With a debut album already released and another on the way, we had the chance to chat to Geordy, Will and Josue from The Crown Remnant about their album, recording process and what film their band would be…
Can you please introduce yourself and what you do in the band?
Geordy: My name’s Geordy and I am the lead singer
Will: Hello! My name is Will, I play lead guitar and I do the pretty harmonies with this guy, the secondary vocals, I do the proposition and orchestration, whenever there’s piano and keys and stuff like that, its a good time.
Josue: I’m Josue, I play bass and…
Georgy: He’s the only human in the band. The most responsible.
So you’ve released your debut ‘The Wicked King Part 1’, why did you choose an album over an EP or a singe?
Geordy: There’s a funny story behind that, like it is a full album but we split it up like pretty much in half and the reason behind that was we wanted to have two EP’s worth of songs as it would be more accessible to fans. Normally, you’ll see with each release there’s a couple of songs that people really react and respond to and the other ones get maybe tossed aside, and we said we wanted these songs to be actually be listened to by the audience and we didn’t want to overwhelm them with the first release so we cut it in half because then people are more likely to check out part one and part two
Will: I think also we wanted to legitimize ourselves, there’s a lot of bands. In LA there’s like 5 million bands doing the same thing we are and they are releasing singles and bundles of three songs and that and we just didn’t feel that it would have the impact that we wanted. What Geordy said was right, we made like a double album and its split in half to spread out content out.
Josue: I wasn’t there for like the writing or the composition of it, I did come in a little later. I think these guys were anywhere from 75% done with tracking and I got in and it was like oh we’re gonna send the mixes back and forth to see what works and what doesn’t. So I wasn’t all part of that decision making, except for the mixing.
With the recording, as you said you are in your home studio, I assume you mixed and recorded it yourself?
Geordy: We didn’t actually. So my home studio, I work with other bands, we don’t work with out stuff here. We used all our amps for pre-production but we did not actually record in the home studio.
Will: Yeah, it was important to get the best quality we could. Not only did we want to come out with something a little larger than bands normally do for their debut, but we also wanted to up the quality and not sound like an amateur! We spent a lot of time recording songs to make sure they were the best that they could be and we went to studios and paid quite a lot of money to make this.
Geordy: Some songs went through at least ten alterations.
Will: We wrote a lot, but we definitely went to studios to make sure that it was top notch.
How long did the process take to record?
Geordy: It was probably like 7 sessions to record the 6 songs with vocals for the first half and it probably took you [Will] maybe about the same or less for guitar.
Will: I got through the guitars in like five sessions. We did have some scheduling conflicts because of that it stretched out the production period. If we did it day after day we would have finished it in a few weeks but it ended up being over a few months because of that. My guitars, I got those done in like under 7 days. We did like 12 hour recording sessions every day until 2am, straight up recording guitars
Geordy: Yeah the guy was meant to work till 12 but was like ‘ I really like your stuff you guys can stay for another an hour if you need to’. Live drums were fun, I wrote them all myself and we had access to the drum studio where we could get it all done.
I can imagine afterwards you never wanted to hear some of the tracks again?
Will: One day I brought some of the other guys in as I do most of the tracking myself as I knew it was the most annoying thing in the world to sit down and listen to it. I brought these guys in for an hour and I could tell that after hearing the same chorus over and over again they were like ‘yeah we get it, we get whats going on’. I never brought them back after that.
Geordy We have him [Josue] for his dashing good looks.
Will: We let him sell our merch, shirtless.
Will there be a part 2 to the album and when?
Will: Well there would be no sense in making a part 1!
Geordy: The easiest way to put it is that there’s a part 1 and a part 2 and then the whole thing together and with that there’s gonna be some bonus tracks that we will be recording soon.
Will: We wanted to strategise with the release and make sure that we had consistent content, so we split it up. We don’t want to share a date yet. It’s gonna come out pretty soon.
Geordy: Yeah, end of June is when we talked about.
Will: That’s a little more specific than I wanted! We waned a winter release and then a summer release which is pretty close to each other.
In about a month or so, you have a show at the Viper rooms. Do you have any surprises for this show?
Geordy: We might be pulling out a few new songs.
Will: Unreleased material may or may not make its way to the stage in the Viper room. Maybe from part two… We’re trying to spice it up a bit as we know this is one of our bigger shows. Bigger stage, bigger audience and more prestige, we are putting together a pretty spicy live show. More shirtless! We’re all gonna drop shirts and pants…
Geordy: The day after we’re opening for a band on Rise Records called Fire From The Gods, we just booked that which we’re stoked about.
