CRAZY LIXX TRIVIA
Trivia
The name Crazy Lixx is said to have come off a Japanese toy. The biography on the band's former official site traces it to a Japanese plastic toy guitar that Danny Rexon had as a child — and states it as something said to be so rather than as established fact. A Swedish band, in other words, may be named after a cheap children's guitar made in Japan.
Crazy Lixx did not play Japan until 2019, seventeen years after they formed. King Records, who issue their albums here, announced the visit as a long-awaited first: 25 September at Club Quattro in Shibuya and 26 September at Club Quattro in Umeda, doors at six and stage at seven, standing tickets at 7,500 yen including tax with the drink charge on top. Both dates are still listed on the label's own artist page for the band.
Crazy Lixx formed in 2002 in Malmö, in the south of Sweden. The biography on their former site places them among the first bands to surface in what became known as the New Wave Of Swedish Sleaze, in the company of Crashdïet, Hardcore Superstar, Babylon Bombs and Vains Of Jenna — while adding that, like their contemporaries, they went on to form a style of their own and are now taken for an eighties-influenced hard rock band instead.
Danny Rexon became the singer by accident. According to the biography on the band's former site he started out as their rhythm guitarist, and the band spent its early months looking for both a vocalist and a bass player. Still without a singer, they went in to cut a first demo in the summer of 2003 partly in the hope of attracting one, and decided Danny would handle the lead vocals on the recording. The vocals came out well enough that the band concluded he should keep the job and that they should go looking for a new rhythm guitarist instead. He has fronted every album since.
Sometimes the band you open for takes your guitarist. The biography on Crazy Lixx's former site tells it plainly: on the last night of their January 2008 UK tour supporting Hardcore Superstar, that band's guitarist Silver announced he wanted out and suggested Crazy Lixx's Vic Zino as his replacement for the rest of the run. Zino accepted, flew to Australia days later and was a permanent member of Hardcore Superstar within weeks. At a few further shared Swedish shows he played two shifts a night, on stage as the guitarist of both bands. His last gig with Crazy Lixx was at Hultsfred on 26 April 2008.
Three of the ten songs on Ruff Justice also turn up in a horror game. The band's own announcement names them — XIII, Killer and Live Before I Die — and the game: Friday The 13th: The Game, a survival horror title developed by Gun Media and IllFonic and published by Gun Media, described there as due in early 2017 for Windows, Xbox and PlayStation 4. The same announcement says the album draws on 1980s horror and action films, and XIII is of course thirteen in Roman numerals.
In the summer of 2015 Crazy Lixx lost both guitarists at once. The band's own announcement says Edd Liam quit for personal reasons and that the same summer ended Andy Zäta's seven years as lead guitarist, as he took one of the guitar positions in the newly formed British rock band Inglorious. Zäta had joined after Vic Zino left in 2008 and had become, alongside Danny Rexon, one of the band's main songwriters and co-producer of their last two studio albums. Rexon said in the same announcement that he would be lying if he claimed the band's continued existence was not at stake. In February 2016 the band came back, revealing two new guitarists in a music video.
For their third album, Riot Avenue, Crazy Lixx did without a producer. Blabbermouth reported in 2012 that the band recorded and produced it themselves and mixed it themselves together with Robert Ahrling — the man who had recorded their first demo back in 2003. Guitarist Edd Liam explained that they had started the work with Chris Laney but parted ways when it became clear their visions for the record's sound differed. On the guitar sounds in particular, he said, they had a great deal of help from Vic Zino, their former guitarist, by then in Hardcore Superstar.
The Japanese edition of the debut album Loud Minority is the longer one. The biography on the band's former site records that thirteen songs were recorded in 2007 but that the last two — Bad in a Good Way and No Guts, No Glory — were left off the first release. They appeared in 2008 on the Japanese edition, as bonus tracks. Both are Rexon and Zino co-writes, and Bad in a Good Way was one of the three songs on the band's very first demo, from 2003.
The same thing happened on the second album, New Religion. The band's biography says the thirteenth track, Lights Out!, was left off the first European and US releases and can be found only on the Japanese edition, as a bonus track. That album holds another oddity: the instrumental Desert Bloom was written not by anyone in the band but by Conny Blom of Electric Boys. Frontiers had announced the release dates in January 2010 — Europe on 19 March, the United States on 6 April.
