The Great Crusades’ ninth studio album, Until the Night Turned to Day, saw its first daylight in a beer-soaked rehearsal room at Chicago’s Superior Street. Brian Hunt (bass, vocals), Brian Krumm (vocals, guitar), Brian Leach (guitar, keyboards, vocals) and Christian Moder (drums, keyboards, vocals) booked two days at the space and proceeded to simply play as they do best—in live rock band mode. They recorded all the raucous results, and, weeks later, started combing through. The band then used the captured ideas to construct songs and record them with surprisingly captivating results.

The final result is a new record inspired by the twilight hours that combines the best of the band’s wide-ranging influences, from Thin Lizzy, Aerosmith and Pixies on the harder rocking side to Glen Campbell, the Smiths and the Jayhawks on songs that veer into Americana. The lyrics find Krumm in vivid storytelling mode, with shenanigans in Berlin, Boston, Chicago and Galway spilling forth. Krumm also takes on the current political atmosphere on songs such as “Little Crown,” “King of the Altered States” and others. In many ways, Until the Night Turned to Day feels like a cross-country drive to the California coast, with many stops in between to tell tales and sing about today, tomorrow, yesterday and the great beyond. The record was released in Summer 2017 by Blue Rose Records in Europe and Mud Records/Parasol in North America. The video for the album’s song “Gutter Punks,” featuring the band’s collaboration with Chicago songwriter Katie Todd, debuted in November 2017.

Bio

Like the bands they admire, such as Camper Van Beethoven, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Kaiser Chiefs, the Great Crusades seem to be in it for the long haul—still writing outstanding tunes and playing mind-blowing live shows. Vocalist/guitarist Brian Krumm gathered the current band members in Chicago 20 years ago, including collaborators Brian Hunt, Brian Leach and Christian Moder. He had already released the band’s first album, The First Spilled Drink of the Evening. Soon after, Rolling Stone’s David Fricke wrote, “The Great Crusades look at life through a shot-glass lens, mixing anger, muscle and minor-key remorse like a roughneck Tindersticks with the bonus of a singer who’s got the tubercular pipes of Tom Waits and Axl Rose’s love child.” (Mud Records reissued First Spilled Drink in Summer 2017.)

Damaged Goods was released by Glitterhouse Records and Checkered Past Records as the follow-up. Never Go Home saw the band reach a higher profile when a tour was presented by Musikexpress magazine. Soon after, the band gained even more exposure as part of their appearance on the legendary program Rockpalast. (The band also played Rockpalast in 2015— one of only a few bands to play the show twice.)

Welcome to the Hiawatha Inn, Four Thirty, Keep Them Entertained, Fiction to Shame and Thieves of Chicago followed. Two of the band’s songs appeared in the season 4 finale of the HBO vampire series True Blood. In 2017, the Crusades completed Until the Night Turned to Day with Grammy winner Brian Leach at the production helm in JoyRide Studio in Chicago.

Today, the band continues to expand its fan base and further build its reputation as one of the wildest and most-loved bands in the business. Along the way, they have shared the stage with Gary Moore, Scorpions, 16 Horsepower, Bottle Rockets and Leningrad Cowboys—on many memorable tours of Europe, the U.S. and everywhere in between.