The Crystal Method are heading back down under this month to show us what their new album, ‘Legion of Boom’, is all about. ITM’s Megs caught up with the boys for a candid chat about the past, present, and future, of The Crystal Method.
It’s been 7 years since your debut album “Vegas” what has changed musically for The Crystal Method in that period of time?
Well we put a record out in 2001, Tweekend, that sort of took us a little more into rock. We bought in Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine and Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots so that record had a little bit more of a rock edge to it but since then we have toured a lot we did a DJ mix CD, Community Service and then we kind of got back to our roots a little, back to basics, did a lot of clubs supporting Community Service and that really helped to inspire a lot of what was to come on Legion Of The Boom, tracks that were a little bit more stripped down, more focused on the bassline and beats and so I think that the combination of what we did with Tweekend and the people that we worked with and then getting out and DJing a little bit more and getting back to our roots has really helped bring together Legion and I think all those events helped to really put together a great record.
People would argue that you are first and foremost producers, do you feel this way?
Actually I would put DJ deep down on that list about 3rd or 4th, we are definitely a band, within that band we produce our own stuff and write and perform all our own stuff and DJing for us always sort of came last because we wanted to establish ourselves as a band, you know we came down to Australia and toured for Vegas we did a couple of shows playing live and then we came and did the Big Day Out and played that live so this will be the first time we come down and just DJ. DJing is something we have always enjoyed doing but we always felt that going out and performing as a group would help us solidify our status as a band and not necessarily as just DJ’s but we have definitely been getting into DJing more and financially it just makes sense to be able to come down and promote the record because you know when we go out on the road to play live its such a production. We take a lot of gear and lights and lots of people to help us put that show together and it takes a lot of the time so its just not always the financially sound thing to do, so going down to DJing and getting a chance to promote the record and talk to people down there is something that we are looking forward to doing.
Obviously you enjoy performing, do you have a preference between being in the studio and being behind the deck and in front of a crowd?
I think the timer ticks down on each one of them, you can only spend so much time in the studio before you get a bit of cabin fever and then you have to get out on the road. We really enjoy getting out and playing the songs we worked for so long on in the studio but then after a while your creative juices start flowing again and you feel the need to get back into lockdown and work in the studio environment. So each one we get a lot of enjoyment out of but for the most part they feed each other.
I’ve seen footage of the bomb shelter; I think you might have the coolest home studio ever, is that where you do most of your recording?
For this record we did all of our recording there and all the mixing and editing and also for Vegas and Tweekend both of those records were pretty much done exclusively at the bomb shelter. About 10 years ago we set this little environment for us in this little 2 car garage in Glendale and it has remained our little workspace for all of that time but we are looking to change things up a little bit and I think that’s what we are going to do for the next record, create a different environment for us to work in and see what that can do for us.
Do you think that will produce a different sound or a different feel?
I don’t know, it’s hard to say. It’s a little scary because we are very comfortable with what we hear in the studio and we really understand the sound that it produces so it’s going to be a Challenge to relocate, but it’s something that we are looking forward to doing.
You do a lot of remixing of tracks for other artists including Moby, Black Grape, and the Zen Cowboys, how does remixing other peoples songs compare to making your own?
Well in the early days we did a lot of remixes for the bands you mentioned but we have started cutting those down a little bit because basically when we go into the studio and sit in between the two speakers and work on something we cant help but put full effort into. A lot of time we’ll be spending a lot of time on remixing something for an artist and we feel that that maybe this time could be better spent making our own music, there’s still some remixes that come up, we’ve done Rage Against the Machine, Garbage, POD, Linkin Park and a couple of other big bands over the last couple of years, but now we are a bit more particular about our remix work and we like to spend more time working on our own stuff.
Now your name – is it true it is derived from a woman named Crystal whom you both had a crush on?
Well it was a girl that Ken was going out many, many years ago, like in 91 or 92 before we had formed the band. We were doing a lot of producing and remixing and stuff like that and we were working with this rapper and he was hanging at the studio and we were talking about how we were going to be going out, and he said, “oh when are you guys going?”, and Ken said something like, “as soon as Crystal gets here we’re going to go”, and he goes, “ohh the Crystal method”, and it is to this day probably the only clever thing that guy has ever said! We wrote it down and when we needed a name that was the one that popped the most when we said it so we went with it.
So can we go back to the beginning, what were you doing before “Now is the time” was released on the city of angels soundtrack? Was music earning you a living?
Well I moved to California in 1990 and we were doing a lot of studio work and that was paying the bills for a little while but we had a really expensive house off Melrose and there was a point where the work started to become a little lean and I went back to work. I was managing a video department and Ken was doing studio work, but yeah there were a few lean years when we really needed to get out and get other jobs. I didn’t quit my job until about 96.
And how did the two of you meet?
We met in Las Vegas. We were both working at the same grocery store and I had bought a drum machine into work one day and we started talking about music and Ken was working with this singer and I had started writing songs on my own that had vocals and we just came together.
On the track “trip like I do” there’s a female vocal, I read that it was some chick Scott met at a club and gave his number to who then rang up and left a strange message on his answering machine about tripping, is this true?
