Breaking Out
Interview by Ruth

One of the best new bands to emerge from the West Country in recent years has finally got round to releasing their debut label release. So Seething caught up with touring fanatics Crackout to ask them about their new "EP 1", sweetcorn, and how the hell does Dan from King Adora get his hair so spiky?

It's every young writer's nightmare; you're interviewing one of the best new bands around, Crackout. The interview's been going for about twenty minutes, the band members you're interviewing - the bassist and the guitarist/singer - are charming and funny interviewees. In short it's going really well... until you realise that you've left the pause button on.
"Shit!"
"Just start again."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, go on."
The sweat wiped away from the young hack's brow, the tape is re-started and the interview starts again. Phew, got away with it. Until about thirty seconds later when bassist Jack Dunkley grabs hold of the Dictaphone and whispers into it "You left the tape off." Have a heart boys, you're not the one who's going to have to write this up.

Crackout have to be one of the most hardworking bands to appear on the scene at this time. In the last 12 months they've toured about six separate times, and that's with their only summer jaunt being a turn at the Lost Weekend 2000; the latter after only having previously toured in support of the Bluetones and King Adora. Hang on... the Lost Weekend?
"It was the most fantastic day," recounts Jack. "When we got there, we drove into the venue, and it was like we could see the main arena, and the van. And we were like "So where's the stage, then?" And then we got out the van, and the van was on the stage. "Ah. So it's a big one, then...""
"We shouldn't have been there," admitted Stephen. "We were just a bit out of our depth. I'd love to do it now, cos I think we're much better now. We hadn't really toured or anything when we did it, but the thing is, if we did it now and look back on it in a year, we'd probably think it was shit."
However, playing early on in the day at a big festival like that did have some advantages...
"Cos we were on first, we came off and it was like four o'clock," said Jack. "We're used to the evening being near an end by then. So it was basically just a whole day to get completely fuckfaced, so we did, in true style with rock stars... like ourselves, " he adds with a cheeky grin. I feel a little introduction is in order...

Crackout formed in Oxford when Steven Eagles (floppy blond-haired guitarist and singer) and Nick Millard (Cary Grant infatuated, besuited drummer) were 15. The first incarnation of the band gigged for about three years, before they became unhappy with their current bassist (a short blonde haired girl who history remembers as "Rachel") and called a halt. Jack Dunkley (cheeky Alex James heir-apparent) was brought as a replacement and the now stable line-up began gigging around supporting more established local bands in the city. In these early days, the band also produced a demo tape of "The Kids Want Rock'n'Roll", "Volume" and "My Picasso". But it was in support to local scenesters Plasticine that gave Crackout their lucky break. Playing a gig at The Point, they were noticed by the organiser, Dave from the mighty Oxford independent label Shifty Disco. It wasn't long until the band had signed for a double A-side single, "Chuck" and a reworked "Volume". The band's home fanbase growing, "Volume" even later ended up as one of the tracks on Blue-Fire records Snakebite City Eight compilation, in the past home to bands such as Vyvyan and the Crocketts.
"It was great, and we just had a fantastic time," says Steven of their early success at home. "But all the way through it we just wanted to get out of Oxford. No disrespect to Oxford at all, it was just being a big band there doesn't count anywhere else, you know? There's only four or five gigs, you do the same gig, the same people come to the gigs. And we just wanted to get out and play gigs everywhere."
So Crackout got out and signed to "Precious Cargo".
"We just wanted to go with Precious Cargo because they were very artist-based," explains Steven. "A lot people would go out and look for the big record deal thing, but the arrangement we came to with precious cargo was just that they want us to do what we wanna do, which was get in the van, go round the country, play a load of gigs, do some cool recordings, and just see what happens. It was to stay modest, I guess, and just stay on tour."
And stay on tour they have done; this is the second time I've seen them in the past few weeks, and third time in the last three months; supporting Sick Of It All (promoting a gig tape of "Breakout" and "Joey Lost His Mind"), and King Adora. We find them now on the Kerrang! Tour with Sunna and Miocene ("Sunna and Miocene are really accomodating bands...They're fantastic people, not a bad word to say about them," elucidates Jack), straight after playing several dates in support of King Adora, their second or third tour together.
"It's almost like going home when we go on tour with them," laughs Jack. "But because of that it's made it a lot more interesting coming out with bands that we don't know. It's just great to meet people that you've never met before who are into the same craft, who love the same things as you do."
The same craft?
"The crahhhhhft, yes," replies Jack. "I was schooled in my crahhhft. It's my spacecrahhft." He continues "It's just very rare that you don't get on with the strangers who are into the same thing as you. But King Adora are definitely the best so far to tour with."
But enough of the niceities, we want gossip, incest, tour debauchery! Is it true... that Dan Dabrowski styles his hair with soap?
"I heard it was a myth," buts in Jack. "I heard it just grows like that naturally."
"That's true," nods Stephen. "Why is that shocking? Is that weird or something? I don't know about haircare."
I reckoned he would've used gel or something.
"No it is soap. If you look closely enough you can see the whiteness. At least it's clean."
"One time I said to him "You must fucking use concrete on your hair or something"," relates Jack. "And he goes "no, it's soap". And I was like "oh yeah?" And I went home and I tried it. And thought "soap. This is bullshit". So I put soap in my hair, and every time I tapped my hair, it hurt, it was that hard. I was like "Fucking hell! He's right!" So I didn't do that again, 'cause it was too dangerous. So he's like a little sea-mine walking around. It's superb. He's got the best hair."
"I get to see it when it's down, though," boasts Steven. "His hair is just so cool when it's down. It's like hippy hair, it's really good."

