I wouldn’t assume when you hear the name 36 Crazyfists, you think of a 1977 Chinese Kung-Fu kick ass movie…unless you’re just really into that culture and musically retarded. Maybe, on the other hand, you would recall an Alaskan metal band and their journey throughout the past decade on the music scene.

The arts from martial to musical usually have no correlation unless you count fingers of fury on the guitar, or the crouching tiger behind the drum kit. This band has it’s own way of impacting an audience without doing some crazy upside-down leg wrap. The lyrics, guitar riffs, and involvement with the crowd has its own appeal. Singer Brock Lindow took a moment from “training” to talk about his journey in the last decade, his competitors, and his musical achievements.

S!: Forming in 1994, how does it feel to have been apart of something for well over a decade?

Brock Lindow: It’s pretty surprising. [Laughs] Sometimes I’m not sure exactly how we got this far. It’s cool you know though, to be apart of something for fourteen years or so now. It’s pretty awesome.

S!: It took 6 years to finally sign with RoadRunner Records in 2000. What were some prerequisites you had before signing with them?

Brock: We didn’t even know about labels or anything. We moved out of Anchorage to Seattle and I wasn’t even 21 yet. We just moved so we could start playing shows and touring. You can’t really tour from Alaska when it takes five days just to get to Seattle. We didn’t have any real lofty goals or anything when we started out. We just wanted to play more shows to more people and tour. We really just partied in Portland and we weren’t even really productive. [Laughs] We met a guy that ran the college mill shows around the area and helped us get spots on shows with Hatebreed and Skinlab. That’s how we started to get to know RoadRunner in the first place. As far as having any prerequisites though, we never thought about it.

S!: You guys toured nonstop in 2004 to promote your album A Snow Capped Romance. What  are the pros and cons about touring for extended periods of time?

Brock: Well the cons obviously are being away from home, loved ones, and friends. It is difficult to keep the moral up when apart of you already wants to go back home. But the pros are that you’re touring which is the coolest job I can think of in the world. Free booze every night, awesome friends, and tourmates that you get to know is awesome. I do not enjoy touring like I used to when I was younger though. I am married now with a house and two dogs that I think about more than I used to. I just used to think about how much are we partying tonight? [Laughs] Which I still do, but it’s just not the same. We’re just older. I’m not 21 anymore, I’m 32.

S!: What happened with your relationship with RoadRunner and why do you feel signing to Ferret is a better choice?

Brock: The relationship with RoadRunner was always pretty decent. We kind of knew when the last record was finished being recorded that they had these dual release dates for us. We figured out pretty quickly where we stood with them. We were consistently lost in the shuffle of all the bands. They aren’t really into exposing breaking new bands. They were when we first got signed and prior to that but they kind of changed over the past years. We just wanted to be gone from that situation. That’s not badmouthing them or a secret though but just how we felt. Coming to Ferret though is wonderful. It’s been like night and day and we have a new record coming out in May. It was going to come out in April but the mixes weren’t done. A cool thing that they did though was since the album wasn’t coming out until May, they released a 3 song EP. RoadRunner would have never done that for us. Our records used to get leaked out to the internet weeks before they would be sold with them. Things like that in my eyes, makes Ferret pretty cool. Also, all the people that run Ferret are in bands too so we’ve been friends with those guys for years. Like, Carl who owns Ferret is in a band called Nora and we’ve toured with them in the late 90’s.

S!: This next question wasn’t on my original list but how does it feel to tour with bands like DevilDriver that are on RoadRunner now knowing your previous history with them?

Brock: Oh it’s fine. The label has nothing to do with it. We’re great friends with DevilDriver and I think RoadRunner is treating them really well. I guess some people are just lucky like that.

S!: You had to cancel your tour with Bullet For My Valentine to push back the release of your 4th album, The Tide And Its Takers. You also wrote a blog on your MySpace apologizing to your fans. How do you think your fans reacted to your cancellation?

Brock: I’m sure they’re fine. I mean, I’m sure there was some disappointment but overall it’s cool. We’ll be there probably four times this year to make up for it. We’ve toured Europe and the UK twice as much as in our own country so I don’t think they feel too neglected. [Laughs]

S!: Your 4th album is dropping now in May 2008. What can you tell your fans about your latest installment?

Brock: It’s just another batch of songs from us four dudes from Alaska. [Laughs] It’s cool and I’m really excited about it. I’m so close to it so I can’t say why it is better than this or that. I never really think of it in that way but I am really proud of it. I don’t think that the last record really got a fair chance anyways because we were dealing with label stuff during that time. That record just came and went pretty quickly. I mean, it represented the band for what is was but now we’ve changed and progressed so that is what this new album is about. Even with A Snow Capped Romance, I really enjoyed the songs and the sound and I haven’t felt like that until this new album.

S!: You recently posted a song on your MySpace called “Absent Are The Saints”. I noticed one particular guitar riff identical to In This Moment’s, “Circles”.  Any comments?

Brock: Oh crap. Um, I didn’t even realize that we had a riff that sounded like that. Which riff?

S!: During the bridge, it gets quiet and it goes [Tries to imitate guitar riff]. I only ask because when I heard it on your page, I started singing In This Moment and I caught myself thinking it was the wrong song.

Brock: [Laughs] Oh, right before the chorus comes in? I’m going to have to check that out. We love In This Moment and they’re good friends of ours but I’m not familiar enough with their material to realize we ripped them off. Oops. I feel bad now.

S!: How did you get on the bill for this summer’s Rockstar Mayhem Tour?

Brock: We threatened people with their lives if they didn’t give us a spot on a US festival. [Laughs] Naw, Ferret helped us along with our management. So again, cool points for Ferret. We’re excited about it because we’ve done so many European festivals and we’ve never done one here. We tried to get on one every year like Warped Tour, Ozzfest, anything like that. It’s really cool for us to be apart of this one because this is their first year. You know, Ozzfest is kind of stepping down and I guess this tour is kind of filling that void and there are a ton of awesome bands on it.

S!: Who are you looking forward most to be playing with?

Brock: Walls of Jericho are good friends of ours and so is Machinehead. Slipknot is pretty cool to see live and I’ve seen them a couple times. Disturbed I’ve never seen live so that will be cool. I’ll be interested to see everyone really. Have you heard of this Airbourne band? They’re pretty cool and they played downstairs at the Masquerade in Atlanta the other night when we were there. I went down and checked them out. It’s like, every song AC/DC didn’t write, they wrote. [Laughs]

S!: Any last words to our readers?

Brock: Thanks a lot if you’ve given us any support over the years, we appreciate it. Buy the record on May 27th!

• Official Site: http://www.36crazyfists.com
• MySpace URL: http://www.myspace.com/36crazyfists