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Johannesburg - I had the great fortune of getting a last minute invite to have a little heart to heart with the Crystal Fighters and The Presets at the Vodacom in the City gig in Jozi shortly before the start of Rocking the Daisies.
This is what Crystal fighters had to say for themselves when asked about tour-life, obscure instruments and influences, and their interesting approach to the entire tour/album concept.
You’ve just arrived in SA you’re here tonight, flying down to Cape Town tomorrow, and then straight back to the UK on Sunday. That’s pretty insane. Is that just general tour life you’ve come to get used to, or do you get occasionally get some down time and hang out?
Graham Dickson: Occasionally you do get a bit of an opportunity. You’ve got to really plan ahead though and say ye I’ve got a little gap here I’m going to stay in that city for a bit. This summer I’ve been staying at the gigs in Europe because it’s been easy staying in Spain, staying in Portugal. Just hanging out ‘til the next show. I think that is a different way of doing it, but then obviously if you’ve got commitments in your hometown it’s hard to see every country properly.
Are there any places that you’ve been only for a short period of time, but after getting there realising how rad the place is and wanting to stay for longer?
Gilbert Vierich (GV): Ye Tokyo. We were literally there for 36 hours? Have you been? [no not yet] Ye me neither really. I’ve barely been there. Hardly counts. We were there and it was literally we landed, played the gig, woke up, and left. It is definitely somewhere where I would have liked to have stayed a bit and checked it out
Grahams Dickson (GD): But there are lots of places where we would have loved to do that. We kinda just fly in and fly out a lot.
Sebastian Pringle (SP): Majorca is actually somewhere I would have liked to have stayed. It’s a beautiful volcanic island in the Mediterranean.
(Alex Bernatzky)
Then I suppose you have a new...ish album out and another coming out pretty soon?
Ye we busy writing the third album now and hopefully it’ll be out next year.
The direction you’re taking with the album you’re writing do you see it being a major departure from what you have out currently?
GV: I hope so!
GD: If we tried to make the same thing again it still would sound exactly the same so it would be a natural evolution just like the second was.
SP: And it’s exciting for a musician or an artist to make something that’s new for them so we going to try lots of new things.
Some of it may not work, but I think it’s important to reinvent yourself constantly. Not so much for staying up with trends but more for just your own artistic development and learning about yourself.
It’s also where we get together to build for our live show. Just as we finished touring for our first album we felt there were gaps in the vibe. We felt we could fill those gaps with ideas for the second record, and it’s kind of the same now. We have different ideas for an even larger live show. We want to write songs that will fit into that and make the general experience of coming to see us live a more complete thing.
Okay so that means you seem to have turned the general conception of albums and touring on its head a bit. My general understanding of how this all works is that you make an album then tour to promote it, but you seem to do things a bit backwards and make albums to make your tours better. Would you agree?
GV: Ye. When we first got together it was because we wanted to play. We played every weekend before we ever had anything recorded.
GD: We’ve always just been making songs for a live show, not for an album and then eventually someone was like you should really just make an album.
But that’s the thing there’s all these different moods and energies in our live show, and we’re always thinking to ourselves: What’s missing? What do we really want to try out, and then that really informs our writing process. Then are always influenced by what’s around you and you just write what comes to you, and some of the best stuff will come out years later without you even thinking about it.
(Supplied)
Then in terms of tonight, do you have any preconceptions of how you think it might go down?
I hear the South African crowd is always insane, and we know what the venue is like (it looks pretty great), and this show is almost sold out. So we think it’s going to be great. We’re on just after sunset so I think it’s going to be a really great vibe. I actually wish I could be out there.
A lot of bands have weird irrational fears and rituals? Do you guys have anything like that? Like what’s your worst performance nightmare?
GV: Maybe the stage collapsing?
GD: No Tequila.
GD&SP: Ye no Tequila.
You take a lot of Basque influences, which is pretty unique in and of itself. Are rarities and obscurities a big part of what you do. Do you strive to bring in the unknown, or little known as much as possible?
SP: Ye we’re always trying new instruments. I think in the more obscure you can find some of the most pure sound. We’ve already recorded a whole bunch of txalaparta players, and in recording those guys that have been doing this for twenty odd years of their life you get to a very pure thing.
From that very niche thing rhythms and ideas that add depth from this niche and things like that help us to create something stripped down and brilliant rather than piling influences on top of each other. Going into the niche sometimes helps you be concise and real within music.
Doesn’t that come with a massive learning curve of always having to learn instruments that you maybe know nothing about? Would that not maybe take away a bit from what you’re trying to achieve?
GD: Absolutely initially. With the Txalaparta when we first got it we had no idea how to play it we just played it like a drum, but you learn and you talk to these people and try understand the way, and it always turns out there is a whole technique. So you incorporate that technique and then obviously we bring in our own style to it.
SP: It’s also down to how it’s recorded and there is not a lot of pop music that has used the Txalaparta. I think Madonna might have had one once for one of her live shows.
It’s like a classical composer might bring in a weird instrument to add colour to their orchestra. It’s the same with us we bring these in to add to the experience.
So how many of these weird instruments will there be on stage tonight? Do you have a whole crate of weird and wonderful surprises hidden away?
GV: Just the three. We’re weird and wonderful enough on our own.
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