INTERVIEW: CRASHFACE

crashface

Ahead of their first headline gig at Islington’s The Grace, punk duo CRASHFACE, made up of lead singer and guitarist Charlie Hinton and backing vocalist and bassist Otto Balfour, sat down for a quick chat with us.

So tonight is your first headline gig – how are you feeling?

OTTO:  Yeah good, we’re feeling good! Excited. Soundcheck is done we’re just buzzing to get on stage now. We’ve been waiting a long time for this so it’s exciting that it’s finally here. We’ve got some amazing support acts too.

CHARLIE: Yeah we’re ready to just get out there now and have people hear what we’ve been working on, there’s a couple of songs we’ve never played live before as well which is cool.

How does it feel going from being stuck in lockdown to finally being able to get out there and play live?

OTTO: Well we started in lockdown, and actually we moved in together just before it started, so being stuck at home meant we were able to just write and find our sound and get loads of stuff together. Living together meant that we could just make music all the time, so it was a good thing for us.

CHARLIE: We were able to play around with our sound and find what feels good to us and get a load of stuff recorded.

Your first EP, HEAVY INFECTIOUS, was released in June – how did you know when it was at a place you were happy with?

OTTO: I think that we kind of just knew to be honest! Once we worked out our sound it went from there.

CHARLIE: Yeah we have found our sound so we knew what we wanted the EP to sound like and it came out alright!

OTTO: As a band, there have been certain things we’ve wanted to achieve, for example, plays on Radio 1, and we knew the EP was right because things like that have been happening.

"The bands I grew up on have always inspired me "

Is there anyone who inspires CRASHFACE?

OTTO: I grew up on pop punk and emo, so people like My Chemical Romance have always inspired me. I do find though that I’ve been listening to all sorts of different stuff, what I listen to changes a lot. At the moment I’ve been listening to a lot of random French techno! But yeah the bands I grew up on have always inspired me. For a while I listened to exclusively Mallory Knox and literally nobody else.

CHARLIE: For me it’s actually the musicians that have used lockdown to make and create more music. Some people were a bit like “well I can’t do anything so I’m just going to sit back” but you can really see who took the idea of being stuck inside for months and used it to just make more music. That’s who I’ve found inspiring.

You mentioned earlier you’ve had goals as a band, Radio 1 etc. What is next for CRASHFACE?

OTTO: Getting out on the road, playing our music live and visiting different places with it. Hopefully a lot of different venues will see us next year.

CHARLIE: Yeah touring for sure. We’ve made the music and now we need people to hear it live.

OTTO: We’ve got a couple of exciting announcements coming as well…

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hot milk

They’re loud, they’re chaotic and they’re unapologetically themselves. This is Hot Milk.

They're loud, they're chaotic and they're unapologetically themselves. This is Hot Milk. How is 2022 treating you so far? Han: iyaaaa not bad man, we have a big year ahead n we are just ready to fuckin have it. party hard, work hard, go hard. bringing some rock n roll back to the masses with explosive live shows and the best songs we've ever written. gonna make some memories n spread some love ya know what I'm saying.