INTERVIEW: Crash Midnight have a few ‘Dead Aces’ up their sleeve
Photo: Crash Midnight will open for Puddle of Mudd at the Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas. Photo courtesy of Bianca Velayo / Provided by V13 Promotions with permission.
Crash Midnight, the hard-rocking band from Las Vegas, recently released “Dead Aces,” a twangy punk song that is meant to elicit images of dive bars, gritty rock shows and some legendary artists who have influenced the band. According to the group, the song is a combination of their East Coast roots and their fascination with the Wild West swagger.
Fans can check out Crash Midnight Saturday, Sept. 2 when they open for Puddle of Mudd at the Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas. In fact, if anyone has enjoyed a song or two on the Vegas rock scene these past few years, there’s a good chance they saw Crash Midnight up on stage. They are prolific in their newly adopted city, having played venues like the Hard Rock and House of Blues, among many others.
The band was started by vocalist Shaun Soho and lead guitarist Alex Donaldson, according to press notes. They are rooted in a ’70s rock sound, but they like to keep things punky as well. Previous singles include “151” and “Blackout,” and their latest, “Dead Aces,” is a preview of a longer recording effort on the horizon.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Soho about the band’s past, present and future. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What was the inspiration behind “Dead Aces”?
The idea for the title actually came out of me misreading a sign back in Boston — thinking it said “Dead Aces.” Turned out it was a craft shop or something called “Dead Art,” but I loved the name and sort of tucked it away for something down the road. A few years after we moved out to Vegas, I started hearing about all these bars and venues back in Boston closing their doors permanently, and the idea came to me to do a song about all those places we used to play and hang at when the band was just getting together. Then all of these artists that had a big impact on us musically started to pass away like Bowie, Tom Petty, all these guys, so the song sort of morphed into an homage to all our influences from artists to the venues we cut our teeth in to the bars we closed down every night back in the day.
Will this single be part of a future EP or album?
Yes. We’re on a surprisingly organized schedule of releasing a new single about every three months or so. The plan is to release eight singles and then go back and wrap them all into an “album” release after that. “Dead Aces” is the eighth of those singles going all the way back to our first single “Chinatown” that we released shortly after we moved to Vegas. We’re going to have our co-producer, Tristan “Rock” Hardin, go back through all eight of those releases in the next few months and do a little remix on them so they sound cohesive together for an album, and then we’ll be ready to put it out. That album release is going to be called Wreckage Of Youth. In the meantime, we’ll keep releasing singles to compile into the next album. We’re currently finishing up the next single “Strung Out On Sunset” and hoping to have that ready to release around late November.
What’s it like to be a musician based in Las Vegas? It would seem to be a great place for a band to be based.
It’s a cool city. There’s always something to get into out here. It really spoils you when you travel to other places and shit shuts down by midnight or whatever. We love it here. There’s something for everybody, so we’ve sort of found our own Vegas, I guess you could say. We have a lot of friends that own or run our favorite bars — and we’re more of the “speakeasy, tucked-away bar” kind of crowd, so we’ve found ourselves a lot of those spots. And that’s what we hit up. There’s a ton of support out here, too. Our friends at Live Nation have hooked us up with all these amazing shows. Max McAndrew books Brooklyn Bowl and got us on with Buckcherry back in May and now Puddle Of Mudd Saturday.
Are you excited to open for Puddle of Mudd?
It’s been in the works for so long now. We were slated to play with them right when the world shut down a couple years ago, and then obviously that got canceled. So it’s great that it’s finally happening. Brooklyn Bowl is a killer venue, and the whole staff there is always so cool to us. We just tried out adding a new song, “Rats In The Cellar” by Aerosmith, last month when we played with Gilby Clarke from GnR, and we’re gonna break it out again for this one, too. Tossing in a cool cover here and there keeps things fresh for us. We try to do songs we never hear other people play.
What’s the 1-3 year plan for the band?
Does this band sound like it has a 1-3 year plan? We’re pretty much taking things as they come, and, luckily, we put ourselves in a position years ago where we’re in total control of everything from our catalog to what opportunities we choose to take. We jump on stuff we think is good for us, and we’re able to turn other stuff down that we’re not into. That’s something you really don’t have as much ability to do when someone else is writing the checks with a label. We do have a ton of new material coming, like I said, about every three months or so — some new songs we’re really excited about. We’re also partnering with our friends at KOMP 92.3 out here in Vegas along with The Sand Dollar Downtown at the Plaza Hotel to put together a big run of shows. Going to be some cool things going on and some big name bands joining us on those dates. You’ll be able to get all the updates with that on our website CRASHMIDNIGHT.COM.
How does songwriting begin for you? What’s day one look like?
It comes from everywhere really. Sometimes an idea for a song just kinda pops into your head based off something you’re going through what’s going on around you. Sometimes I get ideas from listening to other artists. Maybe a phrase they say sparks an idea, or actually more than a few times I’ve gotten ideas from mishearing a lyric and liking what I thought I heard better than whatever the actual lyric was. I guess that goes along with the whole “Dead Aces” title, too. But, yeah, I’ll end up working with an idea and then bringing it to the band in some sort of rough form ,and the guys, especially our lead guitarist Alex Donaldson who’s been with me since we started this thing, the guys take that and run with it. Everything gets mangled and bent around to where it ends up eventually sounding like us regardless of where it may have started.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Crash Midnight’s new song, “Dead Aces,” is now available. They will open for Puddle of Mudd Saturday, Sept. 2 at the Brooklyn Bowl in Las Vegas. Click here for more information.
