“Crap Engine as a phrase is meant to refer to cultures of consumerism, mass production and marketing.  The world as we know it is filled with excess of objects, images and information.  The musical group has always been about embracing, critiquing and striving to rise above this environment.   

While music is reduced at many times to background noise in our lives, we still try harder to produce exciting, thoughtful and critical material.  It is based on the society around us as well as personal experiences.  Love, friends, the United States, hipsters, unhipsters, light and dark are all topics of affection and criticism.     

Traditional song structures are used and stretched.  Lyrics and melodies and meant to be provocative yet understandable and catchy.  We want you to go home with a song in your head.  Intros are short, solos are few and every song would fit on a 45 rpm record.  Influences move from Cole Porter to Sam Cooke to Carole King to John Lennon to David Bowie to Funkadelic to Doo Wop to Peter Tosh to Prince and back again.” 

Crap Engine existed from the fall of 2002 until the summer of 2006 and formed and performed primarily in Chicago IL with some early shows in Kalamazoo MI.  At the end of 2004 they released their self-titled debut album on Fresh Produce Records.

The main lineup for the band was Justin Petertil (vocals, guitar, songs) now of Love Raid , Seth Vanek (drums, vocals), Scott Masson (bass, vocals)  now of OFFICE and Matt Kohnhorst (baritone guitar).  William Miller (drums) was an early member in Kalamazoo MI and John Fee (bass) took over for Masson towards the end.   

Quotes from the press:

Time Out Chicago “As a general rule, funny band names are meant to distract you from a band’s poor music.  But we’ll be damned-Crap Engine sounds pretty great to our ears.  Its demos are full of wonderful, cocky pop vignettes that rest somewhere between the Shins and the sunnier side of the Kinks.  If this group sounds this good live you can go home and tell your friends you’ve heard a next big thing.”

Richard Milne (WXRT Local Anesthetic) “Crap Engine, on local...still don’t know if I can say it, I may not have a job tomorrow…really interesting stuff here…I like it a lot”

Jim DeRogatis (Chicago Sun-Times) “The group tries a little too hard to sound drunk and disorderly in the venerated Replacements tradition. Like I said, it's a great name, though.”

Theresa Killebrew (Badresa.com) “Lyrics about the rock and roll lifestyle and a new dance craze just waiting to happen guarantee that you will listen to this record like an aural drug”

Photo by Brea Murphy