Crystal Antlers

Most bands can do fine with just a bio. Crystal Antlers need an encyclopedia. It would start with the debut 45 funded by a friend who also happened to be a bank robber—who’d robbed three banks in fifteen minutes—and then move to the no-budget FYF Fest tour in a veggie-oil powered school bus that got them on the front page of the Los Angeles Times calendar section. Then there’s the part about the debut EP recorded with Mars Volta/Jack White keyboardist/Free Moral Agents mastermind Ikey Owens, and the honor and heartbreak both of being the very last band to get out a new record on legendary indie label Touch and Go just as it downsized to into a reissue focused label. And there would have to be space to talk about how singer/bassist Jonny Bell met and recruited artist Raymond Pettibon to contribute a Crystal Antlers album cover, or about the guerilla shows at biker-club parties and Amtrak stations that took up Crystal Antlers’ first year playing out… And now Crystal Antlers have signed with high-powered L.A. independent Innovative Leisure, home of Nosaj Thing, Allah-Las and Hanni El Khatib. (Khatib is also part of a production duo with Bell, and they recently finished th... more...