Formed in March 2004 by Ben Rodecker on rythm-guitar & vocals, Darwin Baker on bass & vocals, Stevey-Handsom on the drums, Scott Robson handling the lead-vocal duties, and Danny-Ransom on lead guitar, The Crackdown is a 77' influenced street-rock 'n' roll band from the heart of Canada - Winnipeg, MB. Coming from Winnipeg is both a blessing and a curse explains Danny; "On one hand there's a ton of great bands from Canada .... On the other hand it sucks because it's a gigantic geographic country, you can drive 18 hours in either direction of Winnipeg before you hit another major city." But the upside is that the Canadian punkrock scene, although small, is thriving with great bands, both past and present. "I listen to a lot of Canadian punk," adds Ben, "Mostly old stuff like Teenage Head, The Forgotten Rebels, The Viletones, Pointed Sticks, D.O.A. Lately we've got some great bands too .... The Tranzmitors, The Wednesday Night Heroes, Knucklehead, The Fallout, & The Farrell Bros. All of those bands are top notch!"
Although the band is relativly young, the members have been playing music together for over 10 years, and combined have shared the stage with such notable acts as; The Casualties, Death By Stereo, Mad Caddies, The Horrorpops, Left Alone and the Satanic Surfers. "We actually all, except Steve, went to highschool together" says Danny, "which is either cool or pathetic when you consider we're all in our mid-20s and haven't found anybody cool enough to start a band with outside of ourselves." Orignally when the band formed they went through a revolving door of drummers until Stevey-Handsom was recruited permantly in the summer of 2006 after being the on-again-off-again fill-in drummer.
Musically, The Crackdown attributes their influences anywhere from the early sounds of The Clash to Rose Tatto. "(Basically, we're) 5 pissed off, broke as hell, shitty job working guys getting together, drinking a lot, and then playing '77ish rock and roll with a bit of a modern twist to it all." says Dan. And although the band isn't too concerned with their genre or which specific facet of punkrock they fall in, Ben explains that - "... we don't really aim for anything other than for each song to kick more ass than the last."
The new album Broken Guitars & Trashy Bars, is a 12-song split CD/vinyl with Germany's Hiroshima Mon Mour. "Each band has 6 Tracks on it..." says Ben "... (I think) you can defiantly hear a maturity in our sound compared to the last release ... and the Hiroshima tracks just plain rule." The album is the second release for the band, their first being a 6 song EP entitled Rebel Radio - released in 2004 independantly by the band. Now working with New York-based Long Shot Records the match-up has brought the band to a new level explains Ben; "Mike has a real great reputation with Canadian bands. He was the first label we contacted and he seemed really interested in the whole thing so we just went with it."
Gearing up for the release of BG&TB, The Crackdown are currently prepairing for what else? World Domination. "Of course," adds Danny; "We pretty much figure we're on the road, to opening for U2 and doing multiple nights at arenas worldwide."
Videos of The Crackdown
"Death & Dishonesty" - Live Clip from Tribute to Devin Mitchell
Thanks for the add! Wishing you all the best! Cheers, The WAC gals We.Are.Canadian Every Thursday from 6-8pm EST on CJLO (www. cjlo. com) & Tuesday from 11pm-1am EST on PUNKRADIOCAST (www. punkradiocast. com)
Backstage Winnipeg is in the midst of relaunching...so if you have any show updates,band updates etc, etc...please feel free to e-mail me at backstagewinnipeg@yahoo.com
Hey, i'm gonna use some of those east tour pics for the zine interview i did with you guys. hope you don't mind, and if you do, well, then you and your teddy bear tattooes can eat it.
