
There’s a handful of bands around these days that have caught the attention of rock and metal fans the world over (myself included) due to their abilities to not only rock as hard as the groups that came before and influenced them, but also create their own unique styles and sounds. Sweden’s Crazy Lixx are undoubtedly one of those acts, so when the chance to talk to band founder and Vocalist Danny Rexon presented itself, I leapt at it.
With a new album having just recently dropped, naturally one of the first things I had to ask Danny was how he felt the band’s latest effort, appropriately titled Thrill of the Bite, has been received so far. He told me; “It feels really good! We’ve had a lot of really great feedback, and looking at the numbers in both terms of video plays and streams and everything leading up to the release, everything has been very good. So it looks like early indications are that it’s going to be our most successful release that we’ve done in terms of the financial side of it at least.”
And as far as how he fells Thrill… stacks up alongside past releases? “You know, bands always tend to say that their latest release is the best one, so I’m going to leave it up to the fans to decide. I personally think that there’s a lot about this album that is an improvement on earlier works, but of course it’s also a matter of subjective; it’s a subjective thing what kind of songs you like and the production and everything, but for me personally I think it ranks quite high and by the numbers you can also see that the audience tends to agree.”
In terms of how the recording process went down, he filled me in; “We always record separately. We have done that for many years now, so we don’t meet up to do each other’s parts, but rather we record our own things in our own home studios and then as a producer I put it all together and make it into a coherent thing.”
I was also curious how the band found its newest member, drummer Robin Nilsson, to which he filled me in; “So Robin was a person that has figured in our scene as to say for many years, both as a drummer for his other band Cruel Intentions, but also as a session drummer for a lot of bands. So we knew of him and we were acquainted with him, we met him on tours and stuff like that, on festivals, so we knew what kind of guy he was and we knew that he was musically up for the challenge. He was actually the first one that we contacted and tried out, so there were never any real tryouts with other people.”
As a huge fan of the band’s inventive music videos (including their latest ones, “Little Miss Dangerous” and “Hunt For Danger”), I also wanted to know more about their creative processes. He enlightened me; “So, we the band, do a lot of the work when it comes to the music videos. Basically we hire a guy to do the actual filming since we’re in front of the camera, so we have a guy showing up with the gear and doing the actual filming. But other than that, all the concepts, the scripts, most of the sets, a lot of the lighting, the contacts with the different actors or actresses and clothing, everything falls on the band. So it’s very much a DIY thing when it comes to music videos, so there’s a lot of work that we put down to make them look the way they do and then afterwards I do the editing and cut the video into what you finally see. So yeah, we’re very involved in it and do most of it ourselves. They were both filmed in or around my hometown of Malmö, Sweden, and that’s usually the case. We don’t have the budgets to be able to travel far.”
He continued; “I’ve always wanted to do a video with a desert setting that you see a lot of it, especially with the American bands from the ’80s. But the geography around here just doesn’t look like that, so that would have become quite an expensive trip for us to do. But who knows, maybe in the future. But as for now, we usually tend to stay quite close around these parts, southern Sweden.”
I’ve often heard the term “sleaze rock” to describe the sound of Crazy Lixx, but in comparison to many of their contemporaies (who often take things to over the top, crass levels), I never felt this was a fair analogy. I inquired Danny’s thoughts on the matter, and he informed me; “I think for every genre, there are things that just become very stereotypical, and I think for our genre, the stereotype is probably a lot of focus on decadence and partying, and blatant references to sex or something like that. So I tend to stay away from those. The song can still be about those things, but I think it’s better to kind of hide them in metaphors or make it interesting in some way, rather than just being very outspoken about it, because I think that falls flat. And you can see that in a lot of the bands, I would say a lot of the poorer bands around that time, that ultimately the only thing they ever sing about is drinking and doing drugs and girls. The sex, drug and rock and roll myth. So yeah, I try to stay away from those.”
He continued further; “Also, I’d say I try to not be overly political or ideological for that matter, because I think that’s usually just divisive for the audience to be. And maybe if you’re a punk band, that would serve you right, but not for me.”
