Crocodiles

Crocodiles make R&B music, if R&B bands were backed my Jesus and Mary Chain and drank a gallon of cough syrup before recording. This band is seriously great and everyone should check them out!

What have you all been up to? I know that you put out your first album - Summer of Hate - last year. And it looks like you have spent most of the early part of this year recording. How have those sessions gone? What can we expect? Are there any plans for touring later this year? If not a full tour, will there be shows around southern California?

Brandon: We took mid-December to March off to write our record. Neither of us are very good at writing much on tour, and since we were gone so much last year we needed a few months to get a record together. It still needs to be mixed, but we've finished recording it. We're going to start playing live again in late April, after we rehearse a new line up. We're going to play a couple shows around Southern California and then we're going to the UK and Spain in May. In June, we'll be doing a west coast tour with Dum Dum Girls. That's all we have set for now, but we'll be touring a lot again now that our record is done.

What would you guys list for influences? Its always fun describing the band to people who haven't heard of crocodiles because I am always tempted to describe it as Velvet Underground and Suicide had a baby and raised it to be Doo-Woop/Soul star. Which usually gets a lot of strange looks, so I just end up describing you all as awesome. Is that a goal though, to have deffinite hooks and melodies beneath some of the noise and grit? Because your songs have serious hooks and a catchiness that can not be ignored.

Brandon: Thanks for the nice description, that's very flattering. The melodies and hooks of the songs are definitely the most important part to us. Noisiness and weirdness are all cool but if the song underneath sucks, then the song sucks no matter what. I think bands like Suicide and Velvet Underground are very inspiring because at the very base of them, there are excellent pop songs on par with any famous "pop" songwriter's but they execute them in very clever and experimental ways. It's the best of both worlds. We really look up to that and strive for it.

How do you like the San Diego scene? From a slightly further north perception (Orange County) it seems like SD has a really cool scene, that is supportive of local music. Are there a lot of other local bands that you guys dig? I know that Wavves is from San Diego, and ignoring personal feelings about the publicity/backash that has engulfed him, has his success brought increased attention to the area?

Brandon: There are quite a few great bands in San Diego right now, more then there has been in a long time. Ale Mania, Heavy Hawaii, Beaters, and Nude Boy are some newer bands we're really enjoying.