Introducing: Crazy Sally
Where can we find you right now and what are you up to?
You find us on Spotify, Apple music, Deezer and the other music platforms. We do socials too, mostly Insta, but also Facebook and Twitter. On Youtube, you can find our music and lyric videos as well as live videos. Some are in bad quality, but wtf. We like to tell stories as well as to play music.
In terms of real life, we're mainly a German/Berlin band, although one member is half-French and one is American. Right now we do rehearsals with one new band member; we're a five-piece band now (two guitars!). We are also overdubbing/mixing stuff we recorded during the "Covid era". Another sidekick project is to rearrange some of our songs for unplugged versions because they work surprisingly well live. They also have a quite different mood compared to the Rock versions, which is interesting. We may record them later on.
What's the one thing you find difficult with today's state of the music industry?
To stand out. Of course, it was always difficult for a band to get noticed. But nowadays there are Zillions of DIY bands and solo artists out there, many of them actually produced in a proper way (okay, not all of them...). In the old days, a certain songwriting/production level was already a sign of the fact that you had arrived somewhere. That's not the case anymore. Now the production and distribution techniques are reachable to anyone. The irony here is, that this is a good thing and a bad thing at the same time...
Why Crazy Sally? How did you come up with that name?
Crazy Sally was a healer, but a weird one. We thought that fit with us. In the 18th Century, poor people couldn't afford to go to a proper doctor with their broken bones. They went to a bonesetter like Sarah Mapp, who had the nickname "Crazy Sally". According to caricatures they made back then, she wasn't what you call beauty. But she was good at her job.
When the three of us (Naomi, Markus and Rainer) started the band, we had lots of name ideas, but many of them already existed. Then we found this story about Crazy Sally and agreed on the spot that it was the right name.
What do you think will be the future of bands and live music in general?
Who knows. There will always be live music of course. There will always be musicians who want to play as a band. The question is: will it be a big thing for younger people in the future? Will Rock music/Rock bands be the flagship of pop culture again, as they used to be? Technology allows solo artists nowadays to do entire productions in their bedroom. On the other hand, live music as well as Rock music was often considered dead. At the end of the day, the music has to come from somewhere outside the technology, as long as R2-D2 doesn't have a band.
What do you feel sets you apart from other artists?
We're a bunch of weirdos, a group of misfits, who fit with each other. In fact, we're kind of a family. One is an ADHD, one is gay, one is half French, half German with African roots. And the most boring guy in the band-me-is writing most of the material. Meaning, we like to be a Rock band, but we don't like to mimic the cliche of a Rock band, if that makes any sense.
How do you write your songs?
70% are written in a traditional way by starting with the melody, adding chords on guitar or piano and doing simple demos. The other 30% are band-written, meaning jamming with the band on a riff one of us came up with and adding parts while playing. Sometimes we do combinations of both methods. What we don't do though is to write inside the DAW. When it comes to recording, the song has to be finished.
What expenses does an artist who wants to pursue music professionally have to face?
We really don't know. Being a pro should mean earning money, as far as we know, not spending it. We actually spend money for recordings, videos, distribution and our rehearsal room. We take our music seriously, but we don't make too much money with it.
Tell us a bit about your gear (amps, guitars, etc).
Hm, I'm the drummer. If I'm not wrong the guitar players play both Gibson as well as Fender Strat and use Victory as well as Marshall amps. And of course lots of pedals they always have to do tap dance with. The bassman plays a wonderful Jazz Fender, a Sandberg and a little Hohner via an Ampeg with a 4 X12 Trace Elliot if I remember correctly. A nice older Fender amp stays at home. I play a red Pearl Fiberglas Vintage set (supposedly built in the 1970th), combined with a newer free-floating copper snare drum and newer Masterwork Cymbals. Naomi uses a Shure 58 mike in the rehearsal room. In general, nothing too fancy, more down-to-earth equipment that feels right for a Rock band.
What's your advice to new bands out there trying to stand out in the endless ocean of releases in Spotify?
Most of all, find your own use, but something you can believe in at the same time. Fake doesn't work. It doesn't necessarily have to be the most original thing ever heard. Learn the game one by one without taking it too seriously. Meaning, that numbers aren't everything. Especially not quick numbers. Even bands/artists with, let's say, 10.000 streams per song sometimes do not just suck, but are forgotten later on.
Don't give the rights out of your hands.
Do you play video games? What is your favorite?
The other band members are asleep right now, so I can't ask them. I'm personally not too much into gaming, to be honest. But I just loved both movie adaptations of Silent Hill and Resident Evil!
Do you remember any strange or funny incident that happened to you?
There was this invisible band. We both were booked for the same gigs two or three times, but they never showed up. A phantom band. I did my research and found out that they actually existed, it was really only bad luck for them. One time their van broke down, the other time the singer had an accident, stuff like that. Later on I thought this could be a marketing concept, a Punkrock Dada anti-art manifesto for Rock bands.
Then there was this bossy suit guy who saw us in a playing and asked our singer Naomi, if he could be her sex slave. Don’t know if that necessarily means that our show is sexy.
Tell us about your latest or upcoming release.
The last song we published is called Bloody Mothers. It's a song about autism. Our bassman Rainer wrote the lyrics based on the experience he had with his autistic son. We used a drawing by this guy for the artwork.
The next two songs that we'll put out will be Change Your Way, an upbeat Ska song about religion, cults and ideology and a song called Freedom.
