Simon, Eric & Martin of Crashdiet

by Deb Rao
Staff Writer —

Hardrock Haven recently had the opportunity to speak with Sweden rock band Crashdiet at their Las Vegas show at Vamp’d. The band performed a West Coast trek of dates including special stops at the Key Club In LA and Club Red in Tempe, Ariz. Crashdiet is touring in support of their latest release Generation Wild.

Crashdiet gave an outstanding performance in Las Vegas in front of a packed club and was enthused to talk with Hardrock Haven regarding their North American Tour and how the band has evolved since their debut back in 2003.

Hardrock Haven: Welcome to Las Vegas. How has the tour been going?

Eric: It’s been going great.

Hardrock Haven: How has the band evolved since your debut in 2003? I know Simon joined the band three years ago.

Eric: Quite a lot. We have matured at certain levels. We are more focused.

Hardrock Haven: Do see feel that there is a revival of the Glam metal scene? I know the band is heavily influenced by bands like Motley Crue.

Eric: We did see a revival back when we did our first album. We hope we kind of revived it.

Hardrock Haven: Tell us about the release of Generation Wild and how it differs from your previous releases?

Eric: It is more focused.

Simon: It is probably more different from the first album then the second album. It is more classic hard rock.

Martin: Not as heavy.

Eric: Everybody had their hand in the cookie jar regarding the writing.

Hardrock Haven: The band has an interesting band label-signing story. I read you were standing in front of a liquor store and Universal thought you were cool and signed you!

Martin: It’s probably true and it is a good story so we will stick with it. (Laughter)

Hardrock Haven: How does performing in Las Vegas and California differ from performing in Sweden?

Eric: Not much difference I would say. I thought there would be a lot less people coming to the shows here. It’s not that I wasn’t optimistic or anything. I was told this whole kind of music scene here was dead. I was expecting the worst. When we played the Key Club it was amazing. That shows people still care. That gives me hope at least. The scene isn’t dead.

Hardrock Haven: Tell us about your performance. Are you into a theatrical performance?

Eric: We try to do as much as that as we can. But since we are flying across the globe we can’t really bring all our stuff.

Martin: When we tour Sweden we can do a full show with everything. We have a lot of theatrical stuff with bombs going off.

Hardrock Haven: Has the band ever played the Sweden Rock Festival?

Eric: Two times. We had lots of people showing up there last time we played last summer. We played at 5 in the afternoon so we weren’t really expecting that many people. But it was packed.

Hardrock Haven: What’s next for the band?

Eric: We will have some time off in January and continue writing material.

HRH: As we come to a close what was the highlight of 2011?

Simon: Playing Key Club.

Eric: Key Club and Sweden Rock.

Martin: Sweden Rock.

Hardrock Haven: Thank you for helping bring back Glam metal. Have a good show!

Visit Crahsdiet on the web: www.facebook.com/realcrashdiet