But apart from hanging out with rockstars and improving their haircare technique, the real reason why Crackout are here is to promote their first EP on Precious Cargo, the imaginatively titled EP1. Limited to 500 limited edition wax sealed copies (And for those of you who haven't got hold of a copy, pay attention and we might just decide to be a little generous... - Ed), the four tracks were recorded over a variety of sessions. While most of the tracks ("Joey Lost His Mind", "Mr Rabies" and "My Mistake") were recorded at Library studios last January, "Last in line" was one of the tracks recorded over a year ago in the same session as the version of "Breakout" that appeared on the Gig Tape, a session which also spawned recordings of "Guillotine", "Over My Head", "Nothing To Go Home To" and "I Will Turn".
"We did them in a snooker hall," explains Steven. "It was great. Hugh, our publisher, had an office, and his desk was at the end of a fucking snooker hall. We did the drums in this big fantastic snooker hall, and the control room was on main stairs. I was in the kitchen. You were in the ladies weren't you, playing the bass..."
"Yes, I usually play my instrument in the ladies toilet," nods Jack. "But it was like something out of the Kray's film."
"I'm sure people have been killed there," agrees Steven.
"I've got the door from that place to the gents toilet," adds Jack. "We took it out cos it's now been knocked down. It's a cinema now."
"It's on Fulham Broadway Station," instructs Steven. "So if you walk round there now you can say ooh, that's our studio."
So why was "Joey Lost His Mind" re-recorded after appearing on the gig tape?
"Just cos it'd changed key and it was a bit different," says Steven. "It had just grown up over time."
"We're going to re-record it about another four times," nods Jack. "We're gonna do a harp in it, an orchestra... Someone's gonna play the tangerine as well. And the tambourine."
"It's got a long way to go, that track," agrees Steven. "My favourite's 'My Mistake', though. But it won't get played on the radio, cos it sounds like three songs stitched together."
"Just got that déja vu feeling, it's really weird," says Jack, wandering off the subject. "Anyway, for me, it's 'Mr Rabies' or 'My Mistake', equally.
Why?
"Cos the others are shit."
"The others are covers," joins in Steven.
"Yeah, we did a couple of bee gees covers."
"No, cos, my mistake's a bit weirder," says Steven. "But not in a kind of silly way, it's just a bit more interesting. Quite adventurous with the way we did that one and stuff."
"I also get to play my fuzz bass on it," grins Jack. "It's kind of a power trip for me."
Talking of "Mr Rabies", is it about anyone in particular?
"Nobody in particular at all," shrugs Steven. "Not even a person."
"It's a cool insult if anything," offers Jack.
"Oh yeah," sniggers Steven. " "Hey you, Mr Rabies!" Yeah, wicked insult."

