As the old song goes, “Mama Weer All Crazee Now”! Specifically, we’re crazy about Crazy Lixx. The Swedish outfit have dominated the melodic hard rock scene for nearly 25 years, winning the hearts of rockers, metalheads, and online metal journalists (such as yours truly) with one singalong hook at a time. And just as our vocal boxes were FINALLY recovering from the colossal anthems that made up 2021’s Street Lethal, Crazy Lixx have returned with a brand new album, Thrill of the Bite. We sat down with founding frontman Danny Rexon to discuss the importance of a sick chorus, breaking into America, and his favorite ’80s cinema.
Greetings Danny and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?
Danny Rexon: I’m doing very good! We just released a video and a single this Monday. It’s Friday, so we’re looking forward to the weekend. All good with me! How are you?
I’m doing good as well. Crazy Lixx has long been part of the soundtrack to my weekend shenanigans, and we’re about to get another album to add to that soundtrack, Thrill of the Bite. It was just a year ago that Crazy Lixx released Two Shots at Glory, which featured new songs alongside re-recordings. Did any of the songs on Thrill of the Bite have origins in those sessions?
DR: No, they’re all newly written. The last album was kind of a compilation, where most of the material was just remakes of old songs. We had one original, or two originals, and a cover on that. That was what we did for that one. Everything on the new album is actually written after that, or possibly made from bits and pieces of ideas that we had before, but most of it is brand new, I would say.
When did work get started on the new record?
DR: Actually, right after I delivered the compilation album to Frontiers, which was last summer. Or sorry, the summer before, so that’s two years. There’s often quite long lead times. By the time we released the first single for the compilation album, I had already started working on the next one. The main recordings were done about a year ago from now. The album was done by May or June of last year. Then, we started releasing singles during the Fall. Usually, nowadays, you get a lot of lead time before the album is released, so 6 months basically, more or less, 3 or 4 singles possibly, 2 music videos by now. There’s a lot of time to market these things nowadays.
What did the band set out to achieve with Thrill of the Bite to set it apart from past releases?
DR: I think a lot of the things have been similar. The style of writing music, we always write separately, more or less, and we then pitch the songs to the band and we listen to them together and decide what goes onto the album. I think the main difference is my part this time because I chose to mix the whole album myself, whereas previously, I’ve been producing them, but we always left the mixing to someone else in the end. I thought that we would get a more coherent sound, a more coherent idea from the start to the finish line. This was something that I felt confident doing now for the first time. It was a lot to do with the compilation album, where I remixed the old stuff, so now I felt confident to do the whole thing from start to finish. I think in terms of sound, you’ll probably get a more distinct Danny Rexon sound on the album compared to the others.
Do you see yourself pursuing the technical side of things for Crazy Lixx in the future?
DR: Oh yeah, definitely, and for other artists, I will say. I’m working with an artist called Chez Kane. Right now, we’re doing her third album. I’ve been producing and mixing other stuff as well, but for my own band, we’ve always felt that we want to leave the last part to someone else. As of now, I felt I’ve learned enough to do it myself. I think you can get a better full picture of the whole idea that you have behind the album when you do all the parts yourself. Hearing the nice comments we get from people about the production and the sound and the mixing, I think for sure I’m probably gonna do it in the future as well, and I hope to evolve in that part still. I’m not at the finish line by any means.
The leadoff single from Thrill of the Bite, “Midnight Rebels”, is out now with an accompanying video featuring scenes from the 1986 cult classic, Trick or Treat. How did this song come about and what do you love about Trick or Treat?
DR: The song, I don’t remember really where it came from. I think I had some bits and pieces of the lyrics and it got me started on the chorus. That’s a song that I wrote myself without anyone else. We do collabs with other people at times on the album as well, but this was a full on me production. When it comes to the video, we’ve been doing this for two years now where we put our music as “unofficial soundtracks”, as we like to call it, to old movies. Whenever we don’t have an official video for a song, we try to pair it up with an old movie. It’s been working very well, to the point where YouTube now is our biggest platform when it comes to listening. I think we had north of 20 million views just during last year. A lot of it has to do with these videos.
The reason why I chose Trick or Treat, I think it was just a good fit for the song. I was trying to find something that was a bit on the horror vibe, but still kind of lighthearted and a bit campy. I think that suits the song. It’s a major key chorus on it, which is quite unusual for us. I like movies like that. I like all the cameos, naturally, but movies like that overall, ’80s and ’90s movies, that whole era, I have great nostalgia for that era when it comes to movies, computer games, and music, of course. Everything from that time is very dear to my heart.
Do you have a favorite ’80s movie?
DR: Oof…I would have to say a ’90s movie, but I do believe it’s 1990, actually. I get this question a lot, and I never know what to answer, because it does change from time to time. It’s hard to just pinpoint one, but I just decided on saying one. It’s not a deep cut, I wouldn’t say, but it’s not very well known. It’s not the typical blockbuster you would say, so I always say Tremors. That’s a movie I watched 100 times when I was a kid. I could always put it on and enjoy it. It’s just great fun! I’m actually thinking of doing a UST, unofficial soundtrack, to that movie as well at some point, but it is a bit holy for me, so I’m gonna have the perfect song for it first.
One trait about Crazy Lixx songs that has always stood out to me is the emphasis on huge, sing-along choruses. How often will a chorus come to you before the rest of a song and what is the key to a memorable chorus?
DR: I think most of the songs that I do start with the chorus, or a hook of some sort, but it’s usually a lyrical hook, where I think the guitarist will start with a riff or a melody or something. For me, most of the time, it’s the chorus that comes first. I think people don’t realize the power of repetition. Most of the good choruses tend to repeat some kind of phrase, usually with different lyrics, but it’s the same phrase. I often talk about a form that’s called AABA, where you sing the same melody twice, then you deviate from it, and then you return and sing the same melody again, often times with different lyrics.
Those tend to be very memorable and stick in your head, but you can always have songs like “The Final Countdown”, for example, where you just shout the title of the song and then there’s a melody. So the hook can be different things. For me, usually it starts with a vocal hook of some kind and it’s usually the power phrase that then becomes the title of the song. As you’ve maybe noticed, all of our songs, except for one, are called the same thing that we sing in the chorus. The one exception being “Anthem for America”, which is not mentioned in the song at all, but I thought it was a fitting title for that song.
When you compare your writing and performance on this album to past albums, in what ways have you noticed your artistry evolving over the years?
DR: I’ve taken in so much material during the years. I’ve listened to so much music. When I was younger, it was hard to find some of this stuff. At that time, piracy was big, but it was also a question of people not really digitalizing a lot of the stuff that was around in the ’80s. I didn’t have a big vinyl collection or anything like that. My older brother had quite a lot of CDs, but when he moved out, he took everything with him. I was confined to the stuff you can find online, which wasn’t big when it came to that era of music. When the streaming thing came back and the YouTube videos started coming in, you could find a lot more stuff. I’ve been taking in a lot of stuff from the ’80s and ’90s that I wasn’t familiar was until I was an adult. I think all of that has mixed together and became a big source of influences and inspiration for me. I hope I’m still getting better at it. I don’t think I’ve written my magnum opus yet, so I hope to do that in the future. I feel that I’m still getting better at it, album by album.
Like every Crazy Lixx album before it, there’s some traditional metal flavored songs on here like “Final Warning” and “Highway Hurricane”. Could you ever see the band doing a full blown metal album in the future?
DR: I’ve actually written quite a few songs like that, but I don’t envision them being Crazy Lixx songs. I think we have limits to what our fans would enjoy in terms of that kind of sound, but I do write other stuff, both harder stuff and the lighter, soft rock stuff. I think I will probably use those for different projects, but we are pushing the sound towards a more faster, harder thing on this album. It might progress further that way in the future. You never know, but I do think there is a limit to how hard or traditional metal it can get before people would maybe checkout. We’re still trying to think about the fans first when we pick the songs, but of course, also doing stuff that we like and enjoy doing.
Now when I use the term “heavy” in the context of Crazy Lixx, I’m not expecting guttural vocals and blast beats anytime soon.
DR: Yeah, that won’t happen *laughs*.
Sweden has a storied history of hard and heavy bands. Who are your top three Swedish bands that most influenced you as a musician?
DR: One of the first songs that I remember from my childhood is “The Final Countdown”. Europe has been a big influence. Even if they’re a bit softer or fluffier overall, they were the first band to really break it and make in the US. Naturally, you have a guitarist like Yngwie Malmsteen, who’s also, maybe not a personal influence, but the whole flair and the personality that he has, and also the fact that he made it as an international musician in that day. I think a modern band that I really enjoy is Ghost, and probably the biggest rock band ever from Sweden at this point, maybe save for Sabaton or In Flames, but I think Ghost has even surpassed them. They have such a poppy sound at the base of it, so they attract a lot of normie fans. Maybe not as influential to my songwriting as the others, but Ghost for sure in recent days. I like the whole imagery of it and the whole mystique that they had around the band. I think Tobias Forge is a really good songwriter over all.
Here in the States, Ghost will do a 25,000 seat arena and sell it out in a blink. It’s crazy considering I remember when they came out 15 years ago and they were doing clubs. When you watch them, you can’t help but think, “Wow, anyone can do it.”
DR: Yeah, it’s been a real fast progression for them. For a modern band, it’s really impressive what they’ve done in such a short time.
To date, the only show Crazy Lixx has played in America proper was at the 2018 Melodic Rock Fest, roughly a half hour northwest of me in Arlington Heights, just outside of Chicago. Could you see Crazy Lixx playing America again in the future?
DR: I can’t announce anything really certain, but I can say that it’s looking better than it ever has for the chances for us to come over. We’re looking at doing something this Fall. As you’ve said, we’ve only played once in mainland US. We’ve been on the (Monsters of Rock) cruise a couple of times, but it’s looking better than it ever has. Unless something really strange happens, we’re gonna make it for at least a few shows this year and probably that will open up the doors for several others next year. The US is our biggest market by far. We’ve been trying to get over there for quite a while, but it’s been difficult, not just from a financial standpoint, but also logistics and everything. That’s the bucket list thing that we have to do, even if we have been there once, but there’s so many cities that I want to visit and fans to play to. That’s definitely top of our priorities, to come and play for the US fans.
In closing, what does the rest of 2025 have in store for Crazy Lixx?
DR: We’re releasing the album on Valentine’s, February 14th. We have a release show in our hometown (Malmö) and then we’re doing some European shows. We have a little travelling festival with four other Swedish bands. We’re gonna try that concept. The margins for playing live have been quite small in recent years. It’s hard to pull a crowd when you’re just travelling yourself. We’re trying this new concept where we have a bunch of bands. We’ll be switching the headliner spot between nights and travelling as a united group.
The ticket sales for that have been going very well, so we’re looking at that concept and maybe bringing that concept to other places, possibly even the US because I do know that there is a big demand for Swedish bands there. I think maybe something like that could get people to travel quite far to see a show. We’re looking into that concept now in the Spring and we’re gonna see how that works out. Then, of course, the summer festivals and stuff, but we have a lot in the works. A lot more than we’ve announced at this time, but we’re hoping to play as much as possible.
The new Crazy Lixx album, Thrill of the Bite, comes out Friday, February 14th on Frontiers Records. For more information on Crazy Lixx, visit www.crazylixx.com.
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