A Brain Tumor and a Sick Chorus: Here's Turn to Crime's "Chasing"

To say that the past couple of years have been kinda bananas for Derek Stanton, the singer of Detroit's Turn to Crime, would be something of an understatement. We've been championing Derek's delightfully off-kilter strain of DIY indie since back in 2014 when he took us around Detroit, but the following year he released his second album Actions, and it was around this time that the frontman started losing hearing in his left ear. Naturally he went to a doctor and had hearing test, followed by an MRI which revealed a brain tumor.

"It was about a millimeter from being too big to remove and I had about a 50/50 chance of losing hearing and the movement on the left side of my face," he explains. Luckily he's OK now and the band's latest, fourth record Secondary, is imminent—out on February 3rd via Mugg & Bopp Records. Recorded in Derek's basement, a.k.a. his studio Molten Sound, "Chasing" is the first track from the album, a lo-fi, swaggering cut of indie rock with an unrelenting beat that provides the song's backbone throughout. Stanton comes off a bit Bowie in the quavering verses, and as he put it, it's got a chorus you won't want to end. It's premiering below.

"I didn't want to write a downer album about the fragility of life or anything too personal or autobiographical," he explains of the forthcoming full length. "What came out is an important (to me) outsider pop album with a sense of urgency. I think it's Turn to Crime's best album to date. It's also part of a ton of songs I wrote at the time. So, we have a few more albums just hanging out. We're trying to figure out what to do with everything, as I keep writing like crazy, but we're still doing the DIY thing."

Listen to "Chasing" below and catch them on tour next month.

Turn to Crime Tour Dates 

2.17 Cleveland, OH Euclid Tavern
2.18 Brooklyn, NY Sunnyvale
2.19 Richmond, VA Strange Matter
2.21 Winston-Salem, NC The Garage
2.22 Athens, GA The World Famous
2.23 Nashville, TN DRKMTTR
2.24 Indianapolis, IN Musical Family Tree
2.25 Chicago, IL The Hideout