We had the chance to speak to Shane, frontman of maybe the fastest rising non-Sleep Token band in the UK, Those Damn Crows, ahead of their set at Call of the Wild (review here). Check out as we talked about their experience in the scene, the reception to their latest album, and what’s next!
What’s going on with the water in Wales? Every band seems to be awesome at the minute!
It’s a wonderful thing. I do feel though, a lot of people say about it now but I feel like it’s always been great. But yeah, Florence [Black], us, Scarlett Rebels, yeah, there’s loads man! I don’t know what it is, we’re just huge fans of music and sport in our nation and they both go hand in hand. You go along to sports and sing along with the crowd but I don’t know! I’m trying to work it out!
How does it feel to be the kinda frontrunners of this NWOCR scene?
Amazing that you’re saying that! It’s a wonderful feeling. We don’t look at it that way really, we’re just happy doing what we’re doing and so happy people are liking it. You just a band because you love hanging out with your mates and creating music and stuff, but when people take that on board and come to your shows that’s a wonderful feeling. There’s no better feeling.
And between Goo Goo Dolls and Hollywood Vampires, you’ve got some pretty big tours lined up. How does that feel?
It’s incredible! We’ve known for a while but… it’s just great to be doing shows and then jumping on these tours with bigger bands is amazing. To get the territories we maybe wouldn’t have gotten to otherwise, across Europe and stuff. But to jump on with Goo Goo Dolls is amazing, it’s a different kinda style and new people coming to see us. But then we do our last show at London, the Apollo, and jump on a bus headed to Germany to join up with Hollywood Vampires. So yeah, it’s incredible. It’s a real honour; Hollywood Vampires is legendary stuff.
And the album came out a bit earlier this year. What’s it like to have that reception?
It got to number three in the charts! Absolutely phenomenal. A lot of fans were saying we’d get another top ten but nothing’s certain. They just came out again and supported us like no other fanbase I know. Absolutely incredible, the Crow Family. Yeah, picked us up and chucked us in the charts at number three. We actually went in at number three and stayed there. Whereas on the second album we went in at number three and by the end of the week we’d dropped. So we were thinking ‘ahh right, we’re probably going to drop’ but we stayed there! It’s something we dreamed off and we’ve achieved now so onto the next one!
Have you got any goals in mind for the next milestone?
Yeah, I mean it’s just to play as many territories as possible. Not just to be a UK band but a global band. I think that’s the goal. We wanna get over to America. I think that’d really work for us, a lot of people say it works with the sound of the band and stuff. But yeah, just all across the UK and the world, I guess!
And are we working on new music already?
Yeah yeah sure, we’re always writing. We are concentrating on doing these shows this year but we’ve already got a few things in the pipeline for the next album. So we’ll work on that perhaps towards the end of this year and into next year.
And finally, what can we expect from your set at Call of the Wild?
Just the usual I guess. A high-energetic, pro show. We’ll give it our all. It’s a little plug-in-and-play session here, we had a little soundcheck but it is what it is, that’s what festivals are all about. What we’ve heard throughout the weekend is that everybody is up for it so yeah, should be good!