QTheMusic.com

We are autoKratz and Animal is our debut album.

The album inspiration ...
The record is inspired by our lives, and us wanting to tackle something much more personal than we have done before. This record is much more song based than our earlier releases, and the focus is more on us as people and our lives. It's an individual record with lots of depth and variation. There’s still aggressive and driving moments, but we have certainly moved forward from our earlier releases - and that's something uncontrollable - something we are compelled to do so as writers.

Our musical inspiration...
We need to make music that gets us excited; music that sounds fresh to us, and it's the quality of the songs that has to carry that. I don’t see us as an 'electro band'... we are a band that can choose whatever sounds we like to convey the meaning of the song. It's not about fitting into any genre or movement.

Our intention and working methods...
We really wanted to make something different, something you wouldn't expect. Therefore, we let our songwriting run wild and we didn't restrict what approaches we took... we don't create any musical boundaries for ourselves. Therefore, we can achieve a variation that is not seen in a lot of other electronic bands. As soon as you tie yourself to a scene, then you have limitations to what you can do musically. For us its all about moving forward, being original...

We achieve this variation by not setting out a formula for our songwriting. Sometimes David will write alone, or sometimes Russell will. One of us may start a track for the other to continue and vice versa. We both tend to work apart and send each other ideas. This enables us to take each others ideas and run off on a tangent to create something unique. Sometimes a melody will start the process, or a vocal line, or a guitar line, but we couldn’t write and know where we are heading - it would feel wrong.

Electronic music vs. big audiences...
There's nothing wrong with electronic music reaching big audiences, and appealing to as many people as possible, although that’s not how we write. We don't think about that at all, it's about making something that gets us excited. This is not to say that the response we get feel doesn’t feel amazing. The most important thing is people being able to take something away from your music. If you start making contrived music to get in the mainstream, it will lose its beauty, it's honesty and its value. 

Aims for the album... (a.k.a avoiding Meatloaf)
With Animal, we didn't aim for anything at all. We just ran with any ideas we had. The writing process took longer than we expected, and the label were probably not sure what was going on. Towards the end we became quite prolific and several songs came very quickly. We really found our stride and Animal was born. We are extremely proud to have created a diverse and varied album...It has lots of different levels yet something the ties it all together. It's an honest album about us as people, and I think that's why it works. But there’s no overall theme, as if you tread the road of concept you may well find yourself on Bat Out Of Hell corner. Which is more of a junction. With all the signs facing in wrong directions. And the scent of a fat man with breasts wafting in the breeze.

New territory for autoKratz...
To look specifically at a tracks on the album, something like Can't Get Enough is a driving and relentless album track, and a type of track we hadn’t tried before. It’s an aggressive and impassioned album track that shows the variety and depth of Animal. David's vocal delivery is direct and urgent, whilst the sounds are forceful yet melodic.

Influences...
As a band we could list our influences in Primal Scream, Kraftwerk, Underworld etc but for us following influences has never been what we are about. We work tirelessly to create something unique and pure which is true to autoKratz. Animal is a record that feels like a part of us, almost an extension of ourselves. We are extremely happy and proud of what we have created and we are very, very excited about people hearing it.

byautoKratz.

Preview the album:autoKratz on myspace.
Animal is out Monday June 22.

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autoKratz cover Primal Scream.

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5:54 PM | 17/06/2009