The Stranded Q&A: Crocodiles

The Summer of Love came and went in 1867 years ago adorned in psychoactive drugs, free love, communes, psychedelic rock, and bloodshot eyes. Now 42 years later we have come to the start of the Summer of Hate. The Crocodiles are on tour: Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Dallas, Minneapolis, San Diego, Los Angeles, Austin, Houston, Atlanta, Cleveland, Denver, Phoenix, Portland, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Detroit and more. There is no escape. The Crocodiles had a little time to answer some questions about their months-long seige.

1. How did Plot to Blow up the Eiffle Tower come to an end?
It was nothing between the members of the band. We all still enjoyed playing music together (as evidenced by the fact that we all continued to play together in one form or another afterwards) but the actual music wasn't getting our rocks off. I personally wanted to be playing something with more melody.

2. When did you get Crocodiles together?
We got Crocodiles together in April of 2008. We tried for a few months before that to get full band together but everyone that we wanted to play music with already had bands. So rather than settle on being a side project for someone else, we figured we'd try it as a duo.

3. How did you get on Fat Possum records?
They just wrote us out of the blue. We had our album recorded already, so we sent it to them and they liked it and asked to put it out.

4. You put out a 7-inch on Zoo and one on Down in the Ground. Those 7-inches seemed to sell out in just weeks. What do you attribute that response to?
The Zoo Music 7" took like 8 months to sell out! I know, cuz I put it out. I was like, "Jesus Christ, when are these fucking things gonna sell??" haha! The DITG 7" didn't sell out, because it never really came out! It seems that the label ripped a lot of people off. We get letters everyday asking about that release - I wish we had a good answer but unfortunately there isn't one.

5. Are you really banned in Salt Lake City?
No, you are mixing up two stories. We got beat up by Mormon homophobe jock asshole straightedge kids in SLC; we got blacklisted from clubs in Baltimore for a while. Baltimore is fine now though - in fact we are playing there tonight!

6. You told me that Crocodiles sounds a bit like some of the last Plot material. Was that material ever played live or recorded in any form?
Well, it doesn't really sound the same, but what I meant was that everything had more melody. My vocals had a lot more melody and Chuck's guitar parts were less discordant. We played a lot of those songs live towards the end and demoed them for a possible album that never happened. We have someone that wants to release it, so hopefully it'll happen soon...

7. You are a few weeks into the tour, how has the response been on the road?
The response has been pretty good in general, but it depends on who we are opening for. So far on this Holy Fuck tour it seems like their fans like us.

8. What new records are you rocking in the van?
We've been listening to the Oh Sees "Help" LP, tons of Woven Bones (who are probably our favorite band right now), Reading Rainbow's album (they are from Philly) - stuff like that. Well, that's the new stuff at least. We are always listening to 60's stuff and Pet Shop Boys and New Order and stuff like that too.