Interview By Vee Jones
Written By Chris Norris
Crystal Lake Interview
In this Crystal Lake interview the band talks about spending more than two decades learning how to survive change.
Members have come and gone. Vocalists have changed. Scenes have shifted around them. Yet the Japanese metalcore veterans have continued moving forward, sometimes by evolution and sometimes by sheer refusal to stop.
Backstage at O2 Ritz Manchester on October 1, Metal Lair’s Vee Jones sat down with Crystal Lake during the band’s European run supporting Fear Factory on the Cybernetic Domination Tour.
The Manchester bill also brought together Hate, The Nocturnal Affair and Fear Factory, but for Crystal Lake the tour represented something more personal: another chapter in a band that seems perpetually capable of rebuilding itself.
The conversation arrives during a particularly unusual year for Crystal Lake. In January, the band released The Weight of Sound through Century Media Records, an 11-track record stacked with guest appearances from Jesse Leach of Killswitch Engage, David Simonich, Taylor Barber, Myke Terry and Karl Schubach. It was also the first Crystal Lake full-length featuring then-vocalist John Robert Centorrino.
By spring, however, another transition had begun. Centorrino departed, and PK of Prompts eventually stepped into the vocalist position.
For PK, joining Crystal Lake carried an almost absurd bit of symmetry: years earlier, he had watched the band perform at Busan Rock Festival while still living in Korea and came away wanting to pursue heavy music himself. Now he is standing at the microphone.
During the interview, PK describes receiving the call from Crystal Lake after Centorrino’s departure and initially coming aboard as a support vocalist. Because he had already been a fan of the band, much of the material was familiar.
Touring Japan and Australia together became something of an extended audition, not simply for musical ability but for whether everyone could actually survive life together on the road.
Mitsuru tells Vee that talent and aggression onstage are only part of what the band needs from somebody joining its ranks. Personality, respect and basic humanity matter just as much when musicians are effectively living inside one another’s pockets for weeks at a time.
Touring, after all, is not ninety minutes under lights. It is airports. Vans. Soundchecks. Bad sleep. Tiny rooms. Strange food. Endless waiting. Then doing it again tomorrow.
Crystal Lake have been doing some version of that since forming in Tokyo in 2002.
FROM FAN TO FRONTMAN
One of the most revealing moments in the conversation comes when PK explains that Crystal Lake were once part of the reason he wanted to become a professional musician at all.
Growing up in Korea, he loved metal and hardcore but saw little infrastructure around him for making a living from that music. Japan was close enough geographically to make the leap possible, and eventually he moved there and became part of the heavy scene.
Years later, Crystal Lake called. There is something wonderfully circular about that. A fan in the audience became the vocalist.
PK describes joining first as temporary support before touring gave both sides the opportunity to figure out whether the arrangement actually worked. Eventually, Crystal Lake asked him to become an official member.
For a band with such a complicated vocalist history, that decision clearly involved more than finding somebody capable of screaming over a breakdown.
THE HUMAN SIDE OF CRYSTAL LAKE
Asked what stood out about PK, Mitsuru points toward his passion and aggression onstage, but quickly moves beyond musicianship. Character matters.
When a band is touring relentlessly and spending most of its waking life together, technical ability only gets somebody through the front door. Compatibility determines whether the whole thing survives. That theme runs quietly underneath much of the interview.
Crystal Lake have lasted because the band seems unusually comfortable with the idea that its identity can change without disappearing.
Different musicians bring different personalities. Different records capture different versions of the group. Rather than pretending otherwise, Mitsuru essentially acknowledges that those personalities become part of the music itself.
It may explain why Crystal Lake have managed to absorb so many changes without turning into a museum exhibit of their own past.
THE WEIGHT OF SOUND AND WHAT COMES NEXT
The Weight of Sound arrived January 23 through Century Media Records. Its eleven songs push Crystal Lake between metalcore, deathcore, electronics and melody, while an unusually large guest cast stretches the record further outward.
But the band Vee meets in Manchester is already looking beyond it. PK talks openly about wanting to bring something fresh into Crystal Lake rather than simply reproducing a previous version of the group.
And near the end of the interview, the band gives perhaps the most interesting tease of all: new music with PK is coming.
Crystal Lake describe themselves as moving toward a “newborn” version of the band. That phrase may tell us more than any genre label could.
This is not Crystal Lake attempting to erase what came before. It is Crystal Lake refusing to become trapped by it.
THEN THE INTERVIEW GETS WEIRD
Thankfully, Vee does not spend forty minutes asking musicians what their influences are. The second half veers happily off the rails.
Crystal Lake are subjected to British snacks and drinks, debate the merits of vegan pork pie, discuss Korean food, Italian pasta, mead and the hazards of finding recognizable Japanese cuisine abroad. There is spicy jelly-bean roulette and Jaffa Cakes.
There is a drawing challenge that briefly collapses because everybody misunderstands what they are supposed to be drawing.
And somehow the conversation eventually reaches conspiracy theories involving insects, octopuses and aliens.
At one point Crystal Lake are asked which of their own songs they would use to summon a demon.
Because this is apparently where responsible music journalism has led us. We approve.
The whole thing works precisely because it stops feeling like promotion and starts feeling like several people backstage killing time before soundcheck. You get the band, but you also get the people inside it.
WATCH THE FULL CRYSTAL LAKE INTERVIEW
Crystal Lake continue their European dates as part of Fear Factory’s Cybernetic Domination Tour. The Manchester date took place October 1 at O2 Ritz Manchester with Fear Factory, Crystal Lake, Hate and The Nocturnal Affair.
Lineup:
Yudai “YD” Miyamoto — guitar
Hisatsugu “TJ” Taji — guitar
Mitsuru — bass
Gaku Taura — drums
Kang “PK” Hyun — vocals
ORDER THE WEIGHT OF SOUND HERE
1. Everblack (feat. David Simonich
2. BlüdGod (feat. Taylor Barber) 3. Neversleep (feat. Myke Terry) 4. King Down
5. The Undertow (feat. Karl Schubach)
6. The Weight of Sound
7. Crossing Nails
8. Dystopia (feat. Jesse Leach)
9. Sinner
10. Don’t Breathe
11. Coma Wave
CRYSTAL LAKE ONLINE:
About The Author:
We’d like to welcome Vee Jones to the Metal Lair crew.
Vee is our newest contributor and the face behind Backstage with Vee, bringing video interviews straight from venues, backstage corridors, tour stops, and wherever else the heavy stuff happens.
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