What it all boils down to eventually is music. The pure joy in art, in expression and focus. crashcaptains from Berlin have come a long way to find it.

“I woke up one day and realized that everything I had written up to this point was worthless,” says lead singer and songwriter Nicolas and continues: “Well, not completely worthless, since it had at least gotten me to this point of sober awakening, but pretty worthless nonetheless.”

After frolicking around the lively Berlin music scene for several years under a different name, the band realized in late 2008 that they needed a change of scenery. Their drummer had recently embarked on a mission to the foreign and left them beaten and without a place to stay, which gave the rest, bass player Olivia and brothers in guitars Nicolas and Tobias, the chance to rethink their situation.

“We needed some time alone, one could say, to reposition ourselves and to get rid of some obsolete ideas,” adds Tobias, “it had become time for us to grow out of the sagging college rock pants.”

Only a few months prior they had organized and played a tour through Germany, shortly before releasing their debut EP on Motor Digital, garnering nationwide responses and airplay. “It felt bad to leave all our accomplishments behind and start off new, but at that point we were facing a dead end and we weren’t going to quit just then.”

So they did what every passionate twenty-something indie outlet would have done: lock themselves up and try to write their way out, all the while looking out for a new drummer.

Instead of simply making another record, the band decided to turn the knock down into a clean cut with their old approach to creating music. “We are done with babbling. We want our songs to be relevant, to make sense and to be decipherable for others,” Nicolas concludes.
“So we chose to lyrically and musically start over from scratch. And it turned out to be a good choice.”

When Felix, an aspiring physician, filled the vacant drummer spot in early 2010, an entire set of songs had been written and new demos were ready to be released. The re-completed band took up the challenge and played a sold-out first show at Berlin’s Bang Bang Club.

“The new songs are a lot less about posing and a lot more about musing,” says audio engineer Friedemann, who has seen the band evolve from the beginning. Nicolas affirms: “They feel a lot closer to home.”
Stylewise still situated in the North American musical landscape, the band has graduated and moved on to a full-time indie job. There are pianos where there used to be distortion, strings and horns, where there used to be shouting; for the first time the songs pass the six minute mark. But more importantly: every line is meant as it is sung.

“Art is a form of communication”, the singer emphasizes this lyrical focus. “But a big amount of contemporary pop music, it appears, is about repeating the same phrases over and over again. Yet there is so much to be said.”

With their debut album due in 2011, crashcaptains are once again on the move to gain attention, playing support shows in their hometown Berlin and planning the next tour. The second time around it will be about music. The joy in music.