So then, what you been up to?
We just got back from New York where we were doing a really cool show on the waterfront in Brooklyn. It was really great. It was a free show for the whole city. And then we’re leaving in a couple of weeks for our tour. I think we fly into Berlin first. I think we are doing like a whole bunch of festivals and then some pretty cool club gigs too. I know we have some shows with Deerhunter and some shows with Black Lips and some shows with HEALTH so we’re pretty excited.

Are you a band that enjoys touring?
Touring is something that we love. We’ve basically been on tour since January all over Europe and the US and the only time we’ve had off was in July. It feels really weird; we’re almost a bit like ‘what do we do now’. You’re so used to being on a bus. We love touring though. It just feels right.

You’re gaining a reputation as an amazing live band. Is that the best way to hear Crystal Antlers?
I think that there are things that happen when we play live that are hard to translate onto record. There’s a certain energy and I think seeing us actually play the songs on stage is a lot more emotive than hearing it on record. There are some things on record that don’t really happen when we play live, but I think it is good for people to see us play live first and to really discover us that way, rather than listen to the record. I think it gives them a better idea.

The vocals sound pretty intense. Is it hearts on sleeves time when you get on stage?
Definitely. I’m a pretty shy person normally and I don’t really know how to explain myself properly a lot of the time. But when we play live it just feels really natural and I think that stands for everybody in the band. We all just really let go.

Where did you make the record?
We did it in San Francisco at a studio called Closer, which was also where we recorded our seven inch and our EP. It is a really gloomy and beautiful place. We really enjoyed working there. There is a big sky light in the top of the studio and there is this dim, San Francisco overcast light coming through it all the time. It’s old and atmospheric. It used to be a school. The live room is where the classroom used to be. It is a really interesting studio.

How did the recording go?
We kind of planned on doing things really sporadically. We booked just one week and did all the recording and all the mixing in that time, so it was basically like almost no sleep at all. It was sort of like this long, sleep deprived week.

D’you think that way or working comes across on the record?
I think so. At least for me when I listen back I still remember how I felt making it, you know. I think there’s a lot of cool stuff on the record because of that way of working. The songs that I think sound the best are the ones that we mixed at like four o’clock in the morning in the last couple of days. We didn’t even ever leave the studio for more than like fifteen minutes at a time. Even the engineer would just sleep on the floor of the control room. We would literally just sleep for a couple of hours here and there and then just wake up and carry on working.

It’s a really raw sound. We imagine you recording everything pretty much live?
For the most part we usually do record it live as much as possible. It’s the best way to capture how we feel at the time - playing together in one take. We try and use where possible recordings that are done in the first couple of takes, and especially on this record. We really used that method this time around. Most of the songs are done in one take and on a couple of the tracks it’s the first time we’ve ever actually played the song all the way through without making any major mistakes.

The words are hard to make out. Are they important?
The lyrics are definitely one of the most important things, especially for me. On this record I really tried to make things a lot more personal. On the EP some of the songs are kind of about broader things and are not quite so personal, so this time I really wanted to put some of myself into the songs – even though you can’t understand what I’m saying most of the time.

Any recurrent lyrical themes?
I don’t know. Songs kind of mean different things to me at different times. Sometimes I’ll realise that there are common themes between the songs in the middle of listening to them, but I guess there’s a lot of apocalyptic stuff. It’s all just relating to experiences I’ve had in recent times I guess.

You seem to straddle a range of styles. Is that a reflection of the different influences within the band?
Maybe a little bit, but for the most part it’s more just like us trying to do something different. Getting bored with certain styles and trying to invent something new for ourselves.

Weird name! Where did it come from?
We were trying to find a name for a while that would work for what we were starting to develop as a sound and someone just suggested it to us. They were talking about a crystal antlered chandelier, and we were thinking, ‘crystal antlers – that sounds cool’.

Did it occur to you you’d be joining the ranks of the crystal somethings?
Usually, if people ask me about that, I?m just like ‘yeah, we heard about Crystal Castles and Crystal Stilts and we just thought that would be the quickest way to get popular’, but I think we actually came up with that name before those bands were around and certainly before we’d ever heard of them.

Crystal Antlers play Koko with Deerhunter and HEALTH
on 24 August and solo shows at The Macbeth (25 August) and Rough Trade East (27 August)

Photo: Dan Monik