Music, Style & Culture

Crocodiles: 70s New York, Violence & Beauty, And Joshua Tree

Hannah Hancock Rubinsky has a chat with Corcodiles' Chuck Rowell.

Not so long ago, before yesterday's release of their second album 'Sleep Forever', our girl Hannah had a chat with Chuck Rowell from Crocodiles about the 70’s New York City Scene, violence and beauty and what it was like to record at Joshua Tree. Here's how it went.

You have a new album out now, 'Sleep Forever' - could you tell us a bit about the process of recording it?
Yeah of course. A lot of the songs were written throughout the duration of last year but mainly in the Fall. We demoed ideas and put together ten songs and then we were told that we had an opportunity to record with James Ford, and through him we secured a studio in Joshua Tree, California. So all of us went out and did it all there and through his creative input we made the record. The studio was a house that had been modified, so there were amps and guitars, all vintage equipment, littered throughout. In the kitchen, in the bedroom... you would sit on the bed and play an organ, or plug in outside and just record it. There were so many interesting instruments around it was so easy to fall into a creative moment. You could create a keyboard or guitar line right there and then go record it! Drop a mic on it and put it in. It was really creative and it happened in like ten days, we would talk about how we wanted to execute the songs and then just went for it.

That sounds like a musician's heaven…
It was pretty great. It is difficult because you get kind of wrapped up in what you are going to create and you sort of forget that you are like, you know, in the desert and you are recording on all this great equipment. It's just easy to get wrapped up in what’s happening because we’re stressed out about wanting to make it sound better and wanting the whole thing to come off in a certain way. And so you forget that yeah, it was an incredible opportunity to be out there with this really intelligent producer and be amongst the Joshua Tree Reservation.

Are you guys fans of Simian Mobile Disco?
They make really intelligent dance music and I can’t say that I have listened to them too much but I knew going into it that he was just a really creative and smart person, and I can tell just by the music he had done with Simian that we were on the right page.

So this process of recording an album was completely different to your last - which one do you think gave you easier access to an editorial eye concerning your work?
When we started recording 'Summer Of Hate' we were only ten months old and those were all the first songs we had written. We would go in when our producer friend was off work and record a song, and then go and write some more. As these were the first songs we had ever written and it was easy to go in and shape it and not even really be, I don’t want to say not be effected by it but, it was more like a starting point for us. Whereas this is like it truly captures the moment in the ten days we were recording because it was all almost entirely created there. It was all wrapped up in the spirit of being there in that moment. We had to step back, we had to go and mix and master it and all that is quite intensive and it is really in your head. It takes a while to step away and look at it and realize what you have done.

Are you happy with it then?
Oh absolutely. It’s just interesting. It all comes down to recording it there and everything that happened while we were there, it was like living a lifetime in ten days. You would just wake up, eat, sleep and drink this project. It was really cool. I think we couldn’t ever really recreate the sounds that were captured there; it was only in that moment.

While I know it might be easy to come off pretentious talking about finding beauty in violence, could you talk about what you mean by that?
Well, in a similar way, living in San Diego is quite beautiful, quite serene and nothing much ever happens, it’s a really comfortable place to be. Growing up here, Brandon and I were naturally attracted to dark, almost like nefarious or seedy elements. By being punks or at least having that headspace that we have, we are just attracted to the things that were more aggressive, not necessarily physically in nature, just things that were a little bit confrontational and things that were strange and different. That’s what has been instilled in us, and it’s a simple way to say that, beauty in violence, ya know. San Diego is great and lovely and it is our home, I was born here and we know it so well but only in the fact that we know it so well, can we criticize it. It's great but it also, I mean, unless you want to submit to Southern California culture and become this UCLA college student who lives by the beach or something like that, then you are probably going to be a punk and look to stranger outlets.

So what kinds of things are interesting to you these days?
Lately, Brandon and I have delved really far into traditional 1950’s Rock’n’Roll and progressive German rock from the 60’s and 70’s. I think those things are the things we really like. Listening to Chuck Berry’s 24 greatest, that music is both raw and primal but also beautiful and melodious. That’s kind of what we have been listening to a lot and writing new songs as well. Kind of letting that influence get in there like Bo Diddley and really great, inspiring songs that we have never really attempted to allow that spirit to get into our song writing process. The 50’s rock is almost easy to forget because of time, and it’s not really anything that popular culture lets permeate. Those artists were incredible and it’s important to recognize that.

We also look at every phase that we go through with a roving eye. Always in tune with what we want to create artistically, try to immerse ourselves in books and art as well, similar to what musicians were doing in New York into the mid to late 70’s like Richard Hell and Andy Warhol and all of that sort of really gritty underground. It was so underground that it became, it was shooting for the stars and it totally succeeded; beatniks colliding with this really gritty punk aesthetic. Also Kenneth Anger films, the southern California oddball film director, him almost more so than say 70’s New York. It’s a different time but also a different part of the country. Living here it’s cool to know that Kenneth Anger was influenced by the same sights we were, though obviously he is a filmmaker, his films are inspiring. You want to make music that mirrors the grittiness and seediness of his films.