Jim Cork portrays Crash Of Rhinos as the zenith of democratic process within a band, tempered by an unmistakable caveat about the potential costs. “We’ve always operated under a rule that if one person isn’t satisfied with any aspect, we either remove that part of the song, drop the track entirely, or skip the show,” he explains, a method that has yielded a pair of cult-loved LPs and hardly any outtakes or B-sides.
Yet that same approach requires consensus among two bassists, two guitarists and five credited vocalists for every moment of every tune, with most tracks stretching past the five-minute mark. Their 2013 breakthrough Knots took around four years to complete, a period when the whole band lived under one roof in Derby, free from kids, marriages or other career ambitions that might disrupt their painstaking creative process for their rugged and bittersweet take on mature emo. Even had Crash Of Rhinos not paused for seven years, Logbook might still have taken fifteen years to reach completion.
The band’s confidence in their third LP stems from an awareness of its stakes: yes, it’s an album 13 years in the making and bound to be described as “highly anticipated” by anyone who heard Knots. But the project was pursued primarily for the band itself. Moreover, the group’s greatest triumphs have often been symbolic rather than commercial. To drill down a little, Knots was the first emo revival record to escape the confines of Tumblr, Reddit and other online ecosystems that had sustained the term for more than five years. The release prompted Pitchfork to view emo in a more positive light for the first time since… Low Level Owl, maybe? Crash Of Rhinos subsequently attracted attention from Stereogum and Grantland, outlets that had previously overlooked Joyce Manor and Algernon Cadwallader. In perhaps the most clearly time-stamped moment of Crash Of Rhinos joining the wider indie-rock discourse, How To Dress Well lent his voice to the acoustic Knots instrumental “Everything Is” on a mixtape prelude to his emo-leaning 2014 PBR&B opus What is This Heart?
Nevertheless, Crash Of Rhinos weren’t carried along by that rising tide. Even when the term “twinkle daddy” was flung about with a hint of embarrassment, it served as a compact label for a set of traits closely aligned with early-2010s emo bands. Crash Of Rhinos stood in opposition to most of those archetypes, drawing more from Constantines and Hot Water Music than Cap’n Jazz. They also skewed older than their Topshelf Records peers—old enough that several of their contemporaries had formed an instrumental math-rock outfit called the Jesus Years, complete with such era-appropriate instrumental post-rock titles (for example, “My Dancing? What The Fuck Are You On About?,” “I’d Steal A Horse For A Bottle Of Bacardi”). Mature enough to explain why they had two bassists “not out of some Ned’s Atomic Dustbin fandom” but to keep friends Paul Beal and Ian Draper in the band without swapping instruments.
They also weren’t from Chicago or Philadelphia, though Derby sits right at the geographic heart of England, which technically makes them the UK’s Midwest emo. Emo-friendly venues and solid bands dotted the island, but nothing quite broke through as a full-blown scene. Across their teens and early twenties, Derby’s punk circuit revolved around the Victoria Inn, a 150-capacity “music pub” that hosted Jade Tree and Deep Elm acts that wouldn’t pack the place like the fast-punk outfits that might have landed on Fat Wreck Chords. Crash Of Rhinos supported Algernon Cadwallader during their first UK tour in Sheffield, playing to a crowd of perhaps 60. “That was the show where [bassist Ian] Draper ended up crowd-surfing back through the window out into the back,” Cork laughs.
And, following the classic Midwest emo trajectory, they disbanded just as they were about to break through, although that logic is relative. Despite Knots’ buzz, they could still be playing to a dozen people in a modest European market and had yet to reach the US. A few years after touring with Braid, they even formed Holding Patterns, a project that functioned as Crash Of Rhinos with the same members. Cork initially attempted to mirror the complexity of his former band by layering guitars with a laptop and two looping pedals, only to realize he no longer belonged to Crash Of Rhinos. “I remember halfway through a song, Oli [Craven] stopped, hurled his drumsticks at the wall, and yelled, ‘F— this.’” Demonstrating their maturity once more, Cork, Craven and Draper began shaping Holding Patterns in the mould of Sugar’s Copper Blue, morphing Crash Of Rhinos into a formidable power-trio on their 2019 debut Dust.
Holding Patterns went on hiatus when the Italian label Legno reached out to collaborate on a 10th-anniversary reissue of Distal, Crash Of Rhinos’ 2011 debut. According to Cork, the band agreed to a couple of live dates to lay that era to rest. “But almost instantly we all concluded, ‘What’s the point of doing a nostalgia gig?’” he recalls. “It annoys me when bands come back, play songs from 20 years ago, and offer nothing new.”
Although the Holding Patterns trio kept their collaborative energy alive, Beal and guitarist/vocalist Richard “Biff” Birkin remained unsure how they fit into a refreshed version of their former unit. “I remember those first jams where we blasted demos through the PA in the rehearsal room, and everyone looked at each other like, ‘You go first, man. I’m not doing it,’” Cork recalls. And it was Draper—the quietest member—who finally broke the silence. “He sat there composing lyrics, listened back and forth, and then walked up to the mic and absolutely crushed all four of us,” Beal says. “Jesus Christ, what is this?”
After the false start in 2016, what finally brought Crash Of Rhinos back together?
CORK: There were certainly people saying, “If you ever want a gig, just reach out.” So we set up a period of practice where we relearned Knots and Distal over two weeks, and we had a blast. But we all agreed from the outset, “This will be a record.” We wouldn’t mention it to anyone until it existed as a finished release. At the end of that day, we booked a low-cost rehearsal room, and the operator suggested a residential space for rent. “Do you know any bands who’d want that?” Yes, us, we’ll take it.
BIRKIN: It felt like a sign from the universe that we’d chosen correctly.
BEAL: That ties back to what we were saying earlier. Other times we tried something, the timing wasn’t right. But this time we were all aligned. We preferred keeping things private and simply focusing on writing. It felt a bit like revisiting Distal, since no one knew we were doing it; we were doing it for ourselves and for the pleasure of creating something anew.
And how did that feed into the themes of Logbook?
BIRKIN: What ends up in the songs often reveals itself after the fact. For me, it’s about coming to terms with a life stage when events start occurring on a larger scale. People pass away, perspectives shift, and values are reshaped by fatherhood or mental health. There’s a track called “Exercise In Memory” where we began by writing about a Derby hotel where a woman lived alone for fifteen years before she died and the place was subsequently torn down. It’s about ideals and lost love, and life taking a turn for the worse, while still clinging to a dream.
There are shows booked, but is touring a possibility?
CORK: We’re doing a short Italian run with three gigs on the horizon. But a full 30-day road trip? It’s hard to imagine how we’d pull that off.
BEAL: Not a chance.
CORK: We should keep things to brief, fruitful bursts.
BIRKIN: That’s been the guiding philosophy for this version of Crash—do it only if it’ll be worthwhile. Don’t slog through a 15-hour drive for a subpar show just to perform. If our energy or enthusiasm is limited, we’ll direct it toward the right moments.
CORK: Every show needs to be within a 30-minute radius of home.
BEAL: We’re basically like Stanley Kubrick, stubbornly refusing to go anywhere.
Has there been any thought that after coming back from a decade-plus pause and releasing that first record, the band might follow with another within six months? Do you foresee that here?
BEAL: There are one or two unused tracks left after twenty years of collaboration, but another rush-release isn’t in the cards. It’ll probably be a decade before we undertake another project.
