AutoKratz have enjoyed a quick burst of popularity, or at least, it seems that way from the outside. Shooting forth from underground notoriety the London duo of Russell Crank and David Cox were quickly snapped up by taste making French label Kitsune for a multi-album deal, which began with 2008’s celebrated mini-album Down And Out In Paris And London and continued on with the recently released Animal LP. Add to that a debut Australian tour as a part of the epic Parklife festival and the duo are sitting pretty at the top of the rising electro heap.

But as Crank is quick to point out when ITM caught up with AutoKratz ahead of the Parklife tour, it hasn’t been instant success for the pair, and AutoKratz have been soldiering away at their electronic ambitions for a long time now.

From an outsider’s perspective, it would seem as though things have happened quite quickly for you guys. Is that really the case, or has there been a lot of action behind the scenes leading up to this?

Well I think it’s easy to see things that way, because, yeah, there is a lot that goes on behind the scene. We were putting out little singles for a long time and that was what brought us to the attention of Kitsune. We’ve been working at this for a long time.

Animal has just been released, are you happy with how it’s turned out?

Absolutely, it’s something we’re really proud of, but we’re not resting on it too much because we’re already thinking about the next record.

Already? That’s so soon!

Yeah, I guess it is very soon, but we’ve had those songs down for a while now and we want to work on new stuff while we can. So we’re already planning the next album. We don’t want to slow down or stop right now, because we’re in that mindset, you know? We just want to keep active and keep writing new stuff.

That’s great to hear, because there’s nothing more frustrating than waiting endlessly for your favourite artists to release new material. I wonder though, how do you guys fit all that in? Are you splitting your time between touring, writing, remixing, etc?

Yeah I don’t know how we really manage to do it all, but somehow it works. We’ve been touring a lot this year ahead of the new album and also doing some shows with The Prodigy, which were great to do. So really it’s a combination of touring, rehearsing and writing new stuff. It does seem like a lot of activity, I know, but I think we both enjoy it, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it!

So considering that you’re working on it right now, what’s the feel of the next record? Will it be a departure from Animal at all?

I don’t know where we’ll go next. Since we’re writing all the time it’s difficult to really look at things and think ‘oh this is so different to what we were doing back then’, y’know? So there’s definitely not a huge need for us to change our sound in some radical way. But having said that, we’re always developing and trying to find new, interesting ways to push ourselves creatively.

*So I guess you’re working in the moment! You guys could end up sounding completely different this time next year, right?”

Well I don’t know about that! We try to avoid planning things out too much, because once you do that it takes some of the spark out of being in the creative process, if you get me. If I think about where we’ll be in a year’s time then it’s pretty blank because, hopefully, we could be doing anything. But when I do think about something like that I often go to Primal Scream who’ve been around for like twenty years now, doing all these interesting things and continually evolving the Primal Scream sound with every record. I think I like that.

Sure, they’re definitely one act who’ve tried their hands at a number of different styles. Is that something that you can see AutoKratz doing down the track?

I’m not sure. They’re a model for what a great career should be. You know they’ve done everything. They’ve gone from indie rock to house to blues to electro and back through it all again without really changing the core of Primal Scream.

Thinking about the course of the Primals’ career, one could say that they’ve managed to successfully pull off all those stylistic changes and twists by bringing in collaborators like Kevin Shields, Jagz Kooner and Paul Epworth. Is that something you’d be willing to do with AutoKratz.

Yeah right, I remember hearing this one story about Kevin Shields in the band that really made me laugh; he turned up for one of their shows dead drunk, stumbled on stage, plugged in his guitar and just stood there the whole night, with his back to the audience churning out this dreadful noise. After the show, Bobby gave him the flick, and rightly so. So I don’t know whether opening AutoKratz up like that and bringing in a bunch of collaborators would be good for us. It’s not something we’ve really thought about actually, because I think we’re just enjoying making music together and doing things in our own way. Perhaps down the line, but it’s not on the cards right now.

I remember hearing rumours that you guys would be doing some work with La Roux in the future, does that mean that won’t be happening?

Yeah I think something is in the works, but I’m not too sure. David met her at a club or something and they talked about us working together, but I don’t know if anything is going to come of it. We’ll both be down your way for Parklife so maybe we can talk it over there.

The national Parklife tour is proudly presented by ITM! Keep your eyes peeled to our Festival Page at inthemix.com.au/parklife and check out the remaining national tour dates below…

Sat 3rd Oct – Birrarung Marr, Melbourne (SOLD OUT)
Sun 4th Oct – Kippax Lake, Moore Park, Sydney (SOLD OUT)
Mon 5th Oct – Botanic Park, Adelaide