The Japanese edition usually came out first. King Records issued Ruff Justice here on 12 April 2017 (KICP-1840), nine days ahead of the 21 April world release the band had announced themselves. Forever Wild followed the same pattern in 2019: the label's page for the Japanese edition (KICP-1983, 8 May) states in as many words that it is an advance Japanese release. Both carried one bonus track and both were priced at 2,600 yen before tax.
The Japanese bonus tracks are not leftovers; each one is a different kind of thing. King Records' product pages give Walk The Wire ’87 (Remix) for Ruff Justice and an acoustic version of Love Don’t Live Here Anymore for Forever Wild. The Japanese edition of the live album Sound Of The Live Minority runs to fifteen tracks, with She’s Mine at number ten added for this market alone. Street Lethal, issued here in 2021 by Marquee / Avalon instead, came with a piano version of Anthem For America.
Sometimes the Japanese edition gets artwork of its own. Marquee / Avalon describe the Japanese release of Street Lethal — 5 November 2021, MICP-11655, 2,970 yen including tax — as carrying an original Japanese jacket, with one bonus track added. The same page lists the line-up at that point: Danny Rexon on vocals, Jens Lundgren and Chrisse Olsson on guitars, Jens Anderson on bass and Joél Cirera on drums.
A decade on, the Japanese bonus tracks became a selling point for a reissue. The band opened a Patreon page in June 2017 with a first goal attached to it: re-releasing their long out-of-print debut, Loud Minority. The announcement said that once they reached a thousand contributors they would start the process, and listed what the reissue would carry — Japanese bonus tracks, demo recordings and newly recorded versions of some of the album tracks. The target was November 2017, ten years after the original release.
The core of Crazy Lixx was carried over from a heavy metal band. The biography on their former site says Danny Rexon, Vic Zino and Joél Cirera had all played together in a heavy metal band called Blindead, and that when Danny decided to start something more rock-oriented, those two were the people he asked. The bass seat was filled a few weeks later by Max Flamer, a childhood friend of Zino's who had been in a metal covers band with Zino and Cirera.
The first demo was made in order to find a singer. Recorded in the summer of 2003 by Robert Ahrling at Flat Pig Studio in Malmö, it held three songs — Death Row, Love on the Run and Bad in a Good Way, all written by Rexon and Zino — which the band's own biography calls classic Crazy Lixx tracks. A few hundred copies were pressed and began circulating in the Swedish sleaze rock underground. All three later found a place on the debut album, Loud Minority.
The second demo aimed too high. The band's own biography describes the 2004 sessions — recorded at a studio where their guitarist of the time worked — as an over-ambitious project in which six tracks were attempted and the recording ended up spread over a long stretch, and says frankly that it did not come out as well as they had hoped, though some of the songs survived. The six were Rock n' Roller Coaster, Over You, Do or Die, Daddy's Little Girl, Love is a Drug and Get on Your Knees, again all written by Rexon and Zino.
The self-released single found no takers. According to the band's biography they re-recorded Do or Die — the strongest song on the second demo — at the same Flat Pig Studio where the first demo was made, and pressed a thousand copies of a single named after it. Those went out to record companies all over Sweden, and not one showed any interest. The trio concluded that the only way to get themselves known was to get out on the road. The single has been out of print ever since.
Early in 2006 Crazy Lixx entered a local music competition in Helsingborg and won it. The prizes, as the band's biography lists them, included slots at summer festivals and a recording session at the Palace Of Noise studio outside Helsingborg. They used the session to record a song called No More Foolin' — which, as of the biography's writing in 2010, had never been released in any form.
For a while, one club in Stockholm was where the Swedish sleaze bands got started. The biography on Crazy Lixx's former site names Club Riot Act in Stockholm as a central launching point for many of the movement's most successful bands — Crashdïet, Vains Of Jenna, Babylon Bombs, Sister Sin and Crazy Lixx themselves. In the summer of 2006 they opened for Hardcore Superstar at the Helsingborg festival, and grew more popular with each show.
The first record deal came out of a single support slot. As the band's biography tells it, a representative from Swedmetal Records got hold of some of the earlier demos and contacted Danny Rexon, who sent over everything they had recorded; the label then put Crazy Lixx on as support to former Guns N' Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke at his concert in Växjö. Impressed by what they saw live, Swedmetal offered to release the band's unfinished third demo and offered a contract for a debut album. The band said yes.
The debut single came out of the recording that was meant to be a third demo. Two of its songs — Heroes are Forever and On Your Marks, get Set, Rock! — were sent to producer Chris Laney, who mixed them for the release, and the single itself came out at the end of January 2007, launched at an official release party at Club Crazy Night in Stockholm. Work on the debut album began from there.
