Crushed Beaks

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What does Babs Johnson, famed drag queen from Pink Flamingos and ‘filthiest person alive’ have in common with a two piece noise pop band hailing from London? Nothing, you’d imagine. Yet the description on Crushed Beaks’ Facebook page contains one of the many famous quotes from the infamous film. You remember; the tasteless quips about running baby rings, selling kids off to broody lesbian couples and uneasy alliances with drug pushers who target ‘inner city elementary schools’.

But with latest single ‘Breakdown’ and the garage-rock sounds of ‘Grim’, there is something very gritty about this band. As though their music would be the perfect soundtrack to the illicit adrenaline-fuelled events that occur on murky London streets, post-watershed. The main attraction to this band is their primal urgency. They speed it up and even slow it down on some tracks, but they remain intuitive, and in doing that, appeal the listener’s intuitions also.

In Best Fit’s interview with Crushed Beaks, we come to discover that the glorious noise we’ve heard from them thus far is unsurprisingly a very organic creative process. In fact, the band’s entire existence seems to be the result of the shady workings of fate and natural timing.

Hello Crushed Beaks. How are you?

Very well thank you, we just released our new single ‘Breakdown’ and it seems to have gone down really well. We’re over the moon.

I’m led to believe you guys went to the same secondary school but were in different bands, then ended up going to the same university and formed the band from there. It’s almost like Crushed Beaks is the work of fate…?

It’s true, we have known each other since school. Alex was in this heavy psychedelic jam band and I used to play in a band with the guys from Torches. We didn’t see that much of each other at Goldsmiths though – we were in separate bubbles. I played some demos that I’d made that didn’t really fit with my other projects to Alex one hazy night after we hadn’t seen each other for about three years, and asked him to play drums. He was reluctant at first – the quality of those demos could be described generously as atrocious. We were both pleasantly surprised and impressed at how it sounded, even during our first rehearsal.

Of the groups you’ve been in prior, I’d imagine this is the one that works the best. In what way does it do that?

Logistically, it’s a million times easier. Organising a practice is as easy as calling Alex and saying ‘do you want to practice later?’ When there are five or six people to think about, that kind of spontaneity just isn’t possible. The minimal setup also keeps the songs much more focused, there are no superfluous parts floating about.

Who are your collective influences and what’s one record you couldn’t live without?

We both listen to quite different things, so it is quite hard to pin it down to a couple of specific influences. I don’t really have the one and only record I couldn’t live without.

What’s the one record in the world you wish you’d written?

Rumours by Fleetwood Mac.

Despite being a two-man band, Crushed Beaks still sounds organically loud and messy (in a good way!) How do you manage this?

We never really planned to be a two-piece, but at the same time, we’ve never made any moves to expand the line-up. It seemed to work, so we stayed that way. Also, there’s no bass player or lead singer to tell us to play quieter…

What’s the creative process of the band? Does one take charge of lyrics and the other production or do you all just intermesh your skills?

There’s nobody else to teach the chords to, so the song-writing process is quick, sometimes stream-of-consciousness. When we come across an idea we’re into, we kind of feel our way through the song until it comes to a natural end. Then we play it again, but better.

…also, how important are lyrics to the band or is the instrumentations that you have more of a passion for?

Everything is important. The whole thing has to be cohesive otherwise people see straight through. If the songs didn’t mean anything to me then I don’t think they would for other people either.

What’s your view on rock music at the moment? Is it degenerating or on it’s way up? Or are there a lot of shit bands that aren’t giving people good enough reason to explore the genre?

The Internet has given musicians the chance to reach more people and to interact with a wider audience than was previously possible but at the same time, because it’s available to more or less everyone, a lot of these avenues do become saturated to a certain degree.

What can people expect from a Crushed Beaks live show?

We always try and incorporate new material into our set, if you play the same songs in a set for too long, things can get a bit stale. Playing new songs injects life into the older ones, like a blood transfusion.