In terms of House what DJs or producers do you like to listen to?

JKRIV: Right now I like Frank Roger, I like stuff Alix Alvarez is doing and I like some other quirkier German stuff. Some of the techier kinda stuff.

ETHAN: I really like your Ten City boys, Osunlade, some Rasoul mixes I'll put on and rock out to.

CHRISTIAN: I like soulful House in general. I can give a little shoutout to the DJ who's playing with us tonight, we have a number of different mixes by DJ Whyteout.

How did you guys meet him?

ETHAN: We first met him at The District. We played the night I believe that Mr. A.L.I. normally plays but for some reason they weren't doing it and it was us.

JKRIV: We met Whyteout that night. It was a really funny night because at the last minute they booked an afterparty for Ginuwine... and so it was velvet ropes and all of a sudden the cover went from $5 to $20. And all these people that wanted to get in couