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The fastest growing town in Britain,
Wrexham is the buffer between the easterly metropolises of Liverpool
and Manchester, and the mountainous wilds of Northern Wales: a undiscovered
outpost, home to a new generation of young, ambitious songwriters doing things their
way. Premier among these are Crosbi. An incendiary rock quartet fronted by
the magnetic Andy Jones - a spiritual seer/holy fool figure who threatens
to become another McCulloch, another Mavers, another Ashcroft
in the annals of British rock - Crosbi possess that attitude that some
may misinterpret as arrogance, but true believers will recognise as belief in something
bigger: in the power of music to affect, to comfort, to unite. Fashionable? Maybe
not. "We see ourselves as like a cowboy from out of town walking into a bar
" admits Andy. " But the thing is, we're going to take over. So
it doesn't really matter".
Crosbi are family, literally, formed around the nucleus
of two sets of brothers: magnetic, tousle-haired frontman Andy Jones and his
brother Steve on lead guitar; James Edwards pummels the drums and they
are joined on bass guitar by Steven Gid Goundrey (one time compatriot in 'Shlock
Homes'!). Don't steel yourself for the inter-band fisticuffs that inevitably
crop up between shared blood, though. For Crosbi, the music is everything,
and nothing - not laziness, not personal weakness, not Friday night or Saturday morning
- will get in its way. "We decided we had to get a bit James Brown," explains
Andy. "We didn't rehearse four times a week, it wasn't good enough. The
music industry is cutthroat, and we're competing with other bands for the chance
to put out a record. We've made this band our life."
It's a work ethic that's powered this
band since day one. "We've played to five limp-wristed A&R men in London
with Nathan Barley haircuts, and we've played packed-out clubs in Brixton,"
explains Andy. "It's something we're cool with really. Bands like The
Who, The Band - they learnt lessons out on the road, and that's always
the way we've gone about it. And it's won them fellow believers. Steve Lamacq
called them one of his new bands of last year. Shaun Ryder asked the band
to play in support to the Happy Mondays at 2004's Get Loaded In The Park.
Ex-Inspiral Carpets man Clint Boon even asked Crosbi to play
his wedding, where they played to the admiring glances of members of Primal Scream,
New Order, and The Smiths.
twelve energised tracks of no-bullshit rock from
claustrophobic, gotta-get-outta-this-town opener 'Coastline' to the closing
'On The Run', a 'two fingers up to all the baddies' that saw Andy
end up in an emergency room having a brain scan after some local kids mistook him
for the local drug-dealer. The title came from the sessions at Rockfield, where the
band would unwind with a few rounds of Texas Hold 'Em. "We were just talking
poker phrases" explains Andy. "The Man With Queens Is King"
things like that. Someone was saying how bold, how fierce saying 'All In'
is, and Simon pointed out just how well it would work as an album title. It fits
so perfectly with the level of commitment we've all put into the making of this record
".