This Friday night, Sacramento is in for a real treat. Five of the city’s favorite punk bands are set to take the stage at Luigi’s Slice Fungarden for a double release show, headlined by The Croissants. Following up on their split 7” with Union Hearts, released by Asian Man Records, “We’re In the Basement” is now available from local label Hella Mad Records. Tube was able to sit down with these three goofballs and chat about the band’s humble beginnings, what they’ve been up to over the last few months, and this week’s upcoming show.
For those who don’t know, The Croissants are made up of Hans White on bass, Chris “Gabba” Sabatoni on guitar and vocals, and Heather Crocker on drums. Hans got his start in the Sacramento music scene as the unofficial fourth member of Boats!, making their show posters, doing layouts for their records, but wasn’t yet playing any instruments. At the same time, Gabba was drumming for The Enlows. The two met on an Enlows/Boats! Northern Pacific tour, during which time Gabba noticed that “they always pushed [Hans] around hella hard and I thought ‘what the fuck are these guys doing pushing the coolest dude around?’” On the ride back from the tour Gabba asked Hans if he’d learn how to play bass so they could form their own band. Hans said “Sure” and the two set out to form their own Power-Pop band.
However, after several practices, Gabba said ”It became more and more apparent that we were bad at being ‘light.’ Hans never played bass before, so he learned bass for Croissants. This is my first time picking up a guitar and singing in front of people… We sucked at being ‘light’ so gradually I’d turn my distortion up a little bit more and a little bit more until we pretty much turned into full blown Ramones and Head sounding band.” Soon after their first drummer Steele Strella left the band, The Croissants picked up Justin Pine. Gabba said “Justin was great, I feel like he was part of the learning experience, he taught us how to be tough.” The trio played two dozen or so shows together before Justin left to front his own band The Strange Party (who are celebrating their Tape Release from Pleasant Screams Cassettes on Friday as well).
That’s when Heather came in. “I’m the Chocolate Croissant!” She says she, “went to a “Jammin with Gabba” session, we were playing around, I’m playing super basic saying this is what I’ve got, and I guess that’s all they needed. A week later, Gabba said ‘So would you like to be in the Croissants?’ Yeah that sounds cool, I wasn’t sure if I was trying out or playing around.” Heather proved to be the toughest Croissant of them all.
As Gabba tells it: “At that last Joyce Manor show, we came to Low Brau after, where there’s a bunch of people. We were out there on the patio, Heather was a telling story, and this dude tells Heather to shut the fuck up, and it ended with her up on top of a table telling him to shut the fuck up. [The guys in] Joyce Manor were asking ‘what the fuck, should we do something? Is this cool?’ and we said ‘yeah this shit is, like, totally typical.’” Just a couple hours before that, The Croissants had played their most successful show as a band, opening for the popular national act. Gabba said “We did well in front of a really large crowd of teens, which I think is just awesome. We’re just used to playing for our friends but we’re finally playing for people we don’t know, in our own town no less!”
This Friday should be another step in the right direction for The Croissants, as well as all of the bands on the bill. Gabba said “All the bands that are playing, we’ve all been in bands with each other before, plus we’re friends but we all sound different, so we’ll each bring our own draw and musical flavor.” He’s absolutely right. RAD, Crude Studs and The Moans round out this show with The Strange Party and that is sure to make for a pleasantly eclectic group of punk rockers in attendance.