With Friday the 13th: The Game, recently making news again after its online service shut down at the end of last year, I was also interested in some insight on how the band originally got involved with contributing music to it, and how big of a fan of the series Rexon personally was prior to it. He told me; “When it comes to the movie series, I was actually more into the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. And of course, the character of Jason is so iconic, so I was very much familiar with them. But in terms of the movies, I wasn’t the biggest fan. But of course, it was very cool to get the opportunity to do that, since it was at the time a official licensed Friday the 13th product.”
He reflected further; “So we are now a part of the whole legacy and a part of the (Friday the 13th) franchise. Even if legal matters have been complicated after that, from what I understand. But yeah, we got involved basically because the team behind The Game, the producers of The Game, they had a programmer on their team that was a fan of our music. And when they started working on The Game, they decided quite early on to make it an ’80s setting. And the initial plan was to license music from that era, like, you know, real music from that era. They were in touch with Alice Cooper about “The Man Behind the Mask” and stuff like that. But they figured very quickly that it was just too expensive. So instead, they started reaching out to contemporary artists, but that had a very retro sounding style. So they had a bunch of synth wave there, I know, some like ’80s flavored pop, and of course, also us doing the rock side of it.”
He concluded; “So it was pure luck, I guess. Someone on the team knew about us and they suggested reaching out to us about it. And I ended up writing three songs with The Game in mind. And it was a bit tough, because I was also told that I couldn’t make any really blatant references to Jason or Friday the 13th, because the license didn’t cover that. So I couldn’t name him, I couldn’t say, you know, Crystal Lake or whatever. I couldn’t do his iconic sound that he does. So I had to kind of beat about the bush and still make it about him. So that’s something I think you can hear in the lyrics as well. It’s pretty obvious what it’s about, but I don’t say it out loud.”
I also inquired with Danny if there were any bands on his bucket list he’d still like to share the stage with, and he filled me in; “Well, one of my dream come true bands that was on my bucket list was Kiss, but I think that maybe that opportunity has now passed. But that’s one of my favorite bands that I would really like to have had the chance to play with. Another one would be Iron Maiden, even if I’m not sure that their audience is like, you know, totally geared towards our music. But as a big fan of the band, that would be awesome as well. We haven’t actually toured a lot with bands, so apart from festival stages, I can’t really say that we’ve had the opportunity to play with any like, you know, dream come true bands yet. But I may be setting the bar quite high, because a lot of my favorite bands are quite big bands. For some reason, I’ve always been very into the ones that were very successful, you know, your Bon Jovi or Def Leppard or you know, Alice Cooper or whatever.”
As far as any upcoming gigs go? “We have a lot of stuff in the pipeline. A lot of stuff is already confirmed, but we can’t reveal it yet, because we’re waiting for the festivals to do that. But we’re looking at coming to the US finally. Well, we’ve been there before, but it was quite a long time ago, and we’ve only played, you know, the Monsters of Rock Cruise, which is not really mainland USA. But now we’re going to do a trip that will incorporate a few gigs on land this time. So that’s looking promising. And as I said, you know, we’ll be announcing a lot of stuff in the coming weeks, I assume. So it’s going to be a good summer.”
And lastly, I asked Danny what the future holds for him and Crazy Lixx. He stated; “I think, you know, I’m happy if we just keep growing and keep getting opportunities to come out and play to more people, visit more countries. And, you know, when you start out as a young person with a band, you have plans of world domination. And at some point, you kind of, you know, take a step back and realize what you can realistically achieve. And for me, it’s always been the goal of having this band or music in general as my, you know, my livelihood. And that has become the case in recent years. So I’m very happy with the situation as it is.”
He ended by saying; “And even if the band would just stay at this level, I’d be happy and content. But of course, I want it to become bigger and achieve more success. So we’ll see what happens. I have a good feeling about this album, and maybe we can build something from it. But you never know.”









