Nearly four decades a go, a whipper-snapping Danny Rexon had his mind melted by ’80s hard rock and in particular three jams that still stand the test of time — “The Final Countdown” by Europe, Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again,” and “Crazy, Crazy Nights” from Kiss.
In Rexon’s mind, the sequined seed was planted, and in the early 2000s out sprouted Crazy Lixx. The Swedish-based hard rock act has consistently delivered sleazy, groovy, ’80s-inspired tunes to the tune of seven full-length albums — the most recent, “Street Lethal,” is another catchy, anthemic, attitude-filled fun fest that harkens back to all of the best parts of the Sunset Strip.
“I was hooked on that kind of music from the start,” Rexon, the band’s singer and co-founder, said. “That’s still similar to what I’m trying to do now 40 years later, almost.”
Since the early 2000s, Scandinavia has become a hotbed for the ’80s hard rock sound. Bands like Crazy Lixx, Hardcore Superstar, H.E.A.T., Reckless Love, Crash Diet and many others are partying like it’s 1989.
“I think in a sense it could be because we felt a bit cheated on it,” Rexon said of the genre’s success throughout parts of Europe. “We missed out on participating. The death of this kind of music came so fast. Growing up in Sweden, we consumed a lot of American culture. It was everything from movies to comic books and cartoons, and the music of course. We were always a couple of years behind. So when we got it, we were inspired from that point and then started to replicate it in different ways. With such a small population, we shouldn’t be able to field so many good bands in this genre, but for some reason we do.”
“Street Lethal” was released on Nov. 5 via Frontiers Records. Crazy Lixx has a variety of tour plans in the works, but with the worldwide pandemic have had to start a little slower than they’re accustomed to. The band played a show celebrating the record’s release in their hometown of Malmö, and they have a smattering of dates scheduled in Finland, Sweden and the UK. They also will perform on the Monsters of Rock Cruise, setting sail from Florida early next year before hoping to make their way to Japan, Australia and the United States.
Recently, Rexon laid out some fast facts on “Street Lethal,” the demise of the ’80s rock’s scene in America and working with Chez Kane.
“Street Lethal” is the soundtrack to a hypothetical ’80s movie
“We had a theme for the album, where we wanted to get inspired by this hypothetical ’80s fighting movie,” Rexon said. “So quite early on, I felt like ‘Rise Above’ would be the perfect opener with the drum fill and the harder riff. It was a co-write with another Swedish songwriter, Oscar Bromvall , who is in a band called Fans of the Dark. I think it sounded very cool, definitely within the realm of Crazy Lixx, but a bit different also. It’s quite a bit faster. I also used some of the melodies from the instrumental intro, “Enter the Dojo.” I reused them in the solo, so you get a connection between those two. Kind of together they make up the theme song for this hypothetical movie that we envisioned and got inspired by.”
Rexon is disappointed with America’s current output of rock music as referenced in “Anthem for America”
“It’s more of a groovy song,” he said. “We found it was quite easy to dance to when we did the video. Lyrically, it’s about the fact that I’m a bit disappointed on the output or rock music when it comes to the U.S., because growing up I was fed with all the great American hard rock. Sometime in my early teens, that started to change. And I feel that nowadays, most of the stuff coming out from the U.S. is just not as interesting. I mention the non-conformity in the lyrics, and there’s no counterculture in the U.S. anymore. What I hear from the U.S. is just cancel culture. It rhymes so badly with what I feel America was when I was growing up, standing for freedom and freedom of expression. In a way it’s funny lyrics, but it’s also the most serious lyrics in a sense. I hope the U.S. can turn this thing around, but there’s definitely something missing as of late.”
Rexon channeled Paul Stanley for the speaking part on the anthemic rocker, “The Power”
“It was added quite late into the song,” Rexon said. “It was just supposed to be an instrumental outro — the chorus melody but on a guitar. I was like, ‘This would be so good to get that Paul Stanley thing here, it fits so well.’ I recorded something, and I showed the band, and I said, ‘This has to be here.’ They looked at me a bit skeptical, but I had at least one other kindred Kiss fan in the band. So he knew totally where I was coming from. I’m glad I kept it. You want to touch on the same feelings that you get when you listen to those old (Kiss) albums. It’s not like copying straight up, but it’s using the same idea for inspiration and doing it yourself and getting that kind of nostalgic feedback that brings you back instantly 40 years into the past.”
Power ballad, “In The Middle Of Nothing,” was an idea pitched by a friend
“We were sitting in a situation that had nothing to do with songwriting, and I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but all of the sudden he blurts out ‘In the middle of nothing,’ and he sings it with the melody that’s on the record. I told him, ‘That sounds like a real good, catchy hook for a song. I’ll go home and write something around that.’ Sometimes it doesn’t take more than that to get the inspiration going. I think it came out really good in the end. I was very much into the ‘Prisioners in Paradise’ album by Europe sound for that song. Also there’s Bon Jovi references in there. I wanted to do something like that to be more on the light side for this album.”
Frontiers also wanted a Danny Rexon solo album, but he had another idea — Chez Kane
“When Frontiers reached out to me about doing a project besides Crazy Lixx, I was a bit worried,” Rexon said. “I know that I have my writing style, and I didn’t want to do something that was too similar to Crazy Lixx. We talked a bit about a potential solo project, because I mentioned that I had some songs that hadn’t been selected for Crazy Lixx for one reason or another, usually because they’re on the lighter side of the spectrum. We were talking about doing a solo project, but I felt like it would be too similar to what I already do with Crazy Lixx, especially if it was my voice on it. I also didn’t want to involve myself in another band where I would be a member. I said to Frontiers, ‘I can do a new solo artist. I don’t want to work with someone who has done stuff before. I want to start fresh, basically.’ And I wanted it to be a female, because I wanted it to be far from the Crazy Lixx sound. I also opted for the more keyboard driven approach to it. I feel like there is a void when it comes to ’80s female fronted metal. There’s a lot of the bands with male singers but not many with female singers, where in the ’80s you had bands like Vixen, Robin Beck, Doro, Lita Ford — we wanted to fill that gap. The dudes that like Motley Crue and Whitesnake, they also tend to like the female fronted stuff even if it is lighter and more poppy and keyboard driven. It’s kind of like a guilty pleasure. At least that’s what I felt it was back in the day, where now they just happily announce they like both of those sides. I think we were right in a sense, because there’s a lot of listeners that like Crazy Lixx and also enjoy the Chez Kane album.”
For more information on Crazy Lixx, visit www.crazylixx.com.
— B.J. Lisko
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