Crazy P Founders announce debut album “World Elephant Day” from their White Elephant Project

A project forged over ten years in Crazy P’s Nottingham studio, blending dancefloor DNA with intimate musicianship.

From the what-the-hell vantage point of 2025, the early 2010s feel like a different era looser, less frantic, still unclaimed by the algorithm and its hunger for attention. Back then, on Nottingham’s Derby Road, among cob shops, gentlemen’s outfitters and dusty wine merchants, three musicians entered into Crazy P’s studio for a weekend without intention. No deadlines, no label talk, no tactical planning. Just instruments, curiosity, and a shared desire to see what might happen if they pressed record.

Those musicians were Chris “Hot Toddy” Todd and Jim “Ron Basejam” Baron – the founding nucleus of Crazy P – joined by Ben “BJ” Smith, half of downtempo duo Smith & Mudd. “We didn’t really know what we were,” Chris says. “The first few things felt like us leaning on what we usually did… but after a while, something clicked.” That click became the beginning of White Elephant.

Over the next decade, the music evolved slowly, shaped by friendship and freedom rather than pressure. The result is their debut album, a record that feels lived-in, unhurried, and deeply alive.

It carries the glow of long connection, the thrill of musical play, and the awareness of time quietly passing. “It’s a tricycle,” Ben jokes, “three wheels in perfect balance.”

The band’s name arrived later, suggested by a friend. “There’s an ironic sense to it,” Jim admits.

“Probably rooted in self-doubt.” Yet the music is anything but doubtful. From the opening bars of All Night, with its bone-dry disco drums, 70s swagger and a flash of liberated sax, there’s a confidence that feels earned. Ben describes its genesis simply: “a bassline that bloomed into an ode to pleasure and recognition.” It’s playful, sensual, and surprisingly sincere, the sound of three seasoned musicians rediscovering the joy of exploring a new groove.

Elsewhere, the album’s immediate infectiousness arrives in Warriors, a track that emerged almost fully formed. “Before we knew it, it existed,” Jim recalls. With its glossy harmonies and buoyant 80s pulse, it could soundtrack a sunlit joyride or a neon dancefloor. “We decided to embrace it,” Ben says. “If it wanted to be an 80s banger, let it.” That willingness to follow instinct rather than steer it defines the album’s creative spirit.

Beneath its brightness lies a subtle emotional depth. “You can’t have true optimism without a little melancholy,” Jim reflects. That duality threads through the record, giving it depth. It’s not nostalgic for the sake of it; it’s reflective, aware of the years lived, the innocence lost, and the perspective gained.

This is most evident on Breathe, built around Jim’s piano motif. Though written long before the pandemic, listeners often project this meaning onto it. “It means something different now,” Ben says. That timelessness is part of the record’s quiet power: the songs shift as the world shifts.

Across the album, humanity is the constant. The pastoral shimmer of Take All My Money, the chiming uplift of Lovely Day, the sun-warmed intimacy of Still Stills, these are songs crafted by people who’ve lived, danced, mellowed and returned to music not as an obligation but as a home. “When something’s your job,” Chris says, “it can get heavy. This was the opposite.” Ben agrees: “It was never urgent. Sometimes ideas sat on a shelf for years. And that was fine.”Some tracks are over a decade old; others are newer. Yet somehow, they belong together. Chris admits he worried about the variety, but when they finally listened as a whole, the pieces aligned.

What binds the record isn’t genre but chemistry. Trust. Ease. The rare creative state where roles blur and egos dissolve. “No one was precious,” Chris says. Their “Percy Personals” process – taking tracks home to reshape them privately before reassembling them together – became a form of mutual respect in action.

If All Night and Warriors are the album’s bright exhalations, Sail With Me is its deep breath. Long unfinished, Ben finally completed it with Jim in a surprise effort to bring it home. The finished track glows with unguarded warmth, echoing the spirit of Crosby, Stills & Nash while sounding resolutely modern.

Throughout, the musicianship is tangible. Real instruments, real rooms, real voices. Yet the album never feels retrograde. It’s grounded, present, alive, dancefloor DNA mingling with tender harmonies, organs, saxophones and acoustic textures.

If the record has a theme, it’s time: how it softens, clarifies, and redefines. “We’ve probably lost some innocence,” Jim says. “But gained focus.” Ben laughs, “I’ve lost the rock-god arrogance I had at 30. Happy to see it go.”

White Elephant isn’t a side project. It’s a conversation between friends, between past and present, between what music was and what it can still mean. It’s the sound of three people discovering, once again, the quiet transcendence of making something purely because it feels good. Played loud, it glows; played softly, it breathes.

It’s music made for the joy of making it, and that joy radiates in every note.