Toronto based Crash Karma may be a newish band on the scene, but if you haven’t heard the band’s new singles “Awake,” and “Fight” on the radio, you have definitely heard of the individual members’ bands on the radio.
That’s because Crash Karma consists of I Mother Earth lead singer Edwin, Our Lady Peace guitarist Mike Turner and Tea Party drummer Jeff Burrows plus bassist Amir Epstein who brought them all together in a curious six degrees of Amir story. But they aren’t just a supergroup.
They are in the middle of a Canadian tour which will bring them to Lethbridge, Nov. 22 to Essies with Desperate Union.
“So far, really good, being a Canadian touring artist one of the big concerns is the weather and so far it’s been fantastic, so the are always good and the roads have been fine and that’s about as good as it gets,” said guitarist Mike Turner last week, before the snow hit, adding they just returned from spending Thanksgiving week in Afghanistan.
The band all met a couple years ago through Amir Epstein, who recorded an Ep and an album for his band Zygote at Turner’s Toronto studio “Pocket Studio.”
“Obviously I’d known Jeff and Ed over the years from touring together and you can’t have been in Canadian music in the ’90s and not met one of our bands because well we were everywhere, all the time. So that was an easy connection,” he said adding Epstein’s infectious energy captured the interest of the band members and even won over Edwin, who was reluctant to join the band at first.
But Crash Karma isn‘t just a supergroup, they made it to radio play on the merits of their first independently recorded and released single “Awake.”
“Fast forward a few months and we’re half way through a record and people started getting excited when they hear the finished tracks. We didn’t really have any expectations of it beyond ‘we're going to make some songs and see how it feels. If it’s fun if it feels like something good, we’ll pursue it further and at each turn it forced us to take it more seriously, not that we weren’t taking it seriously like our career path, our current career trajectory will be blah, blah. Oh let’s make some songs and see if they’re good,” he said.
“Oh Ralph James wants to be our agent, oh he’s with the biggest agency in the country. Oh, I guess we’d better get the live band together and figure out how to play these songs live. Then Jake Gold came to the table in a managerial position when we played at the Horseshoe last summer and things just sort of started falling into place. We keep picking them up when they land in our lap,” Turner continued.
“We’re on our third single and this one is top 40 and climbing, the other two went top 20 and the first one went top 5. So we’re consistently getting the support of radio which is really gratifying.
“And I will say, our own little ego behooves me to let you know we launched the first single on our own. We did it completely independently. We hired the radio promoter, which is what everyone does, a guy named Dale Peters. He didn’t tell people who we are when he pitched the song,” Turner said.
“He said I’ve got this new song from this new band and it’s really cool I think you’re going to like it etcetera, etcetera and when half dozen stations wanted to add it, he said well, I’ve got to tell you who this band is, and it obviously certainly encouraged futher excitement about it. So we’re happy it at least began purely on its own merits, so we’re proud of that,” Turner said, adding the live show not only includes most of the Crash Karma record, but “heritage songs,” from Our Lady Peace, I Mother Earth and the Tea Party.
“I think we’re all individually very proud of where we’ve come from and what we've achieved to this point of our careers and we’re also huge fans of what everyone else in the band has done in their careers. So I’m having a great time learning Tea Party songs and I Mother Earth songs, because those are two of the best guitarists Canada has produced in the ’90s, so it has been a real challenge and inspiration working on that stuff. So I just find it a win-win scenario,” he continued.
“ You don’t real want to necessarily come out and beat them over the head with an hour of music they are only slightly familiar with— the classic first record syndrome. You have to find a way to play as much of your new material as you can but let the audience feel connected to the show. So that helps on this run as they recognize the songs,” Turner said adding he still gets excited to hear his music on the radio.
“Yeah, absolutely, to be honest, I think any second now I think somebody’s going to tap me on the shoulder and say ‘Hey, what are you doing in music? You’ve been fooling people since the early ’90s. What are you doing?
“But it’s gratifying to get the support and it certainly makes it a lot more fun paying for people when they know the material. It’s what we do and happy to keep doing it,” he said.
The crowd is already invested in those songs so it gets them more invested in the show. It’s all about that connection really … And it's not entirely unrelated to the fact that we are all very comfortable in our own skin. The first single Awake was a perfect example because you could hear the individual musical backgrounds in that song. We’re not so super skilled as to be able to do that deliberately. I play the way I play and sound the way I sound. And ditto for with the other guys. They’re totally comfortable doing what they’re doing . The reason it sounds like those three things is because it it. So that’s good,” he said adding they are going to start working on the next Crash Karma album as soon as this tour ends in December.
“Why not, I mean I’ve got a studio, we all know what we’re doing. And we still enjoy doing it. It doesn‘t feel like work right now,” he said adding he doen’t know i there will be another single from the CD, leaving that decision up to the record company. Turner remembered a time, many years ago when visiting Lethbridge with Our Lady Peace.
“I remember one tour with OLP that we actually ended up not playing. because we were in our van, This was a long time ago , and Rainn's back went out. He sleeping on a bench in the back and he slipped a disc as he laid there sleeping. They had to extricate him though a window like he couldn’t move. We installed the seat and there wasn’t an aisle to walk down. He couldn’t move. So that’s my strongest memory of Lethbridge. We pulled up to the ambulance and asked how do we get him out? It was pretty funny. Well, not for Rainn I’m sure, but I got some humour out of it,” he said adding Our Lady Peace is still playing, though not with him since 2001. He said they are probably working on a new CD of their own.
“ If you do this. It’s not just what you do, it's who you are and whether or not. You know, people ask me what would you do if you weren’t a musician and that's like saying what would you do if you weren't a boy. I'm always going to be a musician. I might do other things for money, but I'm always going to be a musician. We make records. That’s what we do and then we go and play them and that’s more fun,” he said.
The show is Nov. 22 at Essies. Doors open at 7 p.m.
Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door.
Desperate Union is opening the show.
