By STEPHEN JEWELL
New Zealand commands a special place in the hearts of LA-based duo The Crystal Method, aka Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland, who rate their 1998 gig at Auckland's Powerstation as one of their most memorable shows.
Little surprise then that the pair jumped at the chance to head down our way again to play the Boiler Room at this year's Big Day Out.
"The Powerstation was one of the best concerts we've ever had," says Jordan. "The crowd was just going crazy. They were really into the music. Very enthusiastic. It was like the floor was moving.
"We're definitely looking forward to coming down again. We've heard a lot of good things about Big Day Out from the people who have played on it before."
The Crystal Method's previous Auckland visit followed hot on the heels of the release of their debut album Vegas, which was named after Jordan and Kirkland's home town. "We knew each other in Las Vegas, where we grew up. We started working on things there around 1988 before we moved to LA. But we didn't actually become The Crystal Method until '93/'94 when we put out our first single. Then in '97 we put out the album."
Apart from contributing to the soundtracks of various films and television programmes including Spawn and NBC's New York emergency drama Third Watch - whose theme is the storming Keep Hope Alive - The Crystal Method have been relatively quiet since Vegas in 1997.
Kirkland and Jordan have spent the past four years painstakingly recording their second album, the appropriately titled Tweekend. "A lot of the time it takes us to finish any music it's just us tweaking the mixes," says Jordan. "Tweaking parts of it until we're finished. Tweekend is definitely more song-oriented and harder, bigger sounding. It still sounds like us but it just sounds like our next record."
Vegas was released at the height of big beat, a rock-influenced dance music genre that was championed by the likes of the Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim and Bentley Rhythm Ace.
Now four years on, The Crystal Method are associated with the new breakbeat scene as favoured by artists such as BT and Freq Nasty. "We're very much into old-school breaks at the moment," says Jordan. "But it's basically the same music we've been doing since '94. We just assume that whatever we do will be called different things from time to time." Unlike the purely electronic Vegas, Tweekend sees Kirkland and Jordan collaborating with other vocalists and musicians, most notably Stone Temple Pilot Scott Weiland and Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello, who contributes to Name of the Game, PHD and Wild, Sweet and Cool.
"Tom Morello came to a show or two of ours and we heard that he'd expressed some interest so we jumped at the chance," says Jordan. "He was great to work with. We were big fans of Rage Against The Machine and his guitar style.
"With Name of the Game, Tom was just warming up, tuning his guitar and getting the sound. We were running a DAT while he was doing it and we were like 'Hey, play that riff again' and he was like 'What riff?' So we had it on DAT, sampled it later and turned it into Name of the Game."
So how has The Crystal Method live show changed since Kirkland and Jordan last appeared here?
"It's changed a bit. The way we physically perform and, of course, we've also got all the new songs. We've got all kinds of samplers and sequencers and on a lot of our tour dates we bring out Ryu, who rapped on Name of the Game. Having him along definitely works for us. There's something to be said for singers and front men, even though we don't have one. We don't talk that much on stage."
* The Crystal Method, Boiler Room, 7.30 pm
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