Will: If we suck at these shows, we’re done, no more The Crown Remnant, cut the interview, dissolve the franchise!
Are you planning to tour outside of LA anytime soon?
Geordy: Yeah, we want to do a west coast tour at some point this year. The goal is to do west coast so hopefuly some California and then go on from there. We want to hit seattle really badly. Yeah we’re all really big on coffee.
Will: Yeah we’re planning a west coast tour and it’s going to be as soon as possible. We all understand that the ticket is getting out of LA, its great cause all of the producers are in LA but if you want the people to hear what you got, you got to get out. I’m from the midwest of my country, I’m from Iowa so I’d like to take it out to the Midwest and then eventually hit the west coast and when were tired of that we will come see you!
Geordy: If it was up to me, I’d want to go the UK as one of our first places. We’d have a better chance but we would have to get our 15 piece drum set over!
Will: The guy wants to put a gong on it. We’re a metal band! Where are you going to have a gong? Did you know I’m trained in Gong? I would gong all day, I would gong in the morning, gong at night and I was gong with the wind!
Geordy: That was terrible… Yeah so the condensed answer would be yeah as soon as we can! We’re so excited, I’m from south of here, San Diego so it is very feasible for us to do that.
What’s on your bucket list for 2018?
Geordy: Release a new album, release bonus tracks, hopefully write some new music, plenty of touring. It would be awesome to get official management as we’ve been managing ourselves. We’ve had a few people come up and offer but we kind of stayed on our own terms because we’re waiting for the right person. Sounds oddly romantic but we are!
Will: We’re waiting for the one. It’s a ‘Love Actually’ situation… We’re still on topic!
Geordy: We’re trying!
Will: We want to diversify our catalogue, we have fans that ask us for instrumentals cause we do a lot of orchestration and really intricate guitar work. To diversify our catalogue, not only do we want to drop a new record, a new deluxe version of the record also an instrumental version, that might be cool. We’re going to try and space that out for the people that want that. The rest of the list is finding management we care about, start to play larger shows in larger areas and move out a little bit.
Josue: Get paid. This is all really fun, done get me wrong we all love it but we wanna do what we love and get paid for it!
Geordy: Yeah so we can start making money in a year or so.
Josue: If I could meet Iron Maiden more than get paid I’d do that.
Will: I would also like to be paid.
Geordy: Being paid to do what you love, what a concept!
After mentioning Love Actually, what film defines you as a band and individuals?
Geordy: I have an acting degree so like I’m really into that stuff so it’s really hard to say…
Will: We’re a goofy band, we like comedy, a little sarcastic.
Geordy: So ‘The Room’? ‘Wayne’s World’ maybe? I think of that ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ intro where its all of them singing along to it in the car and that just makes me think of all of us immediately.
Will: I can see that. ‘Boogie Nights!’
Josue: I have still not seen that movie…
Will: I’d say as a band, we’re ‘Cars’. With the lead protagonist voiced by Owen Wilson, Lightning McQueen goes on a trip through the South West of America to find himself and get away from the racing scene.
Geordy: What about ‘Scooby Doo’ the live action film?
Will: We are NOT the Scooby Doo love action film. Well I get to be Daphne so…
Geordy: Really? I’d take you as more of a Fred.
Will: I get to be Fred. He’s [Josue] Daphne.
Geordy: You’d [Josue] be Scooby Doo hands down!
Now that is you as a band, what about as individuals?
Josue: While I’ll say ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ is my number 1, ‘Return Of The Jedi’ because out on the front I seem like this really serious person like Darth Vader, but once you get to know me, you see I’m actually the good guy.
Geordy: I’d probably go with ‘Wayne’s World’ or ‘Deadpool’. ‘Wayne’s World’ because it deals with a bunch of music, makes a bunch of really dumb jokes, but there’ a lot of serious heart and core content that makes it definitive to me personally. ‘Deadpool’ just because it’s one of the reasons I started listening to Pantera and I love Ryan Reynolds. Outside of that it’s just my exact type of humour through and through combined with the ability to not die and constantly get kicked down and get backup again. You can beat the hell out of him, but he’s not gonna die for some weird reason.
Will: I’m not sure…
Geordy: Please say ‘Lord Of The Rings’. He’s literally an Elf!
