Pre-order our exclusive neon pink vinyl variant of 7Seconds' long-awaited 'The Crew' reissue here.
As mentioned, the newly-launched Trust Records is in the process of giving much-deserved reissues to classic punk records, and details have just been announced for the reissue of 7Seconds' 1984 classic The Crew.
The album was remastered from the original analog tapes by producer David Gardner, and the vinyl reissue has been repackaged as a gatefold with new album artwork and comes with "20-page, full-color book on the oral history of the band from inception, through the making of The Crew," featuring "insights and anecdotes" from Ian MacKaye, Jello Biafra, Keith Morris, Damian Abraham, Brian Baker, Fat Mike, Roger Miret, BYO founders Mark and Sean Stern and more. The album's also coming to streaming services for the first time ever on June 25.
We've teamed up with Trust Records on an exclusive neon pink vinyl variant of the The Crew reissue, limited to just 500 copies, and there's also an option to bundle it with a very cool looking, new 7Seconds 'The Crew' tee. Pre-order yours here while they last. The record, book, and shirt look like this:
We included The Crew in a list of 15 ’80s punk albums that shaped the ’90s/’00s pop punk boom and said:
About 500 miles Northeast of the SoCal hardcore scene was Reno, Nevada band 7Seconds, who took a uniquely melodic approach to hardcore that would change the game forever. Kevin Seconds had a similarly snotty, bratty delivery to the other prominent hardcore bands of the time, and he still wasn't exactly Frank Sinatra, but he could carry a melody and he always made sure 7Seconds' songs were songs you could hum along to. Following some comparatively straightforward early EPs and demos, 7Seconds perfected this sound on their first proper full-length, 1984's The Crew. The album stuck to extremely short songs at whiplash-inducing speeds, but Kevin helped make these songs sound genuinely anthemic, and a hearty helping of "whoa-ohs" didn't hurt either. The Crew had a direct impact on the more melodic sides of the NYC youth crew scene and the DC emocore scene, and its influence could be heard in bigger '90s/'00s bands like The Bouncing Souls, H2O, and Rise Against, and indirectly in even bigger bands like Taking Back Sunday and Fall Out Boy. Even three and a half decades later, songs like "Young 'Til I Die," "The Crew," and "Not Just Boys Fun" (which, though 7Seconds were an all-male band, had an anti-sexism message that has also been influential within punk) still rival the more widely-loved bands 7Seconds helped pave the way for. The recording quality is rough, but it's easy to hear how the music was groundbreaking for its time and still sounds timeless today.
And if you don't believe us that The Crew is a stone cold classic, believe these people:
“7SECONDS’ ‘The Crew’ set the template” - JELLO BIAFRA (DEAD KENNEDYS)
“I first heard ‘The Crew’ not long after it was released and I loved the vibe: short, energetic and passionate” TONY HAWK
“‘Young till I Die’ was probably my favorite song on that album, because I had then, and still have now, a Peter Pan complex. I hated the idea that growing up was going to mean forfeiting a sense of joy, freedom and possibility in life.” - SHEPARD FAIREY (ARTIST / ACTIVIST, FOUNDER OF OBEY)
“7SECONDS is one of my favorite bands of all time” - DENNIS LYXZÉN (REFUSED)
“‘The Crew’ is one of the crucial albums documenting the early American Hardcore scene. It should be a mainstay inside any serious record collection.” - MATT PINFIELD (TV HOST & DJ)
“I always say just make it look like ‘The Crew’.” - FAT MIKE (NOFX)
The first song released to streaming from the remastered reissue is "Young Till I Die." Kevin Seconds says, "�������Young Until I Die’ was written in ’83. I was working at a casino and I remember writing the lyrics on the back of a Keno ticket. I was working this eight-hour shift as the guy that gave change out to people playing slot machines. The worst, most depressing job. The only thing that saved me was I was constantly writing lyrics on the back of these Keno tickets." Listen to it below.
Pick up our neon pink vinyl variant of The Crew in our shop, and while you're there, you can also pick up Trust Records' inaugural release, the new Circle Jerks Group Sex reissue, on limited splatter vinyl (and also pick up a Circle Jerks tee and the Circle Jerks skank man bobblehead)
We also just added a bunch of Fugazi and Minor Threat records to the shop, and some NOFX too.