Interviewing Crystal Castles in their hometown of Toronto was really fun. They’re both pretty shy, but also inherently nice and really funny. I liked them a lot. A couple weeks after I got back to London I received an email from Ethan, asking me not to submit the article. He said he and Alice no longer wanted to be in magazines. When I informed him that we’d already gone to print, he replied, “Sorry for the psycho message. Thanks for coming to Toronto and somehow writing a piece, even though we barely talked and were really awkward.” So that gives you a little insight into what they're like as people...

Dazed Digital: You’re about to go on tour. Do you enjoy playing live?
Alice: I just kind of zone out when I perform.
Ethan: It’s true. I swear she’s possessed when she sings. I don’t even think she realized what she’s doing.
Alice: I’m not even sure I know what I look like. We never videotape stuff, so we don’t know what we look like onstage. We’ve tried getting friends to films us, but they’re always so drunk that they just end up filming their feet or something.
Ethan: Yeah, disappointing. We asked a friend to film a few shows recently, and when we got the footage back it was literally all of the floor. We were like ‘OK, not doing this again.’


Dazed also spoke to Bear In Heaven's Jon Philpot, who's responsible for the sonic tweaking of 'Celestica', about the collaboration and Pros and Cons of working with Crystal Castles...

DD: What's your relationship with Crystal Castles like?
Jon Philpot: I don't know them personally but we're going out on tour with them this summer. After that, I bet we'll be good friends.

DD: Are you long time fans or was this your first Crystal Castles experience?
Jon Philpot: This is the closest I've gotten to their music. I've always liked their tunes and would DJ their song Vanished from time to time. That was a crowd pleaser.

DD: How would you describe their music?
Jon Philpot: Bonkers and Beautiful.

DD: Is a Crystal Castles track easy or difficult to remix? Why?
Jon Philpot: Getting it's initial form was easy.  I didn't break too far away from the original structure.  But then making everything stick together was a challenge. Two hundred listens later... I think I smoothed it out. You be the judge!


Hurry up and get the June issue of Dazed & Confused for the full Crystal Castles interview...