Interview With 'Crejuvent'

Firstly, introduce yourself/yourselves and tell us a little bit about the band and how you came to be?

Hey all, my name is Freddy and I’m the criminal puppeteer behind my solo project Crejuvent. The project has been going on and off for a few years, it just started as me trying to get a band together to help fulfil my own artistic vision, and eventually I just decided to start work on it on my own and to see where it goes. It gives me good opportunities to try things out that I wouldn’t normally try with any of my other bands and projects, and having full creative control over a project like this is extremely rewarding. Would recommend.

What were you all up too prior to the band, was this always the chosen path or did you have other dreams and aspirations?

Well I’ve been studying music at university for a few years, I do plenty of session work as a bassist primarily for other bands and function stuff. I got another main band called Novacrow, and I produce a lot of Metal bands as well. Ideally I’d be doing Crejuvent full time since it’s the music that I love playing and writing the most, but so far I keep busy playing and recording music in other forms anyways so it’s all good! The only thing that sucks is that I started a full time job last month, so I don’t have as much time for myself since every day is literally ‘work, rehearse, record, sleep. Repeat’, but I need to finance my musical shenanigans somehow!

Tell us about your latest EP and why our readers should check it out.

Oh boy where can I start? I’ll give the humorous answer first to really capture the reader’s attention, then I’ll give the lame serious answer at the end. Ok, ready?

THIS EP WILL BE THE MOST MIND BLOWNIGLY, ERECTION INDUCING PIECE OF EXTREME MUSIC YOU WILL HEAR IN YOUR LIFETIME. It’s got riffs and grooves for days! There’s something here for the entire Metal family to enjoy, from a grown-ass man (not to be confused with grown ass-man) moaning sensually like a…thing that moans sensually, to cock-throbbing bass lines that are GUARANTEED to caress the parts of your inner psyche that you never even knew existed! I feel like a more complete woman just by telling you about it here!

And now for the nerd answer. Work on this EP has been going on for almost two years now in some shape or form, but due to the inconsistency in my schedule a lot of the work was on and off. Ultimately, the Time EP is the closest I’ve ever been to genuinely fulfilling some sort of creative and artistic vision. I’m a fan of an awful lot of music, and I wanted the chance to let all of those influences breathe freely without any hindrance from anybody or anything, including myself. As I was writing some parts of the EP I would often think to myself “Hey you can’t do that, that’s not Metal, that ain’t cool” or something amongst those lines, and gave myself a bit of a “Hey, fuck you, I like it” moment and do it anyway. You can definitely hear the major influences in the music as it’s heavily rooted in some sort of Progressive Metal, but genre name-dropping aside I think it’s got a lot of cool and sometimes subtle elements that blend well to create an awesome listening experience!

Have you ever come face to face with someone within the music scene who has left you awestruck and why?

I’ve pressed my face against a TV while the Red Hot Chili Peppers were playing, does that count? I wasn’t QUITE awestruck by the experience, but I definitely felt…something.

If we were to head out to one of your live shows what can ourselves and others expect?

Hard to say. I don’t really gig to much with Crejuvent on the account of, you know, not having a band. I’ve done a few shows where it was just me playing bass and singing to backing tracks. Playing with this is, again, quite different from playing in other bands for me, as it’s entirely my own vision I can truly be uninhibited on stage. Even with Novacrow I tend to go berserk on stage and generally make an ass of myself, but I do have to hold back on SOME respects considering there are three other people on stage and we’re all sort or representing or endorsing each other in a way. Consequently I tend to word vomit and mumble a lot into the mic. Whereas with Crejuvent it’s the complete opposite. I remember last gig I did I had John from Novacrow in the audience, and he said that I came across as so eloquent in my speech and stage banter that it was hard to believe that it was me up there! So yeah, I’d say expect a whole lot of stage banter and stupid jokes to compensate for the fact that otherwise people would literally just watch me stand around on an elevated platform on my own while screaming and holding a big blue slab of wood with some strings on it. Oh man I just realised how much fun it is describing stuff to people in the most literal way possible, it sucks the fun out of anything!

If you had one artist/band that you could go on tour with tomorrow who would it be and why?

Being a huge fan of Strapping Young Lad (and Devin Townsend in general) I’d have to pick them. I absolutely love the music, and getting to watch them live every night would be such an experience! Plus they all look like they would engage in JUUUUST the right amount of off-stage touring shenanigans: not too much to ruin lives, yet not too little to get bored. Plus you’d rather go and tour with a band full of people that know how to tour, they’d know how to handle cabin fever and when to leave you the fuck alone if you look like you need it.

You can spend an hour with a musical icon living or dead, who would you pick, why and what would you speak about?

Hm, given my above answer I’d say Devin Townsend is too obvious a choice. Like, that’s just a given really. Otherwise, I’d say Peter Steele, assuming he’d be having a good day. He just seems like he’d have a lot of cool shit to say whilst being both informative AND highly entertaining. Or we’d just get hammered on red wine, which isn’t usually my drink of choice but hey, you can get pretty wrecked in an hour drinking red wine with Peter fucking Steele I’d imagine! Topics would include: least favourite breeds of dogs, what the most seductive meal a man could cook for a woman is (hint: it’s not canned spaghetti), the weather, and if there’s time pre WW2 European history. But mainly the weather, I mean it’s crazy right?

And finally and most importantly is Die Hard a Christmas Movie?

I suppose the main criteria for being a ‘Christmas movie’ would be that it is primarily exclusive to Christmas time right? Thing is, I’m pretty sure I saw Die Hard on TV the other day, and it most certainly isn’t Christmas time now (I don’t think so anyway…not unless my drinking habits are getting out of hand). So on that criteria I’d say no. But what the fuck do I know?

Also, have you ever asked someone whether a hot dog is a sandwich or not? You totally should, it turns out that people get SOOOOO defensive about their definitions of a sandwich. It’s like people have constructed their entire identity and internal universe on what constitutes a sandwich, and as soon as you challenge them on it they freak out. It’s amazing!

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