Q&A with Crystal Stilts

The Crystal Stilts, Brooklyn’s very own 5 piece, are known for their fuzzy, distorted, reverby drones that slot perfectly into the properly crafted three-minute pop songs. Their emotional quasi-ambient feedbackscapes exists through frontman Brad Hargett’s barely-there vocals, Keegan Cookes splashy drums, JB Townsends echoey guitar, Kyle Forester’s spooky 60’s psych organ and Andy Adler’s thumping bass. Creating some of the most perfectly formed reconciliations of classic rock swagger and zoned dream-pop, Crystal Stilts found fame with their debut album Alight Of Night. Now, back with their follow up album In Love with Oblivion, JB talks to us about influences, future plans and cinematic films.

If we would have a face-to-face interview, where would it be and why?

Somewhere that’s not public. Interviews are a strange thing sometimes because on the surface in real time you’re just speaking with someone who has questions, but you’re also speaking to the readers obviously, so there’s a degree of prudence with your answers. At the same time you want to be thorough and honest and give off the appearance feeling natural and uninhibited, when you don’t always necessarily do. I guess I’d rather be stoned or drunk or in good company.

If I’m correct you all live in New York. Do you belong to the Woody Allen kind that are overly romantic about the city or those that are always saying they should get out but never do?

Probably in-between the two. But I can see myself living out of the city. Nowadays with these damn computers you could probably live in Patagonia and still correspond similarly to if you were in one of the worlds largest cities (as long as there’s wifi!).

When listening to your music I hear a distinct US ‘60s garage/surf influence running through, though in the press you are often included under the C86 revival umbrella, classified as ‘dream pop’ and compared to the JAMC. How would you describe your music and do you mind tags being placed on the bands sound?

I think our first EP Alight Of Night had a more ‘80s sound and because that was what people heard first from us they were like, ‘oh, these guys are a C86, Creation type, Flying Nun band’. I think that was just the way we chose to record at that time because that’s the way we used our instruments then. The old roland drum machine, which I believe was used by the JAMC, may have contributed to that notion.

Our influences range quite a bit and there’s not much restraint to genres, styles, waves, artists, moods when writing because it’s not as consciously deliberate as that.

Your debut album, as well as those of your label mates and contemporaries, was credited as bringing the aesthetics of ‘80s indie pop back into the forefront of music in 2008. How did you begin as a band? Was there a strong ‘80s indie revival going on in New York when you began playing together? 

There wasn’t much of a revival when we started playing but I think I could smell it because a lot of records from the ‘80s started popping up again, getting re-issued and standing the test of time. We never anticipated any wave to catch as far as what was in style musically though. Electroclash was big in Brooklyn when we started. 

How much did you anticipate the worldwide success of your debut album Alight Of Night?

Not much anticipation. We’ve had a lot of nice critics and other artists saying they like us.  It’s not easy to gauge success anymore sort of because we haven’t really sold that many records worldwide.

Are there things you did which you now think ‘Hmm, if only someone had told us that whilst making our debut’?

There are always things with recording and mixing that you think you could’ve done differently but you have to reach a point of no return at some point or you could keep going and going with a record. Once you have enough to work with, it’s up to one to use the recorded material to make the best of it I suppose.

I’ve read that you guys used to make songs from long jam sessions. How does one go from that to a two minute thing like ‘Love is a Wave’? Is this something you are consciously going for now, a kind of short pop structured songs?

‘Love is a Wave’ oddly was about a 5 minute song at first but we trimmed it down. There are different ways to approach songs with us. Sometimes there are still long jams with one or two strong trance-like parts that we edit, and sometimes there are pop songs with four bars this, two bars that etc.

I’ve always thought your sound to be pretty cinematic. Like old school, perhaps a bit western like at times. Any movie buffs in your band or specific films that might’ve inadvertently caused this?

I watched a whole lot of movies in the time when the band first started and I can’t help but think that old soundtracks permeated my brain somehow.

If we were a cinematic magazine, which movies would you use to describe your sound to us?

That’s a tough one. Belly? Strip Game?

Do you have any specific formula or regime which is adhered to when writing new songs?

No I’d like to think that we try not to be too formulaic in general.

Is there piece of instrumentation or hardware you would love to get your hands on for touring or your next recording session?

One thing that we used to have that we’d like to get again is a Multivox tape echo machine. We magically lost ours somehow; I lose things all the time.

In terms of the current music scene, do you think it’s still important to gig frequently as an unsigned band or do you think exposure has become more based on blogs / Youtube in recent years?

I personally think it’s pretty important but there are bands out there that get big without having played a show yet. Really uncool.

How does your soon to be released second album, In Love With Oblivion, compare with your debut in terms of sound and influence? What can fans expect to hear on the new record?

The overall sound is similar because it was mixed on the same console with the same kind of tape for the most part. The songs aren’t that far flung from our older songs, but maybe a little less dark? There are still some dark crannies in there.

Are there any new bands you have seen or heard recently that you recommend?

The Surprisers.

Crystal Stilt’s new album In Love with Oblivion will be release in the UK on 11 April 2011.

Tour dates as follows:

March 24th – Brighton: Audio
March 25th – Bristol: Start the Bus
March 26th – Manchester: Ruby Lounge
March 27th – Glasgow: Arches
March 28th – Leeds: Brudenell Social Club
March 29th – Birmingham: Bar Academy
March 30th – London: Cargo (with Comet Gain + The Tamborines)

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