Andy Interviews...

"The Crystal Method"

You may not yet realise it, but The Crystal Method have already infiltrated your lives. Their tunes feature on Gap and R.A.F. adverts, Playstation games, film soundtracks, almost anything requiring a soundtrack. It's all part of a plan to take over your mind. Oh yes.

The Crystal Method are Ken and Scott. On the surface, they seem to be two amiable beer-swilling, big boned, knob twiddling Americans in the classic style, and Scott denies that they are planning to dominate the world at all.

"It's a combination of when we made the decision, we asked questions, 'Are we enhancing the game, are we enhancing the commercial? Will we like what we're going to see?' We've definitely turned down more adverts, remixes and projects like that than we've accepted. It's not part of any masterplan or anything like that. We don't sit down and think 'Let's go out and get ourselves on a Playstation game. And an advert!' It gives people the opportunity to hear our music, then they can decide whether they like it or not, and then take it from there."

"When the director of the Gap ad came to us and told us the idea," added Ken, "we didn't realise that our song would be the only audio in the whole commercial. It ends up that someone paid us to play our song all over the world, which is kinda cool when you think about it. We turned down Def Leppard though!"

I could see straight through their pathetic little ruse, but in order to expose the truth, I decided to play along with them. Tonight was their last night in the U.K., and I'd expect them to be seeing it out in style if they were any kind of normal rock stars. So, I ask the boys what they'll be doing to celebrate.

"Taking a couple of Elvis pills, and sleeping on the way home," says Ken, tellingly. "We've got some more shows to do at home, it's a good swing. Well, Reno's first and that's not part of the good swing, but then we've got San Francisco, L.A., Las Vegas. Then we have a monster tour to promote 'Vegas'".

"Vegas" is The Crystal Method's album. It's been released twice. As have most of their singles off it, in particular "Busy Child" (see Gap Khakis ad) and "Keep Hope Alive" (see R.A.F. ad and Wipeout 2 on the Playstation). They are almost constantly touring to promote it. Clearly the Crystal Method are not the biggest band in the world, but does that give them any excuse to flog their material to death, outside using it to brainwash the kids?

"The thing is, over here it's a little unorganised," explains Scott. "We first signed to Sony over here, and they released 'Keep Hope Alive' which wasn't released in the States. When we did our deal in the States and worked on the album, it was ready to go and Sony weren't. So, Sony were always one or two steps behind. In the States there was a natural progression from "Busy Child" to "Keep Hope Alive" to "Coming Back", and then the album. Over here it seems we are re-hashing a lot of stuff."

"Coming Back is the first time it's been together in the States and over here," interrupts Ken. "We've spent two years trying to work the whole thing out.

Scott continues, "In the States it's working really well, it's not like we're playing hundred and fifty person shows in a truck stop near Tallahassee, we've been doing four or five thousand people shows and selling out. The shows we're doing are really good, so hopefully we'll get to that stage over here."

The Crystal Method are therefore struggling to exert their influence in this country, and a major reason for that is bad press. When they say bad press, they don't just mean being slagged off in comparison with The Chemical Brothers, they mean a press which isn't very good. Which, I'm afraid I do have to agree with them on.

"What's this with The Verve being the greatest rock and roll band in the world? What is that?" asks Ken.
"Bunch of Arse!" comes the universal reply.

"Who gave them this name? Was it MTV?"
"It was Oasis a year ago," points out Scott.

"Early on," continues Ken, shaking his head, "when we started making music and DJ-ing all we did was buy imports, Depeche Mode, New Order. The British music scene has always been about progressing and what's new, whereas the American music scene has always been what was big last year, let's try and copy it. A lot of bands are forced to think that way, because American radio and American major labels are so afraid to go out on a limb."

"About ten years ago a lot of people in the states picked up on what was going on over here," explains Scott, "and made their own little thing, in a lot of the major cities around the country. Now it's at the point where it's starting to spread to the other cities. A lot of the people over here, like most of the press, look over at the States and think, 'They don't get it, they're so far behind,' but if they could go over and witness a place like Tulsa, Oklahoma with a thousand people in it, going absolutely crazy on a Tuesday night, they might get a little jealous. It's refreshing to be able to go and see something in its early stages, whereas over here, everybody's been there, done that, and everyone's a little jaded."

The Crystal Method's frustration is thinly veiled. Rocking the States, taking the message out to more and more people, but in the U.K., it's an uphill struggle. Bad news for their music, but at least we continue with our minds intact. I have this theory, that it's either their special brand of electronic music, or their lights that they're planning to use to take control of us, so it seemed important to find out how they could be any different from any other electronic band.

"One of our main things is that we create our own samples," explains Ken helpfully. "We hardly ever use 909's or 303's , we do everything ourselves, we sample ourselves doing things."

"What's going on now in this scene," says Scott contradicting Ken a little, "you may have five or six top drum machines, fifteen top synths, whole bunch of different sampling programs, but it's nowhere near what rock has been with drums, bass, guitar, piano. They've had the same instruments, the same sorts of chords to play around with, and the same structure to work within, and you still have amazing rock records that come out that sound great. Maybe they take things from the past, like a bit of the Beatles thing with Radiohead, it's there underneath but they've done something great with it. So that's going to happen in this scene too, where you've got Daft Punk where they revisit some of that older housy stuff, it's just a natural thing that happens."

So, if The Crystal Method sees their music as just another turn of the cycle, it must be the show which is helping them take over the world.

In the name of science, I sent down some friends, wearing their Men In Black sunglasses with a concealed video recorder. They returned safely, if not a little tired from rockin' it so hard with 5 kilos of plastic, metal and wires strapped to them, and recounted the excellent time they'd had. Indeed, seeing the show on video seemed to cause me no harm, and whilst analysing the lights used, I noticed that they really did play some fine tunes.

Very little more than a track listing from "Vegas", the content of the live show was unsurprising. However all the singles came across particularly well, and the audience even shook their behinds a little to "Keep Hope Alive". The opening, "Trip Like I Do" built them up wickedly, and they never faltered afterwards. Just remember, if you want to see The Crystal Method, we can't stop you: it's a free country. If you do choose to go, and you value your health, it is extremely strongly recommended that you take any precautions you can.....

Click Here to get more details about "Vegas" The Crystal Method's current album and other material produced by the group.