Will: I’d say ‘No Country For Old Men’ cause I’m just sad. I’m just a sad guy. No, I mean its a great flick but I’m more like a combination of that, Ashton Kutcher’s ‘Butterfly Effect’, CGI ‘Green Lantern’ movie and a little bit of ‘Lord Of The Rings’. Ashton Kutcher is from my hometown so I feel like I need to mention him. Yeah I don’t know! I’ll say ‘Lord Of The Rings’ cause I like thinking I have a little epic flair in the solos.
Geordy: In ‘Lord Of The Rings’ he’s Legolas.
Will: That’s not true at all! Geordy just likes catagorising people!
Geordy: The relationship between you and Jorge represents the relationship between Legolas and Gimli!
Will: Yes we’re friends with each other. ‘Lord Of The Rings’ is probably my favourite film franchise. I’ve got the Middle Earth map in my room!
What is next for you as a band?
Will: Let’s take the opportunity to maybe bring the time span a little later as we’ve already talked about 2018.
Geordy: Yeah! I’d say next is we want to be touring and we’d eventually like to be signed with a management.
Will: I mean a larger sense. Adult Diapers.
Geordy: We’re a very serious metal band.
Will: For our 79th birthday, what will we be doing?
Geordy: Drinking a lot probably.
Will: That’s right. Touring! We want to play to the soul of the people. We’re ready to play live for the rest of our lives.
Geordy: We are a band that prides our self on the ability to take everything in stride and work with what we have. We did two shows and the second one we shot with a GoPro. We went back and we listened to everything and we’ve been refining ever since and I think that’s a really big thing that’s allowed us to keep getting better so we can have the best show that we can live. Our goal is to keep touring and making music constantly cause I’m always writing new music, every time I run into will he has another 100 riffs, Josue has grooves for days, we’re always writing, ready to play live. I thunk we want to be doing this on the biggest scale.
Will: I think we want to be at that point that people get, where you have favourite bands and they’re on hiatus or laying low for a year or two and I want our fans to have that feeling of anticipation for ‘when are these guys gonna release something new?’ We’re eventually probably not gonna release two albums a year cause that’s ridiculous, but I want to have that anticipation surrounding the bands name.
Josue: What he said!
Each of you have to describe The Crown Remnant using a lyric from one of your songs.
Will: ‘I swear this.’ We have this one song, where part of the chorus background harmonists sing ‘I swear’ multiple times and its like a choir sort of effect but it gets stuck in our heads so often that its probably the first lyric that we all thought of at the same time. I’ll digress to actual answers, this guy has the lyrics in his head.
Geordy: Funny but also true! There’s one from Execution I’m thinking of personally. At the very end of our second song on the release, ‘Execution’, a song I wrote to my sister, there’s a bit that says ‘I am bound to be better’ which is a really good way of putting it. I think individually every member of this band is trying their hardest to be the best that they can be and strive to give everything we can. This was our baby, Josue as well obviously and others to but for this album it was just me who wrote the whole thing.
Will: Yep, original 150 Pokemon and those guys are Generation 2.
Geordy: Yeah I think that’s a very big thing, we’re all trying to get better, that’s why we filmed the show to get our live show better. Its why we go through ten alterations of our songs. That’s why we all talk to the band all the time to make sure everybody is doing what they can.
Will: Right, I’ve got a lyric and it’s a cut off of number 2. It’s off a song we’re going to be playing live…maybe. It goes ‘Memories try to find the moments we’re alive. We can break the chains to find a place to last a while’. The song is about leaving behind a legacy, something for people to care about. In a different sense it ties to the thematic properties of the album but as it applies to the bands, we’re trying to do something that’s bigger than ourselves. We’re trying to put together something that lasts and it’s not something that we take lightly, we’re not here to make your pop core music. There’s nothing wrong with pop core music but I want to make something real that means something to us in a really valuable way. I think that that’s what is really going to impact our own fans the most. People actually care about real music and I think that a lot of what people hear today is cookie cutter, watered down bullshit. So I want to make something real,something that lasts when we’re not making music anymore or we’re in adult diapers!
Geordy: Or when I’m dead, 5 years give or take!
Josue: I’m gonna take this one out of context cause that’s how I see it, its ‘A den of ash’. In a sense we’ve all had ups and downs and from the ashes something great comes up and that’s how I see it. We’re like the Phoenix.
Will: Like out of Harry Potter!
Josue: I was thinking more of the X-Men but yeah sure…
Geordy: Yeah that is a reference to rising from the ashes after the aftermath of a man who’s currently in charge that we’re not very fond of!
Make sure to checkout the band at their social media’s linked below!
EUPHORIA OF BREAKDOWN 