Expect the best when Crash Karma lands Friday

Decades of hard rocking talent are coming to town in the guise of a Canadian megaband that formed only two years ago. Crash Karma consists of some of the country’s best and strongest musicians and this will be its first gig in this city, although its members have been around here before.

The band is made up of singer Edwin (previously of I Mother Earth), drummer Jeff Burrows (from The Tea Party), bassist Amir Epstein (from Zygote) and guitarist Mike Turner (nine-year veteran of Our Lady Peace).

It was Epstein who made the first move when he was talking to a friend about wanting to work with Edwin. It took some convincing and pulling with Burrows and Turner on board to finally convince the singer but in the end, it all settled into a solid army of rock gods.

“A couple of months into the project, I realized that we really did have something here,” Edwin said. “I could identify elements of all four of our previous bands but they were uniquely gelling to form a new sound. Whether it’s a subtle suggestion from the old bands or an obvious one, it worked and the combination sounded really good together. I guess I started getting excited then.”

Turner himself is pretty excited at the dynamic the forceful foursome share.

“So far, it’s awesome, to be totally honest!” he gushed over the phone from his office at The Pocket music studio in Toronto. “Burrows is such a powerhouse! You get so much energy off of him and Amir is toe-to-toe as a bass player. Ed’s voice… c’mon, hello? We’ve been doing Levitate recently and just to hear that intro ‘FEE-L HEAV-Y,’ it’s like, ‘Yes! Actually, Ed, when you do that I do feel heavy! Thanks for that!’”

New bands often struggle to find an identity in a crowded and diverse field of musical sounds but Crash Karma is doing just fine. Not even the lacklustre music industry has been too bad for the guys.

“It’s been a difficult summer for touring but we’ve been lucky enough to get a bunch of good dates. The benefit of being a band that’s got some providence and history is two-fold: one, you’ve got material to draw from and two, you’ve got people that know what they’re doing. It’s been a ton of fun!”

The music itself is massive and hits you from the first song straight through to the last. Heavy and melodic, it has the kind of sound you just can’t stumble onto. This is a craft but Turner comes across as having way too much fun to be considered an uptight career rock god.

“After everything that I and the other guys have each done, we’re just grateful to still be doing this. It is a great job; it’s more than that for all of us. It is our job only because we’re making a bit of money at it but it’s also what we are,” he said. “You don’t say, ‘I do musician.’ No. I am a musician. Being allowed to be that in a concrete way, if you’re not grateful of that, you’re a total dick.”