It seems that everything I've read about you guys, there hasn't been one single negative thing said about you. Have you had any kind of struggles at all?

ETHAN: You're not planning on being the first person are you?

Not at all!

JKRIV: We haven't had too much trouble. You know I think in general, it's been overwhelmingly positive. The cool thing about it is that although we have performed largely in the House music scene, we've also played in some other places, you know big festivals. Just yesterday we played at Milwaukee Summerfest (our 3rd year doing it). We've played many other large festivals... Bonaroo a couple of weeks ago, we played at the Montreal Jazz Festival, we've played at festivals around Europe. We have some more big ones coming up. So we've played at many places that aren't specifically House or dance music oriented at all, and we've still gotten a great response. I think the reason is that on a certain level, it's live music, it's energetic, it's song-oriented stuff. Aside from playing live, I think that that's one thing that sets us apart from House music in that a lot of our music doesn't begin as a track which then gets sculpted. It begins a song.

How does the songwriting process work for you guys?

CHRISTIAN: It depends, it can start with a thought, it can start with the lyrics, it can start with the riff, it can start with a lot of different things.

JKRIV: Most of the songs have begun as a song that Christian wrote. The process is hard to sort of pin down. Like in the song "How's Your Life" - it began as a group jam that we then built that into a whole song. A lot of the music that gets written and recorded we then rework into a live arrangement that's sort of like a remix.

Do you ever redo other songs? Cover songs?

JKRIV: We've toyed around with that idea a couple of times. But I think for now we're still just focusing on putting on our own stuff.

CHRISTIAN: It feels a little cheesy...

ETHAN: We've considered it but now we're at a point where it could be cool. When we were first starting out I think we really wanted to establish our music.

CHRISTIAN: I guess it would depend on the venue we were at as well. If we were playing for a heavy House crowd, then there might be something cool about it and more appropriate. If we're playing in a festival where 70 percent of the people have never seen us, I think there's an integrity to just doing your own music.

ETHAN: At Bonaroo you could have counted the Househeads on both hands.

Where are some of the places you've played at here in Chicago?

JKRIV: We've played Smart Bar a few times, Metro, The District, the Hothouse...

I can't imagine you guys playing at Smart Bar, such a small venue.

ETHAN: It's kinda fun because you end up with people all around you. We all spent many years playing in similar clubs in New York City. We're used to that.

So are you all Househeads?

CHRISTIAN: I guess it depends what that means. We're music heads. I think we're preferential to good music. We find that there's a lot of House music that we like a lot... Basically there are a lot of people out there that are like, "I just want to hear House."

JKRIV: We listen to a wide variety of music. When we travel in a car, which does happen from time to time - although we fly more and more these days, we still find ourselves in a car for many hours. I would say we listen to House music 10, 15 percent of the time. We really change it up. There isn't like one genre... It could be anywhere from piano sonatas to House music to Led Zeppelin.

Do you all 3 have the same taste?

ETHAN: Close enough that we don't fight! But distant enough that we all have different music on in our selections.