Las Vegas hard rock breakouts, Crash Midnight, have dropped their third of four brand new singles for 2021 with "Blackout" – a searing rock anthem that will be echoing this fall throughout Las Vegas - where the band has established itself as the highest-drawing independent rock act.

The band is partnering with the NHL's Las Vegas Golden Knights to have the new single featured during games this season. Combined with the launch of a Crash Midnight signature "Smash Midnight Blackout" whiskey smash cocktail at Corduroy (the coolest rock bar in downtown Vegas), fans will be getting a steady dose of Crash Midnight everywhere they go in the Entertainment Capital of the World!

"Blackout" is a raw, "punks in the street" homage to the band's formative years running in the Boston club scene.  It came together during the year-long shutdown of live entertainment, which gave the band an opportunity to really look back on where things all started and use some of that as inspiration for a few of their new songs. "Blackout" took on a whole new meaning for the band though when the Las Vegas Strip literally went dark during the height of the pandemic.

Vocalist Shaun Soho tells BraveWords about “Blackout”: "This song is a total live song.  It's got so much energy and the chorus just knocks you on your ass.  It all came out of us reminiscing a little during the lockdowns about the freedom we sort of took for granted in the early days of this band - running through bars in Boston and getting into all the shit we did back there where we didn't really give a thought to consequences or what would happen next. When stuff gets shut down like it was this past year, it makes you appreciate times like that more. 

“I had some fragments of lyrics along those lines, sort of a 'punks in the street' vibe that I hadn't placed to a song yet and then we hit on this riff that straight up embodied that attitude.  It all came together quickly from there and our co-producer, Tristan Hardin, definitely put in a lot of work to keep the song edgy, but still have this gigantic feel to it.  We're psyched that our hometown NHL team, the Vegas Golden Knights, dug the song and are going to be using it during games all season long. VGK President, George McPhee, was awesome in getting us connected with their people to make this happen.  Those guys are such a great organization with everything they do for the Las Vegas community out here that it's hard not to become a huge fan of them and this is just another reason."

Soho on the Blackout cocktail: "We became good friends with the guys at this cool rock n' roll bar in downtown Vegas called Corduroy. We were telling them about one of our favorite drinks back in Boston - this thing called a whiskey smash - that we used to drink all the time down by Kenmore Square. Nobody out here really made it though. A whiskey smash is pretty much just bourbon, muddled mint and lemon with some simple syrup, but these guys came up with a whole new take on it with some of their homemade ginger beer, a dash of bitters, and activated charcoal to make it jet-black. Then they serve it in a glass skull mason jar so you're basically drinking this badass black skull cocktail. We're calling it the ‘Smash Midnight Blackout’ so you can check it out on their menu when you're in town."

BraveWords was able to sample the Smash Midnight Blackout and came away impressed with the blend of ingredients and presentation of the drink. The ginger beer adds a vivid taste to the template of a whiskey smash and is highly recommended to try when in Sin City.

Crash Midnight will be doing a special acoustic performance October 22 at the infamous Sand Dollar in Las Vegas to celebrate the single's release. The band is also announcing a New Year’s Eve show with Quiet Riot (featuring the return of original member Rudy Sarzo!) at Fremont Country Club in downtown Las Vegas. Find tickets at Eventbrite.