The new EP has already been getting a lot of attention, garnering plays from Lamacq, who originally started spinning the Gig Tape towards the end of last year. This resulted in a Evening Session recording last January, which also included a cover of Kelis' hit, "Caught Out There".
"God knows how this happened," laughs Steven. "But I was watching MTV, went up to MTV2, and usually I double tap so I miss MTVbass. I never want to see it, cos it's R'n'B and I'm not into it.. Somehow, I got stuck on MTVbass, and she was on. We were thinking of a cover, we wanted to do something like The Cure. It was going to be all credible, it was gonna be cool. And I listened to it and I thought "this is good". I like her, I think she's fantastic. And I went upstairs and looked at the chords and stuff, and they were like metal chords. And I just thought this could be really really funny. So we did it."
"It was just so fucking great to play it," agrees Jack. "It was mad. What I wanted was to do "Letter From America" by The Proclaimers. We decided against that one."
Are you planning to do the song live?
"It was one of those things that was cool for us to do at the time," shrugs Jack. "But if we played it at every gig or every kind of one-off show or whatever, you'd just become the band that does the Kelis cover. It's not only cos of that, that we're not doing it, you know? We were asked do you want to do a cover and we just said "yeah why not? We've not done one before, so let's have a go." and it just so happens that it came out really well and we all enjoyed it."

So in the meantime, while the band continue to staple themselves to the road, drummer Nick records all their exploits via the band's website. Their tour diaries record all their rockstar exploits, including stealing dressing room signs from the Dumdums and David Gray, and getting lost backstage at the Leeds Town and Country Club ("How do you know we got lost?" asks Steven, suspiciously).
So what's the most Spinal Tap moment the band have ever had?
"We did once order a Stonehenge that was too small...," deadpans Stephen.
"We did once have an elf dance onstage with us," joins in Jack. "Or was that Nigel?"
"I have fallen over onstage before and not been able to get up."
"This was at King Tut's in Glasgow. You flew." Jack turns to his bandmate. "I looked to my right, and you know people are normally vertical? You were in the air, horizontal, like you were being suspended. It was like "how the fuck's he do that?""
"I was off the stage in between the barrier," recalls Stephen, "and it was like that was the monitor, that was the edge of the stage and that was the barrier, and I'm like almost fucking spooned."
"I thought you were unconscious," laughs Jack. "I was like still playing thinking 'shall I stop?'"
"Thing is, when you fall over like that, all that you can do is Scott the roadie has to come and pick you up. It's just like in the film, he comes and picks you up and you carry on with the gig. I did it again in Leicester. That was good, because that was a bit more Spinal Tap, cos I was playing these last two chords in 'My Mistake', but I put so much weight into my hand that it just carried me into the pit. I knocked a few things over and Scott had to just pick me up. That's pretty Spinal Tap."

As well as a comprehensive tour diary, discography and the like, the band's website hosts a profile section with room for each member's personal rants. A reflection of each band member, while Nick and Jack use this section to detail personal likes and dislikes, including Jack's dislike of a certain vegetable ("I have respect for sweetcorn in it's own right as a foodstuff, but you open a can near me and you won't see me for days."), Stephen launches into an attack on the whole pop industry, a manufactured world of pop. So with the demise of the Spice Girls and the seeming disintegration of identikit pop, what does he make of the recent resurgence of rock and nu-metal in the charts?
"Fantastic, yeah," he smiles. "Much better than all the horrific crap that we usually get. I just can't say enough good things about it. I just wish there were more English bands..."
The band's website also boasts the most comprehensive network of website links ever witnessed on the web. As well as a huge section devoted to the favourite bands and those they've toured with over the years (including 28 Days and Kid Koala among others), they've also got sections devoted to websites on Natalie Portman, Brendan Fraser, and, um, Barry van Dyke?
"I just think he's incredibly sexy, smouldering man," intones Nick, without a hint of irony. "He has highly underrated acting skills. And an amazing dad who writes amazing stories about being a doctor and solving crimes. Though," he adds. "Barry van Dyke must be a shit policeman, because he has to get his elderly and retired doctor dad, to help him solve his crimes."
And Brendan Fraser? Should we be worried?
"That was Scott, our technician," claims Jack.
"Brendan Fraser is just horrifically terrible," says Stephen, "and we find him very funny."
"He was good in 'California Man'..."
"...Because he didn't have much to say."
"He grunted really well."
"He's funny. He's just like..."
"He's like the cardboard cut-out of what an actor should be."
"He makes the weirdest films."
"George Of The Jungle..."
"I haven't seen it."
"Nor have I."
"Have you seen the trailer for his new film? Where he's a cartoonist..."
"Mummy 2?"
There's going to be another one? Jesus!
"No, where he's a cartoonist or something? It's very strange. He's never made a serious film."
"I didn't know he could draw."
"No, I didn't. Maybe we should follow some of the links on the website."
"Find out a bit more about our hero."

