WHEN US DJS Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland formed The Crystal Method (TCM) in 1994, they were an electronica outfit trying to crack an American music market heavily dominated by grunge and rock. So, when their first 12-inch release, Now's the Time, sold 3,000 copies, it was a major achievement for a fledgling scene.
British-born rave culture was slow to penetrate the US, meeting resistance from all quarters - from rockers to conservatives who associated electronic music with drugs. Eventually, TCM's sound started to make sense next to the likes of The Chemical Brothers and Prodigy. That translated into sales. The duo's 1997 debut album, Vegas, named after their hometown, topped the million mark.
Today, Jordan and Kirkland are still pushing their experimental electronic edge. Earlier this year, TCM released their third album, Legion of Boom, and a hectic 55-gig, 10-week promotional tour across the US and Canada followed. Coming up is the pair's first Southeast Asian tour - from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore, Taipei and Hong Kong - and then gigs in Australia.
'Right now, we're in LA and doing a remix for [the reformed] The Doors,' says Kirkland on the telephone from the Bomb Shelter, their two-car garage studio in Los Angeles, where they moved in the mid-90s. 'I guess we'll have to see how that turns out.'
The pair has never shied away from risk-taking. A decade ago, few Americans embraced TCM's fusion of electronica, thrash-rock, hip-hop and soul. The synthesised beats, bleeps and use of music samples was little understood, and often outright scorned.
The duo, like many electronic musicians before them, also had to overcome the stigma attached to rave culture - that of dangerous parties fuelled by drugs and perceived to be damaging a generation.
Their stage name didn't help matters. Crystal meth usually refers to methamphetamine, the most potent form of speed. But the pair say they adopted it from an innocent conversation. 'We were working with this rapper many years ago, and he asked how we were getting to the club that night. We said Crystal was giving us a lift. He replied, 'Oh, the Crystal method.' We liked that line, and it just stuck. And at that time, the drug wasn't as popular in the US, and in Britain no one really knew about it.'