Jesse recounts how he had previously been a band kind of man while Alex was what he terms a “studio guy forever”. But nowadays, things are fairly different for the pair, especially given the traction they’ve received over the last few years as MSTRKRFT. Indeed, there isn’t much competition in Toronto, Canada so perhaps that’s what enticed them. Regardless, their approach to music has won them many fans around the world and it seems the train isn’t stopping just yet.
“Sometimes we have an idea beforehand and sometime we just work it together. A lot of the stuff is done though when we work in the studio for hours on end. It’s almost like office hours for us; of course it depends on how things are going, but there isn’t really a formula as such. We generally play things by ear and it works. There isn’t much more to it than that,” says Jesse.
Likewise, a string of hits has followed the lads over the years. First up was Easy Love coming in 2006 followed by Work On You. The latter received plenty of acclaim for a music video featuring cartoon robots. Around the same time, the boys released their first complete studio album titled The Looks. “When we released that album in 2006 and 2007 overseas, we were already thinking about ideas for the next one. We wanted something darker and more underground,” Jesse continues.
The end result was the sophomore release Fist Of God, which came out on Dim Mak Records – a label owned and run by the venerable, quirky and hugely successful Steve Aoki. Then a few of their songs made their way onto video games including Saints Row 2 and Need For Speed: Pro Street. And their remix for Justices’ D.A.N.C.E. was featured in the movie Meet The Spartans. Success, notoriety and exposure it seems, are theirs for the taking.
In terms of influences and inspirations, the boys find their ideas from far and wide. “It’s hard to say but there are a lot of influences for the things we produce. We are always imagining the music in a club where it’s meant to be played. And with that in mind, we are trying to work backwards and trying to imagine things completed – so that club idea is the goal really. Other times driving may be the inspiration; or it might come from where we have something to listen to and we start from a point of inspiration like that – and then go forward from there – and that depends on how we’re feeling.”
“The Fist Of God album – we’ve finished touring that and now we’re gearing up to do the next few records and there is a lot of work to do of course. We’re catching up on doing things that we’ve missed out on doing before. We’ve got plans for our own label called Teenage Rat and some of the things we want to release on it. We’re just trying to make the label we wished existed in the music industry previously. It’s about trying to make a label that is a safe place for young producers. It seems a lot of young kids come in and get used and abused and we wanted to make a place that is fair for them.”
“As for the tour, we’ll be doing the DJ thing as always as we feel this is how our music is best represented; we’ve got a lot of stuff from the label and friends as well as tons of edits and some fun silly stuff that we think will go over well. We’ll try to make it the best party possible.”
BY REZO
