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[Photo by Maura Lanahan]
You live in and formed your band in Los Angeles, so how do you feel playing Coachella which is such a well known festival and so close to home?
It's great! It's like a hometown show even though it's 3 hours away. It feels like it's an LA Show. We come here all the time anyway. I remember the first time we played in '04. It was such a big deal to play Coachella so it's fun! And, if we weren't playing, we'd just be here anyway. We come all the time.
So, you have a new record coming out soon called Divided By Night.
Yes, it comes out on May 12th and it was a long time in the making, but it was well worth it.
How long did it take to make?
Well, if you look at the calendar, it seems like it took 5 years, but not really because after Legion of Boom, we worked on a few different things -- a soundtrack album, a project for Nike and other things -- so, we worked for the last two years on this album.
What is different about Divided By Night from your past releases?
We wanted more vocals than we've had in the past and it's a lot more song oriented, we think. But, it still sounds like a Crystal Method record
You are closing out The Saraha tent at 11:40 tonight. Do you prefer a night time slot?
Yeah, it's more fun. We like playing the night. We have a whole visual onslaught of lights. And, this is the first time we've played live in 5 years. We did a warm up show two nights ago under the radar, but this is the first real show we've done in five years. After we toured for, we just did DJ dates after that. This is a real live concert tour.
You have a number of guests on this record including Metric's Emily Haines. How did she end up on your record?
We knew of Metric and kind of liked them, but what really prompted us to get in touch with her was that we saw this YouTube thing of her doing an acoustic thing. I think it might have been from here last year. She's just singing with someone on an acoustic guitar and we were like, "Oh my god, we have to send her this track" and she liked it and she really did a great job. It's called Come Back Clean.
Do artists approach you to be on your records?
We sometimes have people approach us, but we like when we find someone. That way it's very natural and organic. We hear something and go, "That would be great on this track." They have to be into our music or we don't really like doing it. In the past, we tried paying people to do stuff and if they're not really into us or our music, we won't get the best from them. For this album, everyone on it was interested in the project.
Are you looking forward to your first live tour in 5 years?
Yes, absolutely! Touring live on a tour bus is much easier than DJ'ing weekends when you're on airplanes. The travel kills you when you do DJ tours. You get more rest on a live tour.
Are you one of those artists who doesn't know what to do with himself when he gets off tour?
No, I know! (laughs)
Who are you going to see at Coachella?
I haven't even looked at the schedule. I'm not even going to look until we're off tonight.
What new artists do you like?
I like... there's this new artist Meiko - well, this is sort of a plug -- I saw her in LA at some random show. She sings the last song on our new album.
Is there anyone you like that is not someone who is working with you? (laughs)
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know of any LA bands, actually. Oh, I like a band I saw at SXSW who are called Glasvegas .
I live on LA's East side, so I see plenty of bands rise through the ranks like Silversun Pickups and The Airborne Toxic Event . I guess that you don't?
No, I live in Encino. I'm an Encino man .
