InternetDJ recently spoke with Ken Jordan of The Crystal Method while in NYC promoting their new release, Legion of Boom . Find out why Cindy Margolis has it in for Ken! Read and listen to the entire exclusive raw interview right here.
I can safely say, The Crystal Method were one of the driving factors behind the creation of InternetDJ. Their 1997 release "Vegas" solidified my love of electronic music and began the pursuit to find other like-minded producers and music programmers who felt the same. When the opportunity to speak with Ken Jordan of TCM arose, I jumped at it. Alas, the only time available was when I was outside of NY. So our faithful member and partner Aurelia volunteered for the interview. And if Ken and Scott stop by the site, drop a line in the Forum, there are some talented producers and music programmers here that love what you do! Now about their new album. Rolling Stone Magazine editors need a wake-up call on their review system. 3 stars for the completely original "Legion of Boom"? 4 stars for some recent "Best of" and "Compilation" albums? The Crystal Method's new album is a precisely constructed electronic masterpiece. We give it 4 stars and we never review compilation CDs. Make sure to vote for them at dancestar.com and show them what's what. The Interview listen: mp3 stream read: (internetdj): What was your inspiration for the album? (Ken Jordan): Besides the fact that we obviously love making music, the inspiration for the sound and the feel of the record, I think, was – after Tweak End came out and we kind of stepped back and listened to it after awhile, we kind of thought it was a little more dark and heavy and dense than we really intended it to be, so we kind of wanted to get back to a more of the Vegas sound, strip it down and have it based on the songs, rather than layering sounds and tracks. (internetdj): What is the Legion of Boom? Is it anything like the Legion of Doom? Like who's the head of it? (Ken Jordan): Well, the head of it is Scott and I. Well, it's either Scott and I, or each individual song is part of the Legion of Boom and they all make it up. But yeah, if you fold out the artwork on the commercial release it's this cityscape where Scott's sitting and I'm standing on top of this building. We're overlooking Gotham City, trying to protect it with our beats. But anyway, there's this one big billboard thing that is actually this piece of artwork that we had Todd MacFarlane do, which shows us as superhero characters in our little "Hall of Justice". You should be able to download it on our website. If not, you'll be able to do it soon. (internetdj): Excellent. "Born Too Slow," massive hit. The names you come up with for these songs and albums is just incredible, they have so many different meanings behind them. (Ken Jordan): Yeah, we've learned to embrace the double entendre just to scare parents enough to make the kids want to buy the record. (internetdj): Twenty-five thousand copies your first week. Well, almost 25,000 copies your first week. You kicked Sara McLaughlin and Mariah Carey's ass. That ought to make you feel good. (Ken Jordan): That does feel good. And then on iTunes, we were number one the entire week. That was pretty cool. (internetdj): Me and my iPod thank you. Now you have this phenomenal 50-city tour you're going to be doing with the Fuse TV network. Now Fuse has definitely come out of the box this year. They're at their eight-month anniversary mark, and you are really are the only electronica tour that they're involved in or have been involved in. (Ken Jordan): Oh, is that right? Cool. (internetdj): Yes. They did Voodoo Fest, which was very cool, but you're like the babies for the next 50 cities. So how did that come about? (Ken Jordan): We wanted to be involved with a channel that's really still promoting music videos. So it was something we were really interested in. We're just happy that they've jumped onboard. (internetdj): You're nominated for best act and best album of Dance Star USA this year. How does that feel? Everybody that is on the academy board, your peers, have decided to nominate you. (Ken Jordan): That's great. Now are all these categories ones that people can vote on on the Inte…