Crisix is a thrash metal band from Barcelona, Spain, who has stepped on stages like SWR XIII Barroselas metal Fest 2010 (Portugal), Wacken Open Air 2009 and 2010 (Germany).
Crisix are (from left to right): Busi (Guitars) ; Javi Carrión (Drums); Julián Baz (Vocals); (Bass) ; Albert Requena (Guitar) ; Julián Baz (Bass)
TBP – Hey guys, first of all we appreciate the fact that you have accepted this interview. Can you to tell us a little of your history?
Crisix – Crisix was founded in 2008 by Javi Carry, the drummer and Mark Firefly, the former bassist. After a few shows in places close to our home town and the good critiques of the people, we decided to sign up for the Wacken Open Air Metal Battle band contest. After overcoming the national rounds, we were chosen to be at the finals in W.O.A. in Germany, and won. A couple of years later we released our first album The Menace with a raw old school thrash metal sound in 2011. After a long tour in Spain, two years later we release our second album Rise…Then Rest, reaching a more modern sound, richer in influences but without losing our thrash metal essence. With this album, we played such important acts, such as becoming the artist of the week in MTV IGGY awards in U.S.A, playing in the most important metal festivals in Spain and going on an European tour for the very first time in 2015 with the band Nervosa. In March 2016 we released our third album From Blue To Black, the most successful one in our opinion and media’s. We toured all around Europe, we have been called to play in very important European festivals such as Summer Breeze or Metal Days with this album and a lot more to come!
TBP – Crisix are currently one of the Spain’s biggest Thrash Metal bands. How did this happen?
Crisix – Working. That’s the only way you can make things happen unless you are god damn rich or something like that. We think that there’s no shortcut to achieve your goals but, with effort, passion and love for what you do. We’d be lying if we said it’s been easy to be where we are currently. We spend a lot of hours, especially in the beginning working hard without any economic or audience retribution, and with no certainty that it would end as we wish, and most of the bands not in Spain but in the whole world are in the same situation. So the only thing that pushes you to carry on is just love and passion for what we do, and in the end the results will probably come!
TBP – In 2009, you recorded the songs “Internal Pollution” and “Mummified By Society” included in your first demo “Demonsthrashion”, and so you took part in Wacken Metal Battle Spain 2009 contest. After winning the national stage, you went on to Germany to compete with another 19 international bands, and won the contract with Wacken Records, what were your expectations before knowing that you had won the contest?
Crisix- Neither in our sweetest dreams we could imagine what really happened. We were actually so stoked and thrilled just to play at the biggest and most important metal fest in the world that we couldn’t even get to think of a win. Now we think about this and it’s so huge. We were a 1 year old band without one single album released playing side by side with other awesome and experienced bands and competing, so we couldn’t not even imagine that would happen what really happened.
TBP – Let’s talk about your new release “From the Blue to Black”. What is the concept of the album and of the artwork?
Crisix- There’s not an specific concept to describe this album since it’s not a conceptual album. Both the title and the artwork are more based in feelings and sensations than in a story. It’s true that there’s one song with the same title, and the song deals with the destruction of the planet earth and the human being as the cause of it, but we wouldn’t say that this issue summarizes the whole album since there are lots of topics in the songs. As far as the artwork we just told Par Olofsson (the artist) to listen to the album and draw whatever it came to his mind. We needed something dark, impressing and breathtaking that could summarize not the lyrics of the album but the sensations and the atmosphere of the songs, and we couldn’t be happier with the result! This man just knew what we wanted from the beginning.
TBP – Your songs are mostly social critiques, were there any specific events that have awakened your attention to create this album?
Crisix -Yes. All the members of the band are very concerned about politics. We can find the example in the song Five As One, written in 5 languages by 5 singers (Soziedad Alkoholika, Angelus Apatrida, Vita Imana, Mutant and Crisix). Last year the Spanish parliament released a law called the ‘Gag Law’ that basically forbids people to express himself, to go to protests and destroys freedom of speech. This was shocking for us, because in Spain we are in a deep economic crisis that has been an excuse to cut our social rights. So if they screw us and we can’t even complain, what can we do? This made us very angry and pushed us to write this song.
TBP – We had the pleasure of having you again in Portugal as a headliner at Evora Metal Fest, how is your tour of “From Blue to Black” going and how was your return to Leyendas del Rock?
Crisix – Evora was great! It’s always a pleasure for us to play in Portugal. The crowd is crazy as hell, exactly how we like it. The From Blue to Black Tour has been amazing so far. We started with the Spanish tour, playing in more than 30 dates in our country, then we went on the European tour, playing in more than 10 countries with Suicidal Angels, Skull Fist and Evil Invaders and we ended up the year playing for the national TV in Spain. Now we’re in the middle of the second part of the tour, going back to Europe and playing in some Spanish festivals too. Our return to Leyendas del Rock was really awesome! It’s been our third time there, and we love playing in this festival. We also played to the other 3 biggest rock and metal festivals in Spain: Resurrection Fest, Rock Fest Barcelona and Viña Rock.
TBP – This year you will share the stage with legendary bands of thrash metal like Megadeth, Sodom, and also with Kreator who headlined the eighth edition of Leyendas del Rock along with Testament. How was the experience of performing with such influential bands in thrash metal history?
Crisix- As you can imagine it’s such an honor for us. If we had the chance to travel back in time and have our teenager ourselves in front of us and tell them we would play with the idols that appear in the posters in the room would not believe us. All these bands you mentioned became a huge influence for Crisix, and we won’t feel anything but gratefulness and honor to share stage with them all.
TBP – In which festivals would you like to take part in and what bands would you like to perform with in the future?
Crisix – Well, there’s a long list!! On the top of it we could write for example Hellfest, Wacken Open Air (again) or Download Fest. It would be killer to have a chance to play in this places. As far as the bands is concerned, we can say that the maximum goal to achieve for us is to play with Metallica once in our lives. It’s maybe the greatest band for all of us and it would be simply magical to play with them. We have goose bumps only by thinking about this!
TBP – Thank you for having the time to answer our questions. Do you want leave a message to the The Black Planet readers and your Portuguese fans?
Crisix- Of course! Thank you, all the readers of The Black Planet, for spending your time reading us. We can’t wait to visit again our neighbors in Portugal to play some gigs! Every time we go there it’s hotter and insane, the audience every band wishes to have. Thank you very much!
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