When the world was opening again up after the pandemic, Christian Smith, higher often known as Crankdat, discovered himself contemplating strolling away from music altogether.
At that time, he’d been touring professionally since 2017 after dropping out of faculty to pursue music full-time. However after being dropped by his company and watching bookings sluggish in an business nonetheless adjusting to life post-global shutdown, he discovered himself questioning every little thing.
It was 2022 and the digital dance music business felt prefer it had reset. Momentum was laborious to return by.
“I think my time’s up, maybe it’s time to just look at what’s next for me in life,” Smith remembers considering in a candid interview with EDM.com. “Maybe I don’t want to do anything in entertainment at all anymore. Maybe I want to go do something completely different.”
c/o Press
An inflection level got here that summer season after a pivotal dialog together with his supervisor, Mike Lisanti, who challenged him to commit to simply six extra months and provides it every little thing he had. “You’ve been giving it a hundred percent this whole time,” he stated Lisanti instructed him on the time. “But give it 110%. Give it 120%.”
So he did. “If you’re going to quit, who gives a shit anyway?” Smith recalled listening to. “Just throw everything you have at the wall and let’s see what shakes. So that’s pretty much what I did.”
That mindset shift was a turning level for the rising dubstep famous person, who stopped worrying about what others within the business may suppose. He as an alternative began taking artistic dangers, they usually began to repay.
With perfectionism now not looming, Crankdat’s early comeback was in full power. TikTok, as soon as a platform he averted, turned the important thing that reignited every little thing. He launched a remix video sequence, posted weekly content material and stayed consistently seen on the platform “until people couldn’t get away from me,” he jokes.
The experiment labored as his channel ballooned to over 1 million followers, rising his fan base organically whereas reintroducing him to the EDM neighborhood. “It felt like I used to be beginning over, however with expertise this time,” Smith says.
By early-2023, the Crankdat project exploded with “STFU,” a dubstep smash presently on the precipice of 10 million Spotify streams. The viral hit helped rework Smith’s burnout into the sensation of ahead movement.
His cult following started translating over to the reside music area, culminating in a sold-out doubleheader on the famed Hollywood Palladium and a landmark set at North America’s largest EDM pageant, EDC Las Vegas, which turned the most-attended efficiency within the historical past of its beloved bassPOD stage.
Since then, he’s been on a tear: a sold-out North American tour, “GET CRANKED!”; a shock look to shut out Coachella’s storied Do LaB stage; a coveted night-time slot at Extremely Music Pageant’s twenty fifth anniversary; and a pair of DJ units at EDC Las Vegas.
Smith is now rolling right into a jam-packed summer season of pageant units at Bonnaroo, Electrical Forest, Tomorrowland and HARD Summer time, amongst many others. Nonetheless, the North Star of his resurgence hasn’t been the high-profile gigs, however his deep connection to his followers.
“We talk about it every single week,” he says. “I say that line more than any other sentence in my entire life: fan experience is the number one priority.”
That philosophy has formed each side of his reside present. On the Palladium, he debuted “Middle Fingers Up” (MFU), an enormous pair of flame-throwing center fingers tied to the lore of “STFU.” What began as a one-off turned a signature showpiece, later showing at a secret present at Brooklyn’s Beneath the Ok Bridge Park.
c/o Press
However that was simply part one. For his 2025 tour, he retired the “MFU” stage design and constructed one thing totally new: the formidable “Crank Deck.” With its 360° stage design, the manufacturing brings followers in as shut as potential—actually.
At every present, Smith and his group hand out Charlie and the Chocolate Manufacturing facility-style “Golden Tickets” to diehard followers in GA, usually these decked out in Crankdat jerseys or merch. The particular passes grant entry to an elevated space onstage so followers can expertise the reveals alongside their charismatic headliner.
This tour additionally marks Smith’s first major-budget manufacturing, the event of which was “hands-on in the literal sense,” he says. He flew in early to tour stops, labored alongside his crew at 9am load-ins and generally even constructed stage parts together with his VJ simply minutes earlier than doorways opened. Balancing large-scale manufacturing with this boots-on-the-ground power is what makes Crankdat’s reveals really feel private, even because the rooms maintain getting greater.
Developed particularly together with his followers in thoughts, the “Crank Deck” is full with immersive lighting parts and headbang-ready railings, infrastructure he known as “really complicated.”
“Securing railings onto decking, because we wanted the railings to be headbang-able, we wanted the kids to be able to go ape-shit on those things,” Smith explains. “And that’s actually really hard to do.”
One other key addition? Lasers. A lot of lasers.
Smith spent numerous time contemplating how the dispersion of lasers would make his followers really feel, regardless of the place they’re within the crowd. “It is more than just seeing them,” he says. They’ve to be going over their head in order that they’ll search for they usually’re like, ‘Holy shit.'”
But the connection doesn’t end when the lasers shut down. Through it all, a few things have stayed the same: build fearlessly and never take the crowd for granted.
“That’s actually my favourite factor to do,” Smith says of fans tagging him in videos. “Simply laying in my resort room and tapping by all of the tags I get. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to watching my very own present. Telephones decide up the group reactions, particularly throughout huge SFX moments. That is what I need to really feel. That’s the model of the present I care about essentially the most.”
And there’s plenty more new music on the way.
“I’ve extra authentic music than I’ve had mainly prior to now two years mixed,” Smith confirms. “It is going to come out this 12 months, which goes to be enjoyable.”
Follow Crankdat:
Instagram: instagram.com/crankdat
TikTok: tiktok.com/@crankdat
X: x.com/crankdat
Facebook: facebook.com/crankdat
Spotify: spoti.fi/3l8FXz0