The debut album had a start date. The band's biography gives it as 1 July 2007, the place as Polar Studios in Stockholm and the producer as Chris Laney. The band, based in Malmö, moved to Stockholm for the duration and spent close to a month in the studio putting down thirteen songs. They had gone on writing right up to it, playing a three-day mini tour of the UK and an appearance at Sweden Rock Festival 2007 along the way. The record was mixed by the autumn and released that November.
The debut, Loud Minority, reached second place on the national Swedish hard rock chart, according to the band's own biography. It came out in November 2007 and, as with the single, the official release party was held at the same Stockholm club. A handful of shows closed out the year, and by the middle of January 2008 the band was in the UK supporting Hardcore Superstar.
Replacing Vic Zino took weeks. The band's biography says the man they announced was Andy Dawson, formerly of Sharp, who joined in the spring of 2008; they went straight out on the summer festival circuit, including two trips to Switzerland. That autumn came the first physical single from the album, Make Ends Meet, backed with a radio edit of Want It. Dawson, who had been living in Stockholm, moved down to Malmö.
The band changed labels before starting the second album. Their biography says they left Swedmetal Records in January 2009 and that Danny Rexon and his new co-writing partner Andy spent the first eight months of the year writing and demoing some twenty songs. Twelve were picked and recorded at Polar Studios with Chris Laney that October. By then the band had already signed with the Italian label Frontiers for the release, and the record was finished and mastered in November. It was called New Religion.
The drummer Joél Cirera left the band and came straight back. A Crazy Lixx announcement from June 2012 describes his departure — right after the recording of the previous album — as having turned out to be a short break, with him refilling the drum seat. The genuinely new arrival in the same post was a 21-year-old bass player, Jens Sjöholm. Danny Rexon said the shape of it suggested this might be the best-sounding live Crazy Lixx yet.
The live side of the operation changed hands in 2012 too. A Crazy Lixx announcement says the band signed with the Swedish booking agency Rambo Live, with Chris LeMon there handling all show bookings from then on. The same post lists some of the agency's other acts: H.E.A.T, Casablanca, Roxie77 and Sister Sin.
In October 2012 Crazy Lixx played three shows in support of W.A.S.P. and Gotthard. The band's own announcement confirms all three took place in Sweden. Opening for acts who had been going since the eighties was not unusual for them at this point.
One song was released on the understanding that it would never be on an album. A Crazy Lixx announcement from March 2014 introduces Sympathy as a digital-only single on Spotify, iTunes and the rest, and says in the same breath that it is a stand-alone track that will not appear on the album coming later that year. The album that did come that year was the self-titled Crazy Lixx.
The band once recorded a Eurovision winner. A Crazy Lixx announcement from May 2015 says they had recorded, and shot a video for, their version of Heroes — the song Måns Zelmerlöw had just won that year's Eurovision Song Contest with for Sweden. The post went up only days after the win.
Their first live album was taped at a German festival. A Crazy Lixx announcement from May 2016 says Sound Of The Live Minority was recorded the previous year at Bang Your Head Festival and would be released on 8 July. Danny Rexon called a live album a milestone for any rock band, and explained the timing: it marks an end to the old Crazy Lixx and a statement of a new beginning for the current line-up. By that show Jens Lundgren had already taken over guitar from Edd Liam, so, as he put it, the one gig stood for both the old band and the new.
Ruff Justice arrived on the band's fifteenth anniversary, and it was the first album made after both guitar seats changed hands. The band's own announcement calls it the first Crazy Lixx record with Chrisse Olsson and Jens Lundgren on guitars. Danny Rexon — lead singer and producer both — said they had gone for the same all-killers-no-fillers approach as on earlier albums and had come closer to that idea this time than ever before, and added that if he had to compare it to anything of theirs it would be New Religion.
In 2018 Crazy Lixx put their first three albums back out together. The band's announcement names them — Loud Minority (2007), New Religion (2010) and Riot Avenue (2012) — and gives 12 October as the date, on CD and vinyl alike. The debut reissue they had set as a Patreon goal the year before arrived, a year later, as three records at once.
The third album, Riot Avenue, was the band's second for Frontiers. Blabbermouth reported an April 24 North American release and eleven tracks, and described the line-up in a particular way: Danny Rexon on vocals with Andy Dawson and Edd Liam on guitars as the band proper, with Joél Cirera on drums and Loke Rivano on bass also featured on the record. The band's own site had posted Riot Avenue Released on 20 April, so the date moved by a few days from territory to territory.