"We owed the label half a million dollars. There was no way we're gonna pay that back." Crown Lands talk music biz, 19-minute songs, and why they'd rather be killed by robots than zombies

Crown Lands portrait.

Crown Lands know well the cost of artistic integrity. In 2020, the Ontario duo – Cody Bowles (vocals/drums) and Kevin Comeau (guitar/keyboards/bass) – were the hottest tip in blues rock, backed by Universal Canada for their self-titled debut and toasted as Breakthrough Group at Canada’s Juno Awards. But when the pair decided – on 2023’s appropriately titled Fearless – that their hearts beat to a proggier time signature, the industry turned cold on them.

Now, as they release new album Apocalypse, they tell us they prefer to be on the bottom rung of a ladder they actually want to climb, rather than a higher rung of one they don’t.