Crystal Antlers Take Their Tour by the Horns
Crystal Antlers, a five-piece, Long Beach, California based rock band, is touring from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. to promote their new album, Two-Way Mirror that hit shelves and iTunes on July 19.
In the meantime, lead singer Jonny Bell wrote to GALO from the road to shed light on some of the band’s more recent experiences, including filming a documentary during their European tour, and writing their latest album in a barn in La Punta Banda, Mexico. Keyboardist Cora Foxx chimed in to tell us what it’s like being the only lady in the band.
Before there were five of them though, Crystal Antlers was just three guys who met in a high school music class. Between meager beginnings and their second LP, they worked as chimney sweeps for a guy who helped them buy music equipment in exchange for mastering cover songs. Never was a tribute so beneficial.
GALO: The cover of your new album, Two-Way Mirror, is quite beautiful – reminiscent of Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy, but adult. Is the image a woodcut? How does it relate to the title?
Jonny Bell: [Laughs] Thanks. I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t know if Raymond Pettibon is a big Zeppelin fan. I’m not sure exactly how he did it, but it was photocopied and screen printed, so that would account for some of the texture. He uses a lot of old ink pens, acrylics (I think), and watercolors. It looked similar to the area where we wrote the record in Mexico, also the script [was] related to some of the subject matter in the record and shared a similar tone.
GALO: Why did you choose Two-Way Mirror as the title track?
JB: It encompassed all the ideas present throughout the rest of the record. We didn’t want a title track for this one, but it just seemed to make sense. It was actually the last song written for the record.
GALO: Your Tentacles tour, for your last album, was filmed and made into a feature-length…documentary? It’s called Until the Sun Dies. You were very engaged in its production (rewrites, etc.) versus simply allowing the camera to be a fly on the wall. What inspired the whole project – that level of involvement with it? What can we look forward to when the film is released?
JB: We were very involved in the filming process – and we actually tried to act too! Our friend Michael Reich had filmed us quite a bit while we were touring together in the previous year, and he had the idea to make a loosely scripted feature length film on our first European tour, which happened to be two months long in the dead of winter and the first time any of us had been to Europe. There was a lot of natural magic happening because of the circumstances. Afterward, Michael spent about six months editing with various people, but we were never able to raise the money to finish the final scenes. We’ve sort of collectively decided at this point to hold off on the project for a few years until we have the time, energy, and money to complete it.
GALO: Are you closely involved with the production of your music videos as well?
JB: Yes, most of the time, though a couple [of them] we had nothing to do with. Our first video for “Andrew,” was filmed during that same first trip to Europe, so we were all really involved in finding locations and sharing ideas about what to do. We filmed the video for “little sister” entirely ourselves in Mexico, and Cora did a great job editing it with her friend June. The latest video though for Two-Way Mirror was completely produced and animated by Treat Studios in London.
GALO: What three words would you use to describe La Punta Banda, Mexico, where you began writing for this anticipated new album?
JB: Muy frio y bonito?
GALO: How has your sound changed since Tentacles?
JB: Tentacles was a snapshot of a week in time when we were under enormous pressure to produce a record. It’s only really reflective of a part of our sound. Our new record is a bit more refined, but still has a lot of the same raw energy from our earlier records. I really don’t know how to talk about our sound.
GALO: What do you think exemplifies a band from Long Beach? Are your sound and style “so” Long Beach, or could you be from somewhere else?
JB: Well, we are from somewhere else — tiny meaningless suburbs and backwoods towns that have no bands and no particular sound.
GALO: There are a lot of terms used to describe your music, namely psych-rock. What does that genre mean to you? Resistance to classification aside, what do you call yourselves?
JB: I think of psych-rock as drug music, and I’m not really interested in tripping out and staring at black light posters, (at least not these days). We try to make music that is different and challenging, and we try to avoid things that are too safe. I think it’s important for music to take risks.
GALO: The name “Crystal Antlers” has a lot of great contradiction in it: elegance and fragility vs. aggression (especially a watusi. damn.) vs. defense. What do you like about it?
JB: Ha, well, you nailed it. I used to say things like that in interviews. An interviewer in Belgium once told me that he was reading a dream analysis book that said if you dream of Crystal Antlers, you understand the fragility of males.
GALO: Are you fans of the T.V. show, Parks and Recreation? Chris Pratt’s character, Andy Dwyer, changes his band’s name, Mouse Rat, eight times every episode. Do you toy with new names, too? What are some?
JB: Not particularly. But I think I know what you’re talking about. We’re always toying with names – usually stupid ones, making fun of each other and sometimes other bands’ names. I used to say, “I’m Chris and these are the tall antlers,” and originally we were called “Jonny & The Puerto Ricans.”
GALO: What bands or artists would you want to shout-out to as being awesome and inspirational?
JB: Raymond Pettibon of course, Henry Jacobs, Max Ernst, and the band Personal and The Pizzas.
GALO: Why did you choose tape format for the compilation called Tapes’ Volume 1 Tentacle Era?
JB: We thought in some ways the demo versions and work tapes for the material, around the time when we recorded Tentacles, were more interesting than the record, and also helped to give a more complete picture of where we were coming from. We wanted to share them with people who were fans and felt it was important to keep the tracks as close to their original form, as most of them were recorded on cassette boom boxes and 4-tracks.
GALO: What is the most memorable venue you ever played in your current formation?
JB: Hmm… We’ve played on a couple of boats (one docked and one sailing around), motorcycle rallies, weddings, and just about any other weird place you can think of.
GALO: What does a typical day on the road look like for you guys? Would you say that you all get along rather well or do you experience moments of tension?
JB: Lots of driving of course, and sitting around waiting at venues. (I think most bands would tell you that’s the worst part!) Our van runs on vegetable oil, so a lot of time is spent behind fast food restaurants trying to keep our grease tank full, and also a lot of time is spent under the van fixing problems with the grease system. Whenever we have the chance, we try to visit tourist traps, national parks, weird restaurants, record stores, etc. We’ve even gone camping on tour before in Lake Shasta. Plenty of tension going around always…
GALO: Cora! What’s it like being the only lady in the band?
Cora Foxx: I don’t think about it a lot. The dudes in the band don’t make a lot of concessions to me being a girl, which is fair. Even now there are far less women in music than men, so I think its [important] to contribute as much as the dudes do. I used to get embarrassed about putting on make-up around them, but now they are like brothers. They tease me — I tease them. I think it would be fun to play in a band with all girls, but it’s been hard to find girls to collaborate with — maybe someday.
GALO: After the tour comes to a close, what comes next? Any plans for a new album?
JB: Yes. We’ve been working on new material since before we even finished Two-Way Mirror. We’re about halfway done writing the next one and hope to have it recorded before the end of the year – possibly released in early 2012.
For more information on the band and their ongoing tour, visit http://crystalantlers.com.
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