CrashPod were:
Ian McIntosh: Vocals, guitars
Glenn Simon: Bass
Steve Elkins: Rhodes, organ
Tim Jewell: Drums

So. Cut to late 2004, and having been back from travels for a fair while and gotten married the year before, I'm starting to feel very grown up. Those wild days of excess were starting to seem like an eternity ago, and my creative juices were flowing like hot tears into garlic sauce on a post-gig doner kebab with the lot.

Early in 2005 I put out the feelers on the perthbands website for someone who wanted to put together something new. Interestingly, whereas most of my stuff can be safely pidgeonholed somewhere in the "Australian pub rock" genre, it was a song of a completely different genre that was the final inspirational straw in getting me to get off my arse and do something again. For some reason I was a bit obsessed with the Moby song In This World and just had to have another crack.

After jamming a couple of times with an enthusiastic young drummer who'd responded to my post, I got hold of a bass player who came from a background of heavier bands, and Glenn came along and we immediately gelled. Unfortunately the young drummer was not working out and so began an annoying find-a-drummer saga that would last for a large part of the life of the band. Glenn and I jammed for an evening with Tim who I knew because years ago he'd been behind the mixing desk of Jewell Recording Studio on the first Random Bruce recordings. Tim was unavailable permanently because of study and other band commitments and we were a bit spewing. I then put up an ad in a drum shop in Perth and it was answered by this cool Canadian dude called Brian. He was here on a temporary tourist visa, so this was never going to be a long term prospect, but man, he was good, and the three of us got on really well for a couple of months while he was still here. I still remember this drumming technique he said was called foreshadowing which totally transformed one of our songs. In the end though he had to head home and we were back to square one.

At one stage we had a friend of a friend lined up to rehearse a couple of times before pulling the pin on us at the last minute, and the drummer search was getting frustrating for the two of us who were dead keen to get things moving. Putting drummers to the side for the moment, I knew a guy who played piano, and in particular the Rhodes piano, and was married to a friend of my wife. I gave Steve a call and although his background was slightly more in the jazz realm, he agreed to come and give it a try. Luckily enough, the very same week we found another drummer and for the life of me I can't remember how we found him. Anyway, Steve and Aaron both debuted in the rehearsal room on the same night and all of a sudden we were a band.

After recording eight songs as a demo (available for listening or download in the Demo playlist on the right) in a combination of my lounge room and Tim's studio, CrashPod were officially born one afternoon in the Subi Hotel after a massive brainstorming session involving band members, partners and dogs.

We had only just started doing a few gigs when I had to disappear for another overseas holiday at the end of 2005. On return we did a few more gigs, and unfortunately we found ourselves drummerless again when it became clear that Aaron wasn't happy and was after something a bit different. By this time, Tim's schedule was a bit clearer and was keen to step in on a more permanent basis. He rehearsed with us and it worked: the collective was whole again.

All of the members of CrashPod share a side interest in getting wives pregnant, and in 2006 this became a dominant factor when both Steve and myself managed to make the seed of our loins fruitful in the bellies of our respective women. Boom shanka. Anyway, time was of the essence and we really wanted to get some songs down in less of a demo format and more like an actual recording that a real band might do out in radioland. So we put together a couple of old songs and a couple of new ones and packed our bags for Moodiarup, Western Australia. We spent a busy weekend in July in a lovely old house on a huge farm in the freezing cold getting all the base tracks down for the Moody EP. (available for listening or download in the Moody EP playlist on the right)

Anyway, it look a looooong time to mix and master that bastard. By the time we were done with it, the band was two babies richer, first the lovely Vienna courtesy of Steve & Carmel, and then tiny wee Poppy what I done made with me missus. It was getting really difficult to put any time at all into CrashPod activities when we were having so much fun cleaning up poo, so the project was kind of put on hold at the start of 2007. Since then both Glenn and Tim have also learned how to reproduce via sexual intercourse, presumably by researching on the internet.

Anyway, we are a band of dads right now, but who knows what'll happen in future. It sure is fun.