So how long have you guys been a band then?

Joe Udwin (Guitar): The Crimea has been a band for about five years. We’ve had quite a few changes in line-up over those five years.

Owen Hopkins (drums): Yeah, we have had quite a high turnover.

So what about this 'releasing albums for free' stuff then? You guys were doing it way before Radiohead came along and made it the ‘in’ thing to do.

Joe: We decided that would be the best way for us to get our music out to our fans without a major label behind us anymore.

Owen: Warner would have NEVER allowed us to do that. Rather overprice the album and drop us when it doesn’t sell as well as they’d hoped as far as they’re concerned. This way we’ve got 80,000 people listening to the record, coming to the gigs and knowing the songs.

So you don’t sell any physical copies at all then?

Joe: Yes, we do sell physical copies. There are people out there that like the physical product. It’s good to have a proper CD you can hold in your hands and keep forever. If you’re just listening on an iPod this saves you time and money and still gets the record out there.

One point a lot of people miss with this whole free mp3 release thing is that digital media is nowhere near as robust as physical for the purpose of storing music. We still have vinyl records from the 40’s and even before then. iPods on the other hand only last a week before they stop working completely and then everything’s gone. Even proper computers' (PC’S) hard disks only last around a decade. Are we going to end up with an entire generation of music that got lost/deleted completely?

Joe: Haha, well we do sell physical like I said. I’m sure our music will survive somehow but that is a good point. Even CDs don’t last as long as vinyl. If you take care of it vinyl could potentially last forever. We won’t ever go down the mp3 ONLY route though. Although we did get some good press from the likes of the Guardian for being one of the first to do this kind of thing.

That’s not going to happen for much longer though is it. When everyone is doing it and it’s no longer a big thing, the whole free press angle has gone and you’re stuck trying to market a record which won’t bring in any profit.

Joe: We earn pretty much an equal amount from merchandise and ticket sales as we did from selling CDs as far as we’re concerned. A lot of the money we would have made being signed would have gone to the label anyway.

I guess there are ways of promoting yourselves besides expensive advertising and cheesy billboards.

Joe: Well those big-budget avenues are unlikely to happen. Our music gets around by word-of-mouth which leads to things like the Trident ad which has done us better than a page ad in the NME would've.

Ticket sales to gigs must be another source of income. What about the massive stadium gigs that the label would have generally sorted out? You must be shitting bricks hiring out massive venues like the Brixton Academy and knowing it all comes out of your pockets if everything fucks up.

We haven’t hired the Acedamy out ourselves. It’s not like we’re unwilling to work with anyone. A lot of time the gigs are still booked and paid for by someone else the same as when we were signed. We just deal with people and sorting these things ourselves nowadays.

So what about the new album? Did the writing process go swimmingly?

Joe: Making this album has definitely been different. It wasn’t difficult and there wasn’t as much pressure. We got it done relatively quickly and are confident in the new songs. They’ve been getting a good response on tour.

What would you describe it as sounding like?

Owen: Like Frank Black covering Dusty Springfield with a hoover on loan from Kurt Cobain.

Smart move borrowing a hoover off of Kurt Cobain. I guess now that he’s shot himself in the face whilst overdosing on emo and heroin you won’t ever have to give it back. Any advice for the new school?

Owen: Well a good pillow is a very underrated thing.

But what constitutes a ‘good pillow’. Mine is old and was cheap as chips but it’s got that, you know, homely thing going on.

Joe: Yeah, a pillow you have a history with, when you have a kind of understanding of each other - that’s the best kind of pillow. Failing that you just want a really big feather one.

You guys seem so sensible given everything I heard about Davey (rhythm guitar, lyrics) on your forum.

Owen: What did you hear about Davey on our forum?

Quote: "fucking mental".

Joe: Haha, guilty as charged maybe.

Any good rock’n’roll stories?

Joe: Once got a bit too pickled with Kings of Leon. Was a lot like that scene from Jacobs Ladder. I think it’s technically known as a ‘whitey’.

FIN.

Here's an advance preview of their upcoming single for you lucky people!

You can check out some tunage from the Crimea at their Last FM page.