AutoKratz living the Bad Life

AutoKratz are renowned for their EP releases tailor-made for pummeling dancefloors, and the London-based electronic duo are back with more this year. Their 2009 Kitsuné-released debut Animal saw an international dance market saturated with electronic music breathe a sigh of relief. Always More and Stay The Same were as accessible as they were progressive, and put the two-some on the international map of awesome. The highly anticipated second album, Self Help for Beginners is out now and stays true to form: big, banging basslines with a pure indie pop twist and the vocals to tie them together; the album is being released on their own label, Bad Life, an imprint recently launched by autoKratz and their friends. Russel Crank: one half of AutoKratz caught up with Kristen Marconi to talk about the release, the label and what it's like to be brought up on live music instead of soccer and sport. 

Pulse: I've read in an old interview of yours you said that you've been to every Glastonbury since you were five? Have you still not missed one? Russel Crank: No, I don't think I have. There was one year I thought I wouldn't make it and then I got there for the Sunday. So my record is still intact. Some kids are raised on Soccer and sport, I was raised on live music.

Did live music gigs like Glastonbury and smaller inspire get into making music? Absolutely it was seeing Daft Punk in the Glastonbury dance tent years back that is definitely a defining moment. It's kind of the first time I decided that was what I was going to devote my life to it. There was another massive moment years later when we got to play in that massive dance dance tent, which was a surreal. It's just where I feel most at home, most relaxed.

That's where you feel most relaxed in one of the largest festivals in the world? Yeh it's kind of strange isn't it. It's just a pretty special place it's not like any festival in the world. You can go to the festival not watch any music and not have missed out. The atmosphere is just that great and there's so much going on.

I mean Australian festivals are pretty amazing I had a mad time when we played Parklife. But you guys finish events at like 10pm over there it's over before it starts really. In saying that the weeks that we did the Parklife tour were some of the most amazing of my life it was an absolutely fantastic time. The programming, the bands we were on with everyday were just fantastic. The Glastonbury bonus has to be it goes all night.



What are your work hours like? Could you ever see yourself as a nine to five-er? I guess I am already, because like now we're running our record label and that's going well, I am almost working a nine to five and more at the moment it's almost an eight - ten so it just never really stops. We were up before 8am this morning and I think we'll be clocking off about 10pm. We're absolutely enjoying running the label, but it's definitely a time intensive project as we've started releasing lots of stuff, not just AutoKratz, heaps of other bands as well. We've just signed another band that I can't wait to start playing to people.

You've got a new album being released in Australia this week Self Help For Beginners, is there a different feel to your music now you are releasing on your own label? I guess we neve really kind of felt that we'd make music to fit in with a label. Fair play to them they have their own vision and passion. Just the music which we were making was just starting to go in a completely different direction to the label. We just didn't fit anymore and it didn't make sense for us to stay there.

We really wanted to be somewhere we felt we belonged and that's where Bad Life came in. There were so many bands and artists we'd met in our travels over the years, who's music we were really excited about and we wanted to help and be part of their musical family instead of the musical family we then belonged to. We've never been happier with the decision as there's just so much more creative output. It also just made sense as I used to run music labels years and years ago before AutoKratz started. We were just really well set up, a great manager and we did a great record deal with German label !K7 which handle a lot of the back office stuff so we can focus on the creative side.

So there's a great deal of experience with you and the people you've surrounded yourself with? Yeh, exactly and more than that a great cap of amazing new music we've been mining over the last few years. We've got a crazy release schedule this year. Over here in the UK everything we've been releasing is getting play on Radio 1 over here which is kind of our big one. People are really starting to take notice of what we're doing.

Light Falls has definitely got big industry names attention with Mixmag naming it Electro tune of the month, what's it like for you seeing the your label, getting that recognition from such a well known names like Mixmag and Radio 1? I mean it's great, it's almost better when you can do that for someone else. I mean this Attaque, we found him, no one really knew him, he was just sort of playing small gigs because he loved the music. Through the records he was playing we got to talking. To be able to offer the opportunity to someone else that we were offered from a very early stage in our development it's a lovely feeling. Especially with someone like Attaque, I really do think he's making some of the most forward thinking techno that is around at the moment. It's an exciting feeling to be apart of that.



The Sonicmania Tokyo line up that you played this year was alongside Underworld, Primal Scream, A-Track and other big names, what is it like performing in Japan and with colleagues you've looked up to before you were AutoKratz? We were so excited to play with them. To put us in the same bracket as heritage acts like Underworld and Primal Scream is a little premature it was such an amazing experience. We also got Peter Hook to come on stage with us, who is an absolute legend. He played the track we played with him on the album to like 10 thousand people then to get to see Primal Scream which would have to be one of my favourite bands. To be apart of that show and that night was just absolutely incredible.

To many of us who grew up with Joy Division Peter Hook is an absolute legend. How did he get involved in your new album? I guess it's a lot of New Order influences in our label and we'd met him at a few shows and really got along. We were in the studio finishing off a couple of tracks for the album and there was something missing and we just though that a Hooky melodic bass kind of bit would fit and be the thing that would finish the track off. So rather than try and do it ourselves we got a message over to him. Thankfully as he's been a fan for sometime he was all up for it so we sent up to his Manchester studio for a day and just had it out with him and got the track down and it was such a pleasure to work with him. Such a sweetheart.



Where do you go from here, what's the next step for you? We're back in the studio already writing some more kind of banging electro techno stuff as the labels been going in that direction at the moment. This albums really song based and now we've started making more banging dancefloor suitable tracks for our next release. Loads of touring is also in the diary for the rest of the year, we should be back in Oz I think towards the end of the Summer. Judging by the last time I can't wait to get back over it probably the most mental two weeks of my life.

With the more well known you get are you noticing that people are expecting you to give your view and make a statement on things happening in the industry? The way DJ Mehdi's accidental death happened has put shockwaves through the industry that loves to party and kick-on, how did you feel hearing the news, you felt you needed to make a statement? We did comment because it was just devastating to hear of such a tragedy. Such a lovely, lovely human being. Everyone who met him was in awe of his energy and positivity. We were really fortunate to meet him at a fair few shows. Such a tragedy for such a young family and his closest friends.

It's hard to convey the kind of warmth and positivity to you as you've not met him. But even in photos I think people can see and conveys such an amazing character. We weren't as close to him as a lot of people but we were extremely touched by him and that's why we wanted to convey that message and our condolences. Looking back on someones life you kind of draw on different things but that was the most inspiring thing for us was his positivity. He was an amazing producer and at the cutting edge of music of the day combining some interesting things and moving things forward. It was mainly his energy that personally was astounding to us.

 

Do you find that that's a lot of what attracts you about people that if they're putting out that positive energy, you can't help but want to know them and want to be around them? Exactly it's contagious isn't it?!

Yes, What else is coming up for you that we should be checking out? You should be checking out Attaque and if you haven't yet NT89. We've got a new band coming up called Dems and their new House EP is dropping next month, that you should definitely check out.

Nice signing with NT89, I met him last Summer when he played a DFB boat party here in Sydney, good guy. He's great, we're releasing an EP with him in this month. Do you have a show over there like over here we call it Crime Watch where it's trying to find the criminals caught on CCTV. If you know the criminal you can sort of phone up the hotline. This music is kind of really really scary if I was to listen to this and watch crime watch after it I'd go to bed with some terrible terrible dreams. That's what he's done with his EP.

So not really bed time music? Yes, maybe not [laughs] but it is definitely worth checking out.

Listen to AutoKratz on Pulse Radio