Coming from the sun-baked suburbs of San Diego, Krush is investing the scene with its hard metal sound. Whether it's the overwhelming power of the guitars or the thundering voice of singer Dave Meriwether, this band is ready to crush your world. Drummer Fred Helm, part of the hard hitting rhythm section, is willing to give some inside stories.

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When did Krush actually start and how did the band develop through the years until now?

The band was started by Lou Tamagni back in 1997 and it went through line up changes for a while. When the band finally had a good group of guys, we made our first CD, Welcome To Paradise.

I remember reading of your music being used in a movie. On your website I couldn't find any data about it, so why don't you give me some background information?

A producer friend of ours made a parable film based on a screen play he wrote. The film was so good it was nominated for 'Best Picture' at the 2000 Parable Film Festival in Hollywood. We were on the soundtrack with Van Morrison. Krush continues to get contracts for movie soundtracks.

Sindrome is the new album, the follow-up to Welcome To Paradise. What do you think of the outcome?

Sindrome is a brave step for Krush. It's not what’s currently on radio, it's what we want to hear and play. We wrote Sindrome to amuse ourselves at first, then we realized it was sounding real good and the people who were hearing the early demos, were addicted to it. We decided to release it under our new label and see what happened.

Just like last album, Sindrome is released through your own record label. However, the band did do a showcase for different labels in 2000. Evidently you didn't get signed to any of these. Still a wish you hope to be fulfilled?

NO! We don’t want any part of any “record label” deal. We shopped our stuff to run the band through our own little “market survey”. It helped us find our own way, on our terms, not some rip off record label who will take our music, sell it and never pay us.

While listening to the music, I had a hard time labeling it. Can you describe your music so that anyone who isn't very keen on different styles will get a good idea of Sindrome?

Well, that’s a tough one. We set out to create rhythms, and grooves that left the listener wanting to hear the song again. We wanted to have a very strong message included that was relevant to the times in which we live. I think of it as hard-edged commercial metal. It's not glam, it's not a blast from the past like Welcome To Paradise was, it's just energy on a CD with real big guitars and real, melody driven vocals.

On the website I read that you recorded this in your own studio, the Armageddon Studio. As I understand it, the disc was recorded in an unusual kind of fashion. Can you tell about the backgrounds of recording Sindrome?

Well this is where we went off the deep end. We were so tired of paying thousands of dollars for “demo-quality” stuff, we sat one night after rehearsal and asked ourselves, “could we do this by ourselves?” We decided to try it. We tried all the desktop stuff and computer programs-they were all cheap and sounded bad. We hired a guy named Terry Stewart out of Los Angeles to consult with us on how to build industry standard stuff. The results were awesome. We tracked on ADAT with pure analog platforms. We then transferred the 20 bit ADAT's to 24 bit Pro Tools Mix 3. We edited all the tracks and spit it back out through an analog board and eventually to CD. The outcome for our first try was awesome. Armageddon Studios is now a state of the art recording facility in San Diego. The products we are touring out now are far greater than the Krush stuff. The world will start to hear this studio in March of 2003 when Tmag Records debuts Carol Castillo.

The album contains a few songs that were on Welcome To Paradise as well. Cool songs, yet redoing old songs might look like warming up a left over table scrap. So, what's the idea of doing so?

Yeah, we agree, that was not a good idea. They sound cool, but it had been done before.

The fire ordeal for the new album was your appearance on Extreme Mardi Gras. How was that event and what songs got the best feedback?

Mardi Gras was great. We waited a long time to play, but the band ripped hard and most in the audience left the show asking where we had come from. The best part was when Robert Sweet of Stryper approached us after the set and proclaimed he had not seen such a good band in years. It was hard for us to keep a straight face, because we all grew up listening to them. He was beside himself.

Speaking of live shows, I noticed that the bands hopes to do a tour through Eastern Europe. I've always learned that the US is so big you can tour there for the rest of your life. So, how did that idea come up? 

Well, touring has kind of slowed to a trickle industry-wide. There is just no market for bands anymore unless you hook up with major secular sponsorships. One of the biggest misunderstandings in music is that touring is profitable. I've been in Christian music for nearly 20 years and I know no one who has made a dime at it. I suppose if you're 16 and on summer break from high school with a total overhead cost of $136, you might be able to make a buck or two doing the club circuit. In reality though, Krush is blessed with big time careers and we have houses, families, and bla, bla, bla. We would have to make roughly $2500 a night just to break even. That’s not possible. We know this and we have retreated back to the studio to make music for other people and release the stuff on our label. It has been incredibly rewarding to record almost everyday on many different projects. I mean owning a full-blown recording studio, which we control 100% of, is very, very cool. You’ll hear a ton more from Krush in the future. It might not be called Krush, but we will have played on it, recorded it, or produced it. Check out our studio at www.armageddonstudios.com

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