Recorded History
1998
The Crush changes its name to The Crash. A self financed 4 track demo called “The Black EP” is picked up by Finnish national radio and tracks are play-listed on the main evening show. Warner Music Finland wins the race to sign the band to a 3 album deal.
1999
January – Single, ‘World Of My Own’ is released and also receives play-list treatment.
May – Another single ‘Sugared’ is released and becomes a huge hit in Finland.
June – Debut album ‘Comfort Deluxe’ is released in Finland to overwhelming critical approval and goes on to reach Gold sales status.
2000
April – The Crash plays its first ever show outside Finland, in Stockholm, Sweden.
September – The Crash performs at In The City in Manchester receiving a rave review from Melody Maker as one of the finds of the event.
October – The Crash tours Austria where ‘Sugared’ has become a hit.
2001
August – ‘Lauren Caught My Eye’ is released in Finland as the first single from the follow up album, ‘Wildlife’, and shoots straight to #3 on the charts, staying in the airplay top 50 for 1 year.
September – The album ‘Wildlife’ is released in Finland to huge acclaim and also reaches #3 in the charts, staying in the top 40 for 6 months and again reaching Gold sales status.
October – The video for ‘Lauren Caught My Eye’ becomes the first video ever by a Finnish artist to be given full power play rotation on MTV and becomes a firm favourite with the voting viewers on the MTV Nordic Up North top 10, staying at #1 for 6 weeks.
2002
‘Lauren Caught My Eye’ becomes an established hit throughout Scandinavia reaching the top 3 in Denmark and the top 5 in the Swedish airplay chart.
February/March/April – The Crash plays more than 50 shows in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark & Finland opening for Eskobar and Weeping Willows. The audience and media fall in love with the band.
April – ‘Star’ is released as a single and becomes another Scandinavian hit
May – The Crash plays its first headline tour in Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
August – ‘New York’ is the 3rd single to be released from ‘Wildlife’.
September – The Crash plays 4 huge shows to over 60,000 people opening for a-ha in the Baltics. The band has to turn down an offer from A-ha to play with them in UK (including Wembley Arena) due to lack of support from the UK record company.
November – The Crash is nominated for the Best Nordic Act Award at the MTV Europe Awards in Barcelona, along with The Hives, Royksopp, Saybia and, eventual winners, Kent.
2003
September – ‘Still Alive’ is the first single to be released from the band’s 3rd album and reaches #2 in the Finnish chart.
October – ‘Melodrama’ is released in Finland and goes straight to #2, quickly becoming the band’s 3rd consecutive Gold selling album in Finland.
December – E-Bay use a 45 second clip of ‘Star’ (from ‘Wildlife’) in an extensive national TV advertising campaign in Germany that lasts for 6 months. This is the biggest Tv campaign in German TV history and leads to Star being released commercially.
2004
January – The Crash plays 10 sold out German arena shows with local band Reamonn.
February – ‘Star’ reaches #23 on the German Singles chart and #36 on the airplay chart.The band do interviews and have their videos played all across central Europe and are covered extensively in the European press including MTV, Viva, Bravo and DW.
April – ‘Still Alive’ wins both critics and viewers awards at Finnish Video Awards for Best Finnish Video.
May/June – The Crash plays 6 more sold out German arena shows with local band Sportfreunde Stiller, including a final show at the Olympic Hall in Munich, plus 7 headline shows – the band’s first headline tour in Germany.
August – The Crash plays several festivals and club dates in Germany, Switzerland and Austria to support ‘Melodrama’.
2005
March – The Crash perform at SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. They are picked out as one of the top bands to see by all the leading music media including Music Week, Billboard, Record of The Day, A&R Worldwide and the Austin American Statesmen. Several US labels express interest in the band. The band also plays shows in LA at The Viper Room and NYC at CBGB’s. Due to frustration at the lack of penetration through Warner, the band decides not to renew its recording deal with Warner Finland and decide to self finance it’s next album with a view to licensing the master in every territory. For the rest of 2005 a bidding war breaks out for the band’s publishing rights. They eventually agree a deal with EMI Publishing Germany.
September – Warner Music Finland releases a compilation of the band’s songs in Finland only, called Selected Songs. The limited edition includes a bonus dvd of all the band’s videos to date and becomes an instant collectors item.
December – The band signs a sub-publishing deal with EMI Music Publishing out of Germany.
2006
January – The Crash is one of the headline acts at the opening night of MIDEM’s 40th Anniversary in Cannes. A rush of interest from labels around the world follows the showcase.
March – EMI Music Publishing UK organizes a successful London showcase for the band to perform to a private audicnce of EMI Music Publishing executives from 25 offices around the world.
June – The Crash perform to a host of record labels in UK and USA.
July – The band proceeds to record its 4th studio album which will be called Pony Ride.
September – Pony Ride is released to strong reviews and shoots straight to #2 of the Finnish album charts.
October – The band performs a showcase at Finland’s Music & Media event in front of an invited audience of international delegates from the music industry. This leads to offers for releases and tours in USA, UK and Japan.
November – The band enters into an agreement with Volvo Finland who finance the video for Pony Ride with great success. The video is picked up for maximum exposure on MTV Finland and other music channels.
December – The Crash completes its most successful Finnish tour ever, with 20 shows all sold out in advance.
2007
January – The Crash enters its first ever license deal abroad by signing a deal with Melbourne-based record label, Rubber Records. This guarantees Pony Ride a release in Australia & New Zealand.
February – An exclusive deal is signed with Rykodisc/Warner for USA, Canada, UK and Eire.
March – The Crash perform at the Rykodisc showcase at SXSW.
April – The Crash sign a deal with Tokyo-based label, Treasure Music, to release Pony Ride in Japan.
May – Pony Ride is released in Japan on 23rd May. The Crash perform at the Liquid Room, Tokyo on 25th May and spend 1 week in Japan promoting the album.
October - Pony Ride is released in Australia & New Zealand through Rubber Records to a bagful of rave reviews.
