’s not a generic or clinical album. It’s very real. The energy is live, we’re playing it live. We’re all together in the same room. We just found an engineer that could be basically [as] much a part of the band as the rest of us, someone who’s actually involved, [named] Joe Ellis.
Riaan and Nick performed at various locations across America in 2014. How did the crowds receive your music?
They loved us. It was really well received. [In] places like New York you feel like you don’t exist because it’s so huge, and then places like the Cayman Islands you feel like a rock star because we were the only band on the island. When we played in Arizona at a sort of country-blues festival, we felt nervous standing backstage because there was a six [or] seven piece band opening for us, and it was just the two of us and we were like, “ How are we [going to] pull this off?” It was serious country [music], and we are not really country, but we were like, “We’re from South Africa, let’s just do it [with] our vibe,” you know, and then we played this African song that Riaan wrote, and as we played this lady started tugging on [Nick’s] leg, and she’s like, “Where are your CDs? We need more CDs,” and I was like, “We gave you all the CDs.” [Throughout] the whole tour CDs were sold out, so it was well received.
You will be performing at Oppikoppi in August. Are you excited about performing at the festival’s 21st birthday?
[Oppikoppi] is going to be the big one. We’ve been fighting for it for years now. It’s the first time we’re playing at Oppikoppi. We’re very excited. We’ve been invited twice before, but we just couldn’t afford it. The budgets were tight.
Crimson House was invited to record with producer Alan Sanderson in the United States. How was that experience?
Amazing. Part of the untold story there is that he had recorded with a band in Namibia, and he loved Namibia and sent us a message when he heard we were coming over. He had an opening on a Wednesday and said [to] come in and record something for fun, and the night before that we were at a jam session down at the House of Blues and there was this drummer playing, and we were looking for a drummer to come join us to record. So we called her up and she said “Yeah I’m available. I had a recording session that was cancelled so I can make it.” She brought a vocalist along, organised a bassist, and they came through and it turns out it was their recording session that got cancelled because one of their members couldn’t make it, and we had a great recording session. It’s all about the vibe. We spoke for six hours [and] wrote the track [in] two. With that sort of vibe, when you get to the music, it’s so open [and] free. “St. James infirmary”, the track we recorded there, is one of the coolest tracks we’ve recorded.
