After a seven year hiatus, one of the true heroes of the underground, Crisis, have re-emerged with a blistering and urgent new album, Like Sheep Led to Slaughter. The energy of the album is only surpassed by the energy of this multicultural metalcore band onstage. Pitriff caught up with Karyn Crisis and Afzaal Nasiruddeen in the middle of their tour with Soulfly at the Theater of the Living Arts in Philadelphia.
PITRIFF - Okay, you told me a little (prior to the interview) about the kind of crowd you’re dealing with right now…
KC - (laughs)
PITRIFF - How are the fans otherwise than these…you know, MTV crowd, like…the true fans…do you feel they’ve reacted to you pretty well?
AN - I think so. I think that on the whole, they’re genuine, and a lot of them who don’t know us, for example, they sort of listen to the first couple of songs and they get into it more and more, because our stuff, as you know, is not quite as predictable as some of the other bands that we’re on tour with, so it takes them awhile to really understand our groove, which is a lot different than most bands and their grooves. It takes awhile, but most of them are into it, you know? Especially now that we’re on the east coast (Crisis hails from NYC), so it’s a lot closer to our hearts, I mean, we feel more of a connection here. As you go west, it’s a little different; California is way different than the east coast in terms of heavy music.
KC - We went into this tour knowing it was a more commercial audience and the kids…the majority are not so in touch with the underground.
AN - Not at all.
KC - In the underground, you have music that bends the rules rhythmically, sonically, it’s a whole variety of stuff, whereas the more commercial stuff that has the bigger name is a little easier to jump to or get, so we went into it knowing that was our challenge, but that’s always an exciting thing as well. You do notice a difference in the crowd by area, but this has been the most, I’d say, consistent tour we’ve ever done.
AN - Yeah.
KC - The crowd reaction…there’s always some Crisis fans at every show, sometimes there’s more than at others, but by the end of the first song, people are looking, the second song they’re rocking, the third one the pit’s going, or whatever they’re doing to get into the show.
AN - They’re warming up, you know, it’s like a warm-up process.
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