CultureLoad

Staggered Crossing: “The best is yet to come.”

The band Staggered Crossings from Canada has lived through many ups and downs. (part 2)

Jeremy reports about one of the ups the band has experienced. He reports how they played the CFNY 102.1 Humble & Fred Cookout at Fort York in Toronto in the summer of 2001. “The gig had been booked in the winter, but by the time the gig came around, ‘How You Remind Me’ was blowing up around the world. Nickelback was opening for Big Sugar, with us on just before Nickeback. A few things stand out: they arrived just before they played in a motorcade of matching vans. An 18 wheeler showed up with a delivery of brand new road cases, and they had wireless packs on all their guitars. I remember clearly being impressed watching their guitar tech put brand new batteries in all the packs, and the drum tech complaining that the bass drum didn’t fit in the new case. Our problems were of a different kind.”

And if it had not been for Staggered Crossing, Nickelback would never have gotten so far anyways, the band jokes. They remember how Nickelback and Staggered Crossing had had the same agent for a bunch of years and that Nickelback was about to film a video way before they were famous. “I think it was the video shoot for their song ‘Leader of Men’.” Jeremy reports. “One night we got a call that Nickelback was in town and their gear hadn’t made it. Could they borrow some sticks and a bass guitar? We lent them our stuff and we joked in the band that we helped maintain their career trajectory. If we hadn’t…”

They can joke as much as they want to about their relationship with Nickelback, but when it comes to music it is most important to them that they take their art seriously. With that attitude they also released their second album “Last Summer When We Were Famous” in 2002 and their recent album “Burgundy&Blue” in 2004 that became surprisingly popular. Their inspiration for the songs are everywhere as Julian states “Life is filled with inspirational people and moments and I can’t help but be effected by them.” However, their lyrics did not always play the important role they play these days. “In the beginning the lyrics seemed to be secondary. I was very young when I started writing. Now that I am older the lyrics have more meaning to me. It’s an accumulation of life experiences that actually seem to have made the difference.”

Still, it has been a long time since they last put out new music and in 2007 they broke up because they could not put as much time and passion into the band as they felt was necessary to make music that really meant something to them, music that was “soulful” as they call it. But these times appear to be over since they have reunited last fall to perform together again. And the hopes are high that there will be an album somewhere in the future. “We’re working on it right now. There’s no definite plan but we are rehearsing and I’m writing,” Julian gives away. And being asked how their music has changed throughout the last decade, Julian explains that “it’s more mature and thought out than before. It means more to me and I hope that translates to other people.”

For everyone who wants to see if that translates to them, they can download Staggered Crossing’s latest album “Burgundy&Blue” from CultureLoad and of course wait and hope that there will be a new one very soon as the band itself is sure that “the best is yet to come”.

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Nora Frei
Editorial Team