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20 April 2009 Tour News

Ryan Burnett (Vocals, Guitars) Carlos Garcia (Guitar, Bv’s)

Tom Swann (Bass, Bv’s) C.J Evans (Drums)

Having toured the UK and Europe already this year with Shinedown and Hot Leg THE CRAVE have confirmed more live shows for the Spring including a show at the Great Escape Festival in Brighton in May. The band will also head out to Europe to play the prestigious Rock Im Park and Rock Am Ring festivals in Germany.

The band have spent much of 2008 recording songs for their debut album and playing up and down the country spreading the word of their uplifting, euphoric, infectious, out and out riff-tastic, hands in the air anthemic RAWK! Only those with no soul whatsoever could leave a Crave gig without a huge grin on their face … music is supposed to be fun, and The Crave are deadly serious about giving you a great time.

Ryan Burnett pretty much decided he wanted to be a musician when he got his hands on his dad’s old acoustic guitar aged only 5, and managed to just about get his hand round the neck of it. Luckily his Dad also had lots of great records and Free, Queen and Led Zeppelin were on the stereo to play along to. Being (self confessedly) pretty useless at everything else as he went through his teenage years, he stuck to it and kept playing, kept practising, kept getting better. Combine this with singing along to all these iconic frontmen, Burnett naturally merged the two skills and gravitated to this role in the various bands and versions of The Crave that bring him to where he is today.

At the same time as Burnett was noodling away, Tom Swann was rocking out in his bedroom having discovered heavy metal. Guns ‘n Roses and Iron Maiden were his teachers and after school pals. Drummer CJ Evans started ruining the furniture at an early age and got his first drum kit aged 12 (which he still has). He played along to anything he saw on Top of the Pops and heard on the radio before gravitating towards heavy rock and hip hop. Carlos Garcia was several thousand miles away having been born in Quito in Ecuador but doing exactly the same thing and being turned onto music. The Beatles gave him his first taster of wanting to learn the guitar, then his uncle introduced him to the Rolling Stones & Deep Purple. Keith Richards and Ritchie Blackmore looked so cool with their Fenders that he pestered his parents for an electric guitar and was hooked.

The Crave began with Ryan, who upon moving to Brighton from Stockport, Manchester aged 17 to study music, immediately started playing in local bands, trying to get his own thing together. The band went through various incarnations before Tom (originally from Worcestershire) and Carlos (who moved to the UK to also study music), who had also been in lots of local bands teamed up with Ryan and started gigging relentlessly. During a tour of Cornwall in 2006 the guys met CJ (from Devon) who was playing on the same set of dates and would keep him in mind for when a very special opportunity came up.

After playing as far and wide as budget and circumstances would allow – a bit of luck came along when the band were invited to board The Brit Bus – a tour being put together in 2007 for a double decker bus to travel from San Francisco to New York over eight weeks. Organisers saw The Crave and told them if they could sort their visas out they were on! This went brilliantly and they were invited to return to Las Vegas by one of the sponsors of the tour to play at their Halloween party. Their original drummer had left at this point so they contacted CJ (who didn’t take much persuading) and his first show with the band was outside the Hard Rock Café in front of 10,000 crazy people! The people behind Harley Davidson also checked out the band on the Brit Bus tour, and as a result invited them to Milwaukee to film a video for one of their tracks ‘Bring It On’ to promote the 105^th Harley Davidson Anniversary Festival. It went down so well they were asked to return for an eight week tour in 2008 to promote the event, and finished being the only unsigned act to play alongside such legends as Bruce Springsteen and the Foo Fighters.

Undeterred by the music industry’s obsession with all things ‘indie’, The Crave decided to record tacks for their debut album in Brighton. Mark Flannery (who has worked alongside acts such as Def Leppard, U2 and Depeche Mode amongst many others) saw the talent in this young band and co-produced the record over a few weeks. The constant touring and finessing of live favourites ‘My Little Secret’, ‘Right Side of the Tracks’ and ‘Headlights’ on the road gave the songs a new life in the studio and soon they had a sturdy collection of tracks they were happy with. With a band who’s record collection includes Foo Fighters, Tom Petty, Tool, Queens of the Stone Age, Rage Against The Machine as well as the rock classics we all know and love, The Crave combined all the fantastic songwriting elements, infectious melodies, superb harmonies and huge choruses of their peers, but combine it in a very modern way to make it sound both thrilling and vibrant.

On Tour … doors:

12 May London, 100 Club (with Heavens Basement) 7.30pm

020 7636 0933 www.ticketweb.co.uk £6.00

13 May Oxford The Bullingdon * 7.30pm

0871 230 5595 / www.tctmusic.co.uk £5.00

15 May Brighton King & Queen 7.00pm

The Great Escape £22.50

16 May Brighton, Pavilion Tavern ** 8.00pm

The Alternative Escape £5.00

17 May Southampton The Joiners ** 7.30pm

02380 632601 www.seetickets.com £6.00

19 May Kingston The Fighting Cocks ** 8.00pm