Literally living his dream, drummer Ronnie Huxford is the backbone of ride or die (ride or fly?) band, hard rockin’ Those Damn Crows, whose fourth album ‘God Shaped Hole’ lands on April 11th. Devolution’s Jo Wright spent a sunny afternoon having the best chat with Ronnie about Minion tattoos, Saturday night TV staples from back in the day, cursing out birds and squeezing onto smaller stages…
So where are you at the minute Ronnie? ‘We’re currently in Lincoln and it’s a beautiful day, so it’s lovely. We’ve never been here before. We can’t wait. The venue (The Drill) looks awesome.’
Jo joins Ronnie mid-tour of some of the less visited UK locations and/or more intimate venues. ‘Some of them we’ve played before supporting other bands, and some of them, whether it be location-wise or venue-wise, we’ve never played, so I think the idea was to kind of stir up a buzz ready for the album release. We hadn’t played the UK for a while because we’d been busy over in Europe, and we did the amazing Cardiff Arena show in December, so a lot of people were just shouting out for it!
‘It was kind of an idea created to drum up the album, get close to the fans and strip everything back. There’s no pyro, there’s no sparks, no razzle dazzle! It’s just us and the crowd.’
The tour has taken the band to places including Frome, Morecambe, Norwich and Sheffield. And it’s also taken the boys back to their roots of playing smaller stages. Ronnie tells us, ‘It’s something we did for years so it’s been interesting re-visiting it, because we’ve been getting very spoilt recently, especially with some of the stages we’ve been honoured to play.’
He adds, ‘A lot of people were like, ‘Are the Crows ready for arenas and big stages?’ and now we’ve been playing them loads it’s almost been a case of adjusting to venues where we can only just about get the backline on to be honest! This tour’s been awesome. We have great banter at shows with our Crow family, and there’s been some very hot and sweaty gigs so far. The support is just unreal.’
And the fans’ support is massively appreciated by the band too. ‘We finish this run of shows, we’re home for a couple of days to do our washing, and then straight back out on the road,’ Ronnie says. Most of April will see the Crows in record stores across the UK signing, chatting and spending time with their loyal and loved fan family.
Back in the 1990s The Valleys were alive with the sound of music. Manic Street Preachers, Stereophonics, Catatonia, so many amazing Welsh bands were making such good music. And now it seems the same is happening. The Crows, King Kraken, Florence Black, Häxan… What’s Ronnie’s take on it? ‘It was an interesting time, especially the Manics, when they released ‘Generation Terrorists’. I didn’t catch on to that at the time, but then I went and revisited it. But Stereophonics, we were there for that when they blew up, and they went from playing their local to doing showcases and then bang! Then you’ve got Funeral for a Friend, Bullet for My Valentine, Skindred… so there was a massive explosion, and then we took a dip for years. People started looking elsewhere, in other territories and stuff but that’s the beautiful thing about Wales. There’s a lot of talent there. We’re a very small country. I don’t think bands have ever stopped producing quality. I just think people stopped looking over the bridge! Florence Black have been going for years, but only now they’re really getting the recognition. Skindred have been about for like, twenty years, and they have so many new fans now. I think it’s a new era, because there’s obviously the internet. As much good as the internet is, it’s also the opposite, but it does get your band out to a bigger audience.’
So how about the band’s name? Where did Those Damn Crows come from? Ronnie laughs, ‘We were just looking for band names at the time and there were a lot of names on the list. I went to see my dad and he was quite an elderly man, and he used to go out into the garden to feed the birds. Crows landed and he just said, ‘Those damn crows!’ and I found it really funny. So, I went home, wrote a little bit of a demo on the guitar, and sent it to the boys as a song idea. And then I think Llyod, or someone picked up on it, and it is what it is now! It was originally just a really rough idea for a song that happened to become a band name.’ He adds, ‘It’s always the same with a band name. You think, ‘Where did that come from?’ or ‘Where did they get that?’ But Those Damn Crows was just a happy accident where the old man was just going off on one day at the birds, out in the garden!’
Speaking about the name Ronnie says, ‘I love it, because I feel like it’s an identity. ‘The Crows’, just ‘Crows’ – it feels like you’re part of a movement, a community or a family. We really resonate with the name and everything that goes with it.’
The band’s name lends itself to ideal tattoo imagery while many of their lyrics are worthy of being permanently inked too. How does it feel to have fans represent Those Damn Crows in the most permanent way?