The tour diaries also mention a lot of "very nice girls" which the band seem to encounter at every turn. So having been under the tutillage of King Adora, with their legendary capacity for entertaining the ladies on tour, have Crackout succumbed to the temptation of groupies?
"Nope," states Jack firmly. "Basically we all took a step back from that, because we saw King Adora doing that, and it was like sometimes you just have to go and call your Mum, and say I miss home. We don't really suffer from tour horn. But there's always these strange girls around..."
"We look but don't touch," says Steven. "If we do touch they ask us if they can meet the main band. Cos we're a support band at the moment, the usual conversation we have with somebody you may call a groupie, or even just a fan who's interested is they'll come up to you and say "ah, I really enjoyed your show", little bit of conversation, then they'll say "so, can you get me to meet King Adora?" Which I can deal with, I wouldn't dream of complaining about it."
But it does seem that the hard work and touring is paying off.
"It's the greatest thing is to talk to people afterwards, who've actually really liked your set and your music," Jack's eyes light up. "A lot of the time it is girls saying it and it is actually boys as well. So by the groupie action I guess you mean meeting girls and a bit of how's your father? No there's not been any of that."
"Our bus isn't that impressive, is it?" laughs Stephen.

Girls, they're not joking. Basically a cross-between a transit van and a minibus, but with tinted windows, the table is littered with crisp packets, socks and a gameboy in between cramped brown seats. School trips to France and uneaten cheese sandwiches spring to mind. Apart from a tiny TV, too small for Playstation, there isn't even the bunkbeds and notorious tourbus toilet to whine about. So what do Crackout do to entertain themselves on tour? With no groupie action to speak of, the boys turn to that age old recluse of kids television, specifically Postman Pat...
"I used to have a Postman Pat tape once," admits Stephen. "Great little tape, chills you out."
...And then they played it over a porn movie in the back of their bus...
"I think someone brought a video on," relates Jack. "It was like "ok, if you must put it on"..."
"...As long as we can have postman pat on at the same time," adds Steven. "It was just funny cos we had a sliding door on the van and we parked right outside the venue..."
"We do actually carry epic videos on the bus," points out Jack.
Like what?
"Well, we've got the Monty Python video," Jack lifts a bunch of videos from a shelf. "Silence Of The Lambs, The Big Lebowski, The Wild Bunch, The Return Of The Pink Panther... what's this? Willy.. Willow The Wisp."
I was going to ask; what are your favourite childhood cartoons?
"I fancied Cheetara from 'Thundercats'," admits Jack. Take note, girls!
"That was cool," agrees Stephen. "I have to go with 'Transformers', cos you can't really get away from that. 'Thomas The Tank Engine' was great on reflection, cos we've just watched series one and two. With Ringo Starr.."
"Mr Benn's really good."
"Mr Benn's like a trip, isn't it?"
I never used to watch 'Mr Benn, I used to watch 'Fingermouse'.
"Fingermouse was OK," nods Stephen. "Fingermouse just weirded me out a bit." "Yeah, I didn't like the guy's blond permed hair," opines Jack.

So before we leave them to Tetris and Thomas the Tank Engine, we've just got time to rifle through their record collection. Quite a respectable choice, while Electric Ladyland by Jimi Hendrix is resident in the CD player, Jeff Buckley, the Police, Weezer and the Pixies all grace the Bus CD wallet ("Yeah, luckily A1 got taken out yesterday..."). But conspicuous by they're absence are any Blink 182 albums, one of the groups that the whole band likes. Now that Blink 182 are popular, have they sold out?
"Well, they sell records," begins Jack...
"It's not like they play pop music or anything, is it?" says Stephen defensively.
Well it's pop punk...
"It's just got melody in it, and that kind of doesn't equate to selling out for me. I still think they're really good."
"They don't take themselves seriously enough to worry about selling out or not," says Jack. "They just are what they are."
"They've always been like that," agrees Nick.
"If you listen to 'Dude Ranch' it's not like any different, is it?" argues Stephen.
"I'm sure U2 had to go through it at one point," considers Nick. "Oh they've sold out, they're doing stadiums. They're still around. I'm sure every band goes through it. It seems if you're successful you've just sold out."

Jack has a far more personal approach to the lure of success, though... "People see bands that they've discovered themselves, especially if the band's in the early stages, it's like your possession of it," the bassist considers. "You've found this band, it's your band that you love. And as soon as other people discover them I think it's just natural to think that it's less personal. I think that can only be good if more people are getting into a good band. "I think there is such a thing as selling out. Like we bought some Westlife chewing gum the other day. Now that is selling out. But I don't think that selling albums or wanting to sell albums is a bad thing. That's it really," Jack says leaning forward. "You will never see Crackout chewing gum."

Crackout's Tour Essentails


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