Interview: CrashPalace Rocker Relates a Life Lived on the Road
By: Matt Gleason - U-WIRE
December 14th 2001 6:02pm
(U-WIRE) STILLWATER, Okla. -- He's got a music video, an international concert tour and, unfortunately, a friend's comfy couch to sleep on when he's not on the road touring with his band CrashPalace. For Melbourne-born Marcus Maloney, that's life and he wouldn't have it any other way. On the band's self-titled debut CD, Maloney and his cohorts weave alternative attitude with catchy hooks and straight-forward lyrics to create an exceptional record. "It's a record with honest song writing," the 24-year-old Maloney said in a recent telephone interview from his friend's flat where he admitted he was almost broke. "We weren't trying to be fashionable or thinking too much about what we did." In a whirlwind recording session, the band recorded the songs, which they had spent years perfecting, in just three days. Maloney said in that time, he tried to write songs without doing it by the numbers. "I suppose that not being self-conscious about writing makes a great song," he said. "Writing in the most honest possible way is what makes a lasting song. Like the songs that I love." He said the band's final product has a quality that is true to its live performances. Their recent U.S. tour offered the band a chance to reach audiences other than their large Australian fan-base. It would have been a thoroughly outstanding experience, except for one problem. "We started out with a proper tour bus, which we got really cheap through a guitar tech friend of ours," Maloney said. "It was from the '70s and because we got it so cheap we could afford to buy some black paint and put Crash Palace on it. It looked f*cking cool. So we drove it about 50 miles outside of L.A. and it broke down. So we basically went around the country for about two months with all of us piled into a little van with a trailer on the back. He said the band suffered extreme bus-envy at a Syracuse music festival featuring the likes of Papa Roach and Staind. "We drove into the back area and parked our little van next to all these gigantic f*cking tour buses," he said and then laughed. "It was kind of scary." During the extensive tour, Maloney said he came to love American audiences. "I find the audiences in America are more free with showing that they like something," he said. "Michael Hutchence of INXS had a famous quote that Melbourne audiences were the hardest to play to in the world because, even though they are enjoying it, they just stand back and listen. I like playing to American audiences a little bit better because they just go crazy." As the band made its way across the country, Maloney said a sense of humor was just as important as tuned guitars and packed venues. "A sense of humor is hugely important," he said. "If you're going to be with the same five people in a van, plus road crew, you've really kind of got to make the most of the absurdity. If you don't you're just going to kill each other." The band has been together for about six years and in that time its members made strong bonds with each other. "Brothers is a good way of describing it," he said about his bandmates. "We're more than best friends. It's like family. You understand your family on a different level than you do your friends. And like any family does, we fight and we have our differences. But at the end of the day, we know that even if we do fight it's not the end of the world." For the time being, he and his brothers in music are taking a break to promote their record in their native Australia. But Maloney said the band will return to the U.S. and Oklahoma in a few months. "America is such a big country and it's going to take a lot to get where we want to be," Maloney said about his musical aspiration to win over American audiences. "We're really keen to get back there as soon as possible. We'll work as hard and as long as possible as it takes."
 (C) 1999 Daily O'Collegian via U-WIRE
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