Essential 8: Mad Crush

Mad Crush. Photo by Chris Florio.

Hailing from Chapel Hill, N.C., Mad Crush brings together five talented players whose previous credits are widely varied. Drummer Chuck Garrison started as indie-legend Superchunk’s drummer. Violinist Laura Thomas has worked with a bevy of heavyweights, from Ray Charles, Jay Z, and Judy Collins to acclaimed R.E.M. producer Mitch Easter, and Hilary Hahn. Singer John Elderkin’s songwriting has been praised by SPIN, Billboard, Jon Pareles of The New York Times, R.E.M. producer Don Dixon, and Cashbox. Ingenious electric guitarist Mark Whelan is a stalwart of the local music scene, having played in The Popes and The Veldt, among many other bands. And newcomer Joanna Sattin brings the hot, remarkable vocal delivery that gives the band it's “certain something.”

Mad Crush, the album (November 16th), is replete with lyrics inspired by Elderkin’s desire “to get to the heart of what matters—how we deal with getting what we want in life, and also how we deal with losing it.” In this way, songs that first appear to be about romance are also roadmaps to much grander stories, stories that are saucy, heartwarming, and tragically poetic. Here, Elderkin, answers his Essential 8 and talks inspiration, collaboration, success, and more.

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​Did you have a musical mentor? If so, who was it and how did they influence you?

My teenage friend and first bandmate Steve Ruppenthal was my mentor. Before I met Steve, I liked to play loud and fast with a lot of shouting—I had no sense of subtlety. Steve listened sympathetically, then suggested that less can be more. He showed me how dynamics worked—that the wild moments I craved had to be crafted and earned. He also showed me what it meant to be cool. He was modest despite his brilliance, he loved celebrating the talent in others, and he didn’t seek outside approval. He died young, but he wrote a lifetime worth of great songs, and you can find them by searching for The Popes and The Lovely Lads.

With “My Pre-Existing Conditions,” what was the “a-ha” moment when you knew the song was completed and perfect?

“My Pre-Existing Conditions” didn’t come easily. I’ll give you the whole scoop. Yes, I got the phrase from political news, but I wanted to avoid that angle and instead write a confession from the point of view of someone recognizing his flaws—his “conditions”—and wondering if that would keep him from being loved. 

I liked the conceit a lot, but I couldn’t figure out how to deliver a list of issues without it becoming dreary and self-pitying. When I started filling in holes with funny and preposterous flaws, the song really came together. “Leaving up the toilet seat,” “relying on teeth whitening,” etc., turned out to be more than just placeholders. I realized those lines might make listeners wonder how self-aware this singer actually was, and I liked that wrinkle. 

A nice fix, but it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t leave the song as an obscure joke, I wanted something crushing to justify such a long, detailed confession. So I kept wrestling and wondering if I’d bitten off more than I could chew. It happens sometimes. I’d written the song on guitar, and I was stuck, so I switched to working on the piano and right away I hit on the notion of the singer totally exposing his true wish, beyond both the jokes and legitimate issues, by offering to love someone “exactly as you are,” pre-existing conditions and all, and in return hoping he’d get that from someone in return. Totally exposed. And ta-da, the rest was details.

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​Where do you draw inspiration from when writing? 

I used to write about my own feelings and situations, but after a while I just wasn’t very interesting any longer! Now I think of songs as short stories or character sketches. You might say I’ve moved from the John Lennon approach to the Ray Davies method. I get my best ideas the way lots of writers do—I listen to friends talk and I watch people without letting them know, and inevitably they reveal problems and frustrations that make for songs that feel real to me.

What’s the best advice you have ever gotten from another musician?

Write every day! I used to wait around for inspiration, but that leaves finding good songs to chance. When I started writing seriously, a much older musician friend explained that if you write every day, you’ll write more, which increases your chances for writing something good. And if you’re writing every day and inspiration hits, you’ll be ready for it. You’ll have the chops the inspiration deserves. And, if not every day, make a schedule so that you’ll have regular, planned times to get your brain working that way. He was right.

What has been your biggest success?

I wrote two songs for playwright Karen Zacarias’ hit “The Book Club Play,” which opened in 2011 and is still performed around the country. 

Who would you love to collaborate with?

The Avett Brothers. I think we are songwriting cousins who haven’t yet met. I’d like to sit down with the aim of writing a heartbreak song unlike anything we’ve ever heard before and see what happens. 

Have you met any of your heroes? If so, how did it go?

I’ve met and become friendly with both Don Dixon and Mitch Easter, who produced the first R.E.M. records. Like a lot of southern kids in the 1980s, my life was forever changed by that music. The songs and sounds were so different from anything I’d heard before that, nearly all at once, I rethought what kind of place the world was—my mind got blown. I bought a guitar and harangued my friends into forming a band. If my teenage self had known that one day I’d work with and become friendly with Don and Mitch, I couldn’t have handled it. Good thing I’d been around the block a few times before getting to know them. They’re both brilliant and open and lovely people. I’m a lucky guy.

You’re currently based out of Chapel Hill, but you grew up in Charlotte? How did that shape you as an artist?

At the time, Charlotte didn’t have much of a music or arts scene and the radio stations weren’t adventurous, to put it mildly. The kids who knew about punk and indie rock all hung out at the same record shops and went to the same all-age shows. But there weren’t many of us, and I think that made me and my friends assume we’d always be a small group of outsiders, which had a deep, formative effect on how I felt about being in a band and writing my own songs—musicians are true believers willing to fight the good fight even in the face of impossible odds.

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