written by Marko Jakob
Pix666: Hello Danny. Thanks for your time. How are you doing these days, are you alive and well? How are the other guys from Crazy Lixx?
Danny: We are all alive and well.
Pix666: Please introduce your band to the readers in a few short sentences. How did you meet as a band and what kind of music do you make?
Danny: We make Retro Hard Rock/ Heavy Metal, sometimes Heavy Metal back in the 80ies and 90ies. The kind of sound is basicly Mainstream Hardrock about 30 years ago.The band member didn’t meet with the current with the current constellation, because we’ve been around for almost 20 years.I startet the band back in 2002 and our Drummer Joél joined the band at that point and he’s the only other member that is been around since then. Our last stabile line-up is a couple of years old now – I think five years or something like that.
Pix666: What was the reason for you to become a musician and from which bands were you inspired?
Danny: Well, I was inspired by the ‚big ones‘ from when I was growing up – I was born in 1982 – so the ones you could see on MTV or in the magazines back then – so everything from KISS to Iron Maiden, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Judas Priest. All oft hat has a gone into my inspiration and still remains my inspiration – the music that I listened to when I was a kid.
Pix666: You’ve been on the road with Crazy Lixx for almost 20 years now. What have been the most memorable moments and milestones with your band so far?
Danny: Well, you know, obviously it changes all the time. It’s kind of like a bucket list thing when you play your first gig, that is a big milestone for you, if you haven’t played anything before and when you relwase your first album and then you can of course release that album on vinyl, which happend a couple of years ago fort he first time which wasn’t something we‘d expect starting the band because vinyl was very much out of fashion at that time. And then of course you have goals like playing at a certain festival or achive a certain amount of views or listens. So that changes all the time and you can set up new goals for yourself in ordert o grow as a band. I always feel like a I don’t want to xxx too much but look at new goals to try achive. So, there’s always milestones to pass.
Pix666: A couple of weeks ago your new album ‚Street Lethal‘ was released. How have the reactions to the album been so far and where can fans buy it?
Danny: Well, fans can buy it in wherever they buy records usually. We’re on a pretty big label so we have worldwide distribution and you can get it in record stores or online or direct from the Frontiers Records Shop. The reactions have been very good. We have some wonderful reviews and also the reactions from the fans had been very good so we‘re happy about it.
Pix666: Did you have the chance to play a release concert and are there any further plans for concerts?
Danny: Yes, we did a release concert in our hometown here in Sweden and we’ve done shows since then. We have some plan, but seeing now as the new covid variants were coming and countries will closing down. I really don’t know what the future will hold. We have plans for it but it’s totally out of our hands if we can go throug it or not in the end.
Pix666: I love your new video clip for the song ‚Rise Above‘ – a great time travel into the old millennium. Where did you shoot this clip and how long does it actually take to shoot such a music video?
Danny: We shot it in an old band and factory building here in Sweden. We shot the full band scenes during one night basicly and then we did another day. He had to wait to wait for it to get dark – so another night of shoot with Bella fort he kind of fight scenes. All in all two days to shoot it, but there’s a lot of preparation that goes into it. We had to coming up with the concept and getting all the stuff together for the videos. It’s a lot of work. I’m glad you enjoyed the final outcome ?
Pix666: The video now has nearly 250,000 views. I’m a fan of statistics of all kinds. What about you, Danny? Do you look at the numbers of streams, the views on YouTube, or do you know, for example, in which countries the people who listen to your music live?
Danny: Yes, I very much follow all these statistics. I said, it’s one of the milestones that you pass your old statistics. I’m always watching the monthly listeners on Spotify or the amount of viewers that our top video has and stuff like that – and also for demographic reasons – it’s good to know where your listeners are, what kind of age group they are and what gender and so on… I’m very much into that as well.
Pix666: Is there any other merch to buy in your store besides the album, maybe some cool clothes that people could wear on your concerts?
Danny: I don’t think you can buy the album from the store, there’s actually just clothes on our store. So if you’re going to www.crazylixx.com – that’s where you can buy some cool clothes so you can wear it when you come to our concerts.
Pix666: You are signed to the well-known Italian label Frontiers Music srl. How much does that help a band in these times to have such a strong and experienced partner by your side?
Danny: Obviously, it helpes a lot – they handle all the distribution and the manufactoring oft he physical product itself and also the digital avenues, where you can have the music these days. They solve everything on the Business side, so we can concentrate to the music which is very nice.
Pix666: The world is dominated by social media – even bands use social media extensively these days. From your point of view, how has the music business changed in the last decades – what are the advantages and disadvantages compared to the past and today? Would you rather be a musician in the 80s, when there were a lot fewer bands and fans bought a lot more physical records, or do you also quite like the present with music streaming?
Danny: So, that’s a lot of questions in one and I could probably talk about this for hours and hours – but in short: I would prefer for my genre of music definetly to be around in the 80ies, however I do recognize that I maybe wouldn’t had the change to come as far as we’ve done now – simply because the filter that held back a lot of bands back in the days, – so in order to get your album recorded you really had to know the right people, get the right connections and even move tot he right places. Because you could’nt reach out maybe for a small town in Sweden – even if we live in the third lagest city in Sweden – it’s still small by international means.
So just like you had in the 80ies a lot of people in the USA they have to move to Los Angeles to kind of have a chance to make it all – or New York. I would rather be a musician in the 80ies but I think we would have a great success in the 80ies with the music we play, but in the same time I wouldn’t have all the influences, so I woulnd’t be able to make the music that I do. It’s a hard thing!
As a listener I quite prefer the music climate today because there’s more to listen to and it’s easier to access it through the internet and seeing music videos. You have a lot more freedom how you consume music compared to the 80ies. The music industry decided very much for you what was released and what you had access to through MTV or music stores.
Pix666: As a musician, you surely spend most of your time creating music – but what else do you do in your free time when you want to distract yourself – are there any interesting hobbies you pursue? ?
Danny: Music takes up most of my time. I play football to try to stay in shape. I like to take long walks. I’m something like a history nerd – so I’m listening to a lot of history Podcasts when I’m walking. But music takes up a lot of my time. I used to play video games and I still do some with my kids, but not for my own sake anymore. It’s not enough time in the day to do that anymore.
Pix666: Do you have any other news about Crazy Lixx, that you would like to share with the fans?
Danny: Well, as I said, news are quite hard these days because basicly we don’t know how the future will look. We have a lot of cool plans in the future, but with the Covid-situation being so uncertain – we don’t know how much we will do of it and it’s also nothing we can announce at this point because we don’t know what will happen. We hope – fingers crossed – that everything will go back to normal – maybe sometime in the future we will be able to tour and play as we used to.
Pix666: Thank you very much for the interesting answers –good luck with your album. Stay healthy!
Danny: Thank you very much and thanks for having me.
https://www.facebook.com/crazylixx
photos © by Björn Olsson