‘It’s lush’, says Ronnie. ‘It’s absolutely amazing. That’s what you want as a band. I’ve got so much tattooed on me it’s just mad. I’ve even got a Minion! I bet the guy who drew the first Minion didn’t expect people to have them tattooed on them! And I’ve got wrestling stuff! I think it’s really super special that we mean so much to people. Obviously Shane connects to a lot of people with his lyrics. No matter how much of a down day you can have being in a band – because it looks like it’s all glorious – but you do get your down days, and then you see a post of somebody [with a Crows tattoo] and you think, ‘Wow, that’s incredible’. That’s what it means. That’s the essence.’
New album ‘God Shaped Hole’ is now just days away from release. It’s the Crows’ most complete record, with every song being single worthy, and each one of them having that slightly different outer skin, but housing a classic Crows’ heart within. And it’s beating hard.
Each song is actually represented on the cover, which is a work of art in itself. ‘It was heavily inspired by the nineties,’ Ronnie explains. ‘Bands used to have really cool artwork, like Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Green Day with ‘Dookie’ – these are all bands that we were taking about, who have ‘busy’ artwork, with multiple things going on.
‘There’s like a dreamworld and different universes… It’s really cool. I get a real buzz out of that personally because it’s easy just to put one image on an album and that can mean whatever – and we’ve done that before. But [on ‘God Shaped Hole’] we have these tokens and as we were releasing the singles bits of the artwork were being revealed.’
Like Catchphrase Ronnie? And because Ronnie is one of the nicest guys in the world, rather than end the call immediately due to Jo Wright’s randomness, he runs with it… ‘Basically yeah!’ he laughs.
With all these new songs that need to be heard plus the back catalogue that live audiences love to hear, how on earth do Those Damn Crows sort out their set lists Ronnie?
‘It’s a dilemma, I’m not gonna lie. It’s always a challenge. Even the Arena show – we played for nearly two hours and people were still like, ‘Why didn’t you play ‘The Fighter’? Why didn’t you play ‘Behind These Walls’?. We’re going to have to try and do something in the future to try to tick all the boxes. It’s hard, because you’re trying to promote the new record. We haven’t played all the songs off it on this tour currently, but I think everybody’s caught on to the fact it’s not called the ‘God Shaped Hole’ tour. It’s an underplay really. It’s to stir up that buzz. Then we’ll probably play more new songs on the next tour. Which then means what do you leave off? It’s a really interesting process of trying to make a show and take everyone on a journey, but keep everyone happy and keep the band stimulated and feel like, ‘Oh yeah, we can’t wait to play this one!’.’
Those Damn Crows’ lyrics resonate with many situations most of us find ourselves in at some point. And while there’s empathy and agreement in their songs that things can be beyond tough, there’s the inspiration and real life experience in them that encourage you to keep on keepin’ on. Does Ronnie listen to his bands’ music to help with the lows?
‘I listen to a lot of podcasts,’ he tells us. ‘Everything wrestling! Joe Rogan, Jim Cornette, Busted Open, just other people talking. And I watch a lot of online stuff like Stick to Football – stuff that takes you away from where you are. Music-wise I go a bit random some days or I listen to bands from when I was growing up, like Alice in Chains, or punk rock and listen to NOFX or Anti-Nowhere League, or I might listen to something more current and listen to a new band, or put on a New Rock playlist and see if there’s anything on there [I like].’
So what would you be doing if you weren’t smashing drums in one of the most amazing bands ever to band?
Ronnie has a think. ‘I used to have my own business. I had a tattoo studio. But I never tattooed! I used to run it. But it was never really my world. Music was always my passion. To be absolutely honest, since fourteen years of age this is all I’ve ever wanted to do. I told teachers I was going to do it, I told my parents, I went through all the breakdowns, the highs, the lows, bands falling apart, singers leaving… I can’t really think of anything else I would want to do. I literally gave up a very successful business [to do this].’
Because love means so much more than money (unless you’re an accountant), music was the path Ronnie chose.
Yer girl could end this interview with some throw away comment like, the sky’s the limit for Those Damn Crows. She could tell you that ‘God Shaped Hole’ is an absolute treat of a record with songs that resonate, rock, evolve and erupt. But let’s leave the last words to the lovely Ronnie. Because this is beautiful…
He says, ‘You get one life. And I had really good people around me at the time. My wife was massively supportive and she guided me the right way. She talked a lot of sense. And Shane and my best mate, they were telling me the right stuff. They never told me what I wanted to hear, they were telling me stuff that motivated me and put me in a better place, and when I made the decision to switch I’ve never looked back. I have no regrets.’
Interview by Jo Wright
Photos by Rob Blackham
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