Crossfade

Crossfade took the hard rock world by storm when they burst out of their native South Carolina last year with their self-titled debut on Columbia/FG Records, a take-no-prisoners affair that featured the smash hit "Cold." Life hasn't slowed down much for the four young men of Crossfade since. Fortunately for us, however, bassist Mitch James and drummer James Branham managed to put down their instruments long enough to give us their lists of their ten favorite songs, which shed some light on the band's eclectic list of influences.

We'll start with Mitch's list, which is heavy on the hard stuff but does have a few surprises.

1. Metallica - "Battery"
"The first song I ever heard by Metallica. Became my destiny to play music for a living after hearing it. Hard, fast, and angry. Just the way I felt every day during that time. Especially the "hard" and "angry" part. I WAS like fourteen."

2. Michael Manring - "Crazy Legs"
"The coolest bass player EVER! Every time I hear this song, I question why I even try to play the bass."

3. Steely Dan - "Black Friday"
"The smoothest band ever. A little jazz, a little rock n roll. Easy to listen to in any situation."

4. Coroner - "Mistress of Deception"
"Best thing out of Sweden since the world renowned bikini team... and meatballs!"

5. Cypress Hill - "Hits From the Bong"
"Still amazed that they wrote a song about smoking pot, and didn't even mask it as a song about their one true love."

6. Testament - "Trial By Fire" "Oldy but a goody! How can you not love a song sang by someone named Chuck Billy."

7. Alter Bridge - "The End is Here"
"Amazing, brooding guitars and Myles' voice. Makes me close my eyes and move my head ever so slightly."

8. Queen - "Play the Game"
"Hell, it's Queen. What else needs to be said."

9. System of a Down - "Suite-Pee"
"I heard this song on a road trip a year before anyone had heard of SOD. All I could say was 'what in the f*ck was that?' and then 'I love it!'"

10. Gene Simmons - "Radioactive"
"I had Kiss posters in my room at six, much to the chagrin of my very Christian, very straightlaced mother. I guess she should have seen my future in the rock n roll Devil's Society way back then."

James gave us his list in David Letterman, countdown style, so don't let the suspense kill you as you read to #1.

10. Korn - Freak on a Leash
"I love this song! It reminds me of all the fun (and kinky) things I do with my wife!"

9. Kiss - "Detroit Rock City"
"This was my first exposure to glam rock. I’ve been playing music ever since."

8. Clutch - "The Mob Goes Wild!"
"This is a high energy song I love hearing right before I get on stage."

7. Queensryche - NM-156
"I heard this song first in the eighties and I realized that rock could be technical and still RAWK! I’m such a geek! LOL"

6. Aerosmith and Run-D.M.C. - "Walk This Way"
"See we can all rock together! Rap and Rock…Can live and play together and still have a great time doing it!"

5. Placebo - "Pure Morning"
"This song, for me, restored my faith in rock and roll in the nineties."

4. Rush - "Tom Sawyer"
"Holy bass clefs batman how do they do that? I can’t say enough about this band. All of these guys are incredible players."

3. Maroon 5 - "Sunday Morning"
"These guys are great! The mixture of pop and rock grooves this band produces are addictive and intoxicating. Anyone for cocktails? I heard 'Harder to Breathe' and the cover band I was in at the time immediately learned it!"

2. Cheap Trick - "ELO Kiddies"
I’ve always been a fan of Cheap Trick. The antics of Rick Neilson with all his crazy guitars, definitely some cool eye candy mixed with some cool music and you get a great band.

1. Weird Al Yankovic - "The Alterative Polka"
"I’m definitely the clown in the band so I love to laugh and make other people around me laugh as well."

Crossfade's debut album is available now in the ARTISTdirect Store.

Hard rock/heavy metal band Crossfade is based in Columbia, SC, where its members reside. The group came together in the late '90s with the merging of singer/guitarist Ed Sloan with bassist/backup singer Mitch James and drummer Brian Geiger as the power trio the Nothing. Sloan, a Columbia native, had begun taking piano lessons at eight and been attracted to grunge and heavy metal music, joining his first band, Darkchilde, in the eighth grade. By the time he began attending the University of South Carolina and majoring in computer science, however, he was looking for new musicians to play with. Geiger, also a native of Columbia, had played drums since his childhood and was a member of another local band, Celestian Slant. For James, who took up the bass after becoming enamored of the instrument at a David Lee Roth concert, the Nothing was his first band. The group added singer and club DJ Tony Byroads, who had grown up in Buffalo, NY, playing in a band called Final Wave in high school, then moved to Columbia after graduation.

The resulting quartet renamed itself Sugardaddy Superstar. While building up a local following, the band recorded in its own Sugarstar Studio. It first gained recognition beyond its region when it attracted the interest of the Los Angeles A&R company Taxi and Los Angeles promoter Chris Long (who took over as manager), leading to an L.A. showcase in March 2002. That, in turn, led to a signing to the Earshot subsidiary of Columbia Records early the next year. The band then retooled its self-released album, Cold, under the auspices of mixer/engineer Randy Staub and renamed itself Crossfade. The revised album was released by Columbia as Crossfade in April 2004; the same year James Branham replaced Geiger behind the drum kit. Its first single, "Cold," did extremely well on modern rock radio (spending a staggering 65 weeks on the Active Rock chart) and, by August 2005, the album was certified platinum. By that time, the group was back to being a trio after the departure of a newly married Byroads. They continued touring in support of the record, including several overseas gigs the following spring for active personnel at various military bases. "Invincible" hit the airwaves in June 2006 to usher in the release of Crossfade's follow-up effort, Falling Away, released in late August. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide