In The Studio With

Scott Kirkland has re-energised The Crystal Method following the departure of co-founder Ken Jordan. Danny Turner discusses his second solo outing, The Trip Out

Formed in Las Vegas in the early ’90s by Scott Kirkland and Ken Jordan, electronic band The Crystal Method pioneered the big beat genre and planted a signpost for electronica with their platinum-selling debut album Vegas (1997). Alt rock/ electronic crossover albums such as Tweekend and Legion of Boom followed, alongside headline shows at EDC, Lollapalooza and Ultra Miami, while their music has appeared on over 100 film, TV and video game soundtracks.

However, in 2017, Kirkland was surprised to learn that Jordan had decided to retire from making music, leaving him to continue the project alone. Somewhat inspired, Kirkland’s cinematic solo outing The Trip Home (2018) saw a recalibration of The Crystal Method sound –a release that is now followed by The Trip Out, which further develops his new-found sense of freedom through a melting pot of electronic music styles and collaborations.

Having worked alongside Ken Jordan for 25 years, how did his departure from The Crystal Method affect your state of mind?

“Ken came to me in 2015, saying he was pretty much done with music and wanted to move down to Costa Rica with his wonderful wife to be more eco-conscious, which didn’t really leave a lot of room for things like keyboards and drum machines. It wasn’t like there was any animosity – he gave me his blessing to continue with The Crystal Method and made it really easy for me to buy him out of the studio.”

Working with a partner inevitably means compromise. From that perspective, was there a positive side to continuing on your own?

“Every day I was in the studio I had one person to make happy, so I started looking on it as an opportunity to do things in a different way. Ken would come in and tell me whether something I’d worked on was cool or he wasn’t feeling it and we’d move on. Now there was an opportunity to work in a different way or collaborate with other people. That was refreshing, but there were many moments where I’d find myself wishing I had someone that I knew as well as Ken to bounce an idea off or tell me something was shit before I spent another 20 to 30 minutes working on it.”