Interview with Novacrow

What got you into music, and if you had not gotten into music what would you be doing today?

Our mutual love of kazoos and making fools of ourselves for the entertainment of others were the biggest factors in us making music together. If it weren’t for that, we’d probably be running the world’s most successful underground burlesque wrestling ring. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll be able to combine the two somehow… 

What do you like to do when you are not playing music and how does that influence your creativity?

We all have very similar hobbies. We all enjoy gaming quite a lot, that’d probably be our biggest past time. Kitty also enjoys reading a lot, and Freddy spends an awful lot of time cooking weird shit. Jonyx loves to just stare blankly into space.

A lot of our song lyrics end up being about stories from games and books and whatnot, so we end up being influences quite a lot by the media we end up consuming.  

How long has your band been around?

 We’ve been around a shocking 9 years now - we formed in September 2013.

Where are you based out of and how did that influence your music?

We’re based in Liverpool, UK. At the time, the Merseyside metal scene was very fragmented, so it forced us to look outwards and do a lot of touring across the country. We’re also a band that very much likes to take a “left of centre” approach to what we do, so whilst a lot of the local metal scene consists of more categorized metal (lots of death metal, thrash, grunge, etc.), we make an almost active decision to blend genres together and incorporate different sounds to our music. Ultimately, it’s very incestuous scene so we end up playing with all sorts of local metal bands all the time.

How did you come up with the name of your band and what does it mean to you?

Pure chance. Jonyx pointed to two random words in the dictionary and they happened to be “Nova” and “crow” so there we are. The name doesn’t mean anything in and of itself, it’s just a fucking AWESOME name.

Tell me about your most memorable shows.

Oh boy, we have so many! From Metal Days in 2017 where a crowsurfer injured his anle to our show, to Winter Days of Metal where our drummer dislocated his shoulder the day before the show so we had to program drums in a hurry, to our latest appearance at Bloodstock where we had two giant inflatable T-rexes amongst the crowd and Freddy ripped off his Velcro pants to reveal a leopard print thong, to the time Jonyx farted on stage in the hottest day of the year at a small venue where the air conditioner was broke and consequently made Kitty and Freddy gag mid-set, the list is almost literally endless.

What is your favorite venue to play at, and do you have any places you want to play that you have not already?

There’s loads of venues we haven’t played. Dare I say, we haven’t played MOST venues out there. There’s no one in particular that we’d want to perform at, just put us in front of an audience and we’ll find a way to ruin their day. In a similar vein, our favourite venues to play at were mostly great because of the promoters and the organizers so it’s hard to single out any specific venues.

If you could play any show with any lineup, who would be on the ticket?

Skindred, Igorrr, and Avril Lavigne. Oh, and us. 

What is some advice that you would give to someone who is just getting into playing in a band and some advice that you would give to your younger self?

This shit is not for the feint of heart – if you’re gonna go down this route you gotta do it with fervor and with an unforgiving attitude. Fuck everything and everyone and run in head first. You’re gonna make a lot of mistakes along the way, but failure is all part of the game.

If you could go back in time and give yourselves advice, what would it be?

If you’re gonna spend money on services (merch, PR, recording, etc) make sure the money is going to people who give a shit about you and your band. 

Of your songs which one means the most to you and why?

Whilst we have a lot of goofy songs, we also have a lot of more earnest and sincere songs. I think “The Mantra” was the first one we wrote to resonate emotionally with a lot of people. “Hollow Armour”, which is the first single off our upcoming debut album “Look At Me Now” is also very meaningful and it seems to be resonating a lot with our fans, as it did for us when writing and recording it.

Which songs are your favorite to play and which get requested the most?

Hard to pick out a single song really. From our new album, songs like “Medusa Medusa” are really fun to play, we get the audience involved and we have enough room in the song to goof around on stage and it’s overall just a great song. As far as requests go, we’re usually very good at playing the right songs for our audience – although now that we’re shifting to newer material we expect a few people to start requesting older songs.

What is the creative process for the band, and what inspires you to write your music?

We mostly just send each other demos back and forth until somehow a song comes out of it. Inspiration can come from different places - it could be a life event, a great book, one of Freddy’s nightmares, anywhere.

What kinds of messages do you like to get across in your music?

That life is hard, so here’s some fun music for you to take your mind off things. And know that Novacrow believes in you <3

Do you ever have disagreements in your band, and how do you get past them?

We’re usually quite good at solving disputes. There might be an occasion where Kitty and Freddy butt heads creatively, but that’s where Jonyx intervenes as an impartial judicator. At that point it’s majority’s rule. But even those instances are relatively minor, we’ve been working together and hanging out for the past nine years so we’ve grown very much accustomed to each other so we don’t often disagree on things now.

What are your plans for the future, and do you have anything that you want to spotlight that is coming up?

Well, I’m glad you asked! We’ve recently released our first single ‘Hollow Armour’ from our upcoming debut album ‘Look At Me Now’, and we’ve got a second single called ‘Day Break’ which should probably be out by the time you’re reading this. Both have beautifully shot videos and showcase the level of excellence you can expect from the rest of the album. WHICH YOU CAN PREORDER OVER AT www.novacrowofficial.com/store RIGHT NOW! After that, we’ll be focusing on touring again so keep them peepers peeled for a show near you!

So yeah, check us out at all of our various social media links and we hope you like what you hear/see!

www.novacrowofficial.com
www.facebook.com/novacrowofficial
www.instagram.com/novacrowband
www.tiktok.com/@novacrowofficial