No, no, it’s actually for me a much worse story than that. It was a girl that I was seeing and I had gone over to her house and she was a little apprehensive about getting involved with someone that might break her heart again, so anyway we shared a hallucinogenic substance and after a while she started to feel a little strange and she asked if I would mind going home and she would give me a call tomorrow. Being the gentleman that I am I said ok, and then I went out and when I got home there was a message on my machine that was her sort of reflecting on her night. It was such an interesting couple of messages I took the tape and flipped it over, you know those old school answering machines with the regular cassettes? Yeah so I flipped it over and one day we were working on that track and we were saying how it needed a particular type of vocal in it, and I said, “oh wait what about that message”, and I grabbed it and we listened to it and it just haunted me. So we just sampled a bunch of things off it and we put it on the record.
You have recently won three awards at the Dancestar music awards in Miami for Best Act, Best Single (Born too Slow) and Best album (Legion of Boom). How much do awards like this matter to the two of you?
Well it’s a unique experience for us, the big awards ceremony in the US is the Grammy’s and they are yet to really recognize the efforts of the electronic community and yet to recognize bands that have put out electronic albums, so the Dancestar awards are basically the Grammy for electronic artists and DJ’s, so it was very exciting. We had a great time in Miami we played live we did the single, ‘Born too Slow’, with John Garcia at the show and we took home 3 awards so it was very nice. I mean it’s great to be recognized by your peers in the nominating process, and then the voting was all online by the public so the combination of the two was a great surprise and great honour for us.
On Tweekend you worked with the legend that is Tom Morello of Rage Against Machine fame, if I may be allowed to gush for a second, the man is pretty much a rock god, what was it like having him in the studio?
It was a great learning experience. At the time we were working with him he had a lot of stuff on his plate with Rage Against The Machine, and the turmoil that existed within the band, and he just never bought any of that into the studio. Our studio was in a suburb of Los Angeles which was about 30-45 minutes away from where he lived in full traffic, and every single day he would just show up and never bring any of the outside world into the creative world of the studio, so that was fascinating. When I first got to know him and then just his demeanor, his talent and his whole presence was something that was inspiring. He is just a really kind, gentle guy with a great sense of humor who you can work with and get along with really well.
And you have another interesting mix of collaborations on Legion of the Boom including Wes Borland (of Limp Bizkit fame) and Rahzel – beat boxer extraordinaire, tell me a little about the tracks they worked on.
Well Wes Borland was also someone that we admired a lot. His unique guitar technique was something we have admired for a long time, so he came in with a lot ideas and was really into the project. He lived not to far away from us, so everything just worked out really, really well and he contributed a lot to the record. Rahzel is someone we’ve been a fan of for a long time, we actually had him come in a couple of years ago and we had all kinds of technical difficulties and couldn’t achieve what we wanted to achieve that day. We were really fortunate to have him back. We are really fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with a lot of great people on this record, like this poet out of Oakland called Inifa who is on the tracks Bound Too Long and Wide Open, of course Rahzel and then John Brian who is a good friend of ours came in and did some stuff, and then there’s The Bellrays singer Lisa Kakula. She came in on a couple of tracks and she is a really talented beautiful young lady who has a great strong rock vocal that we were able to create some great tracks with.
Lisa Kekaula has a powerhouse voice, most recently heard on Basement Jaxx’s Good Luck, do you ever take people like her with you to perform the songs live?
Yeah, the only one we have taken out with us on the last record we had Rau who is the rapper who is on Name Of The Game, and we had DJ Swamp come out with us for a few shows. On this record John Garcia came out and performed Born Too Slow for us, he is pretty much the only one we’ve taken out on the road for this album. You know Lisa has her own band The Bellrays and she was doing a bunch of shows with Basement Jaxx, and Rahzel is making a record, so although we would love to have a few of those people come out with us it just didn’t workout.
Is there ever a moment when producing that you just sit back and go “this is it”, and are satisfied with what you’ve done or are you never completely happy?
Well, on this record there are few songs that came together pretty quickly and I probably said those exact same words, but yeah there are some songs you just work on then put aside and keep coming back to. But there is a point where we get to when we realise the songs are done, and that time may come sooner or much later in the writing process, but then we just have to put it down and say this is done.
The Crystal Method’s latest album, ‘Legion Of Boom’, is out now through V2/FMR. You can catch the duo touring Australia in July at the following venues:
Friday July 2, The Metro – Melbourne (BUY TICKETS)
Saturday July 3, Hordern Pavilion – Sydney (ITM SOLD OUT)
Thursday July 8, Family – Brisbane (BUY TICKETS)
Friday July 9, ANU Bar – Canberra (BUY TICKETS)
Saturday July 10, Ambar – Perth (BUY TICKETS)
For your chance to chat live with The Crystal Method don’t forget to log in to ‘in the spotlight’ on inthemix, Wednesday July 7th at 7.30pm AEST. You’ll have the chance to pick up some great prizes, including signed albums and a rare Todd McFarlane ‘Spawn’ blockmounted illustration from The Crystal Method’s album booklet. For more info on ‘in the spotlight’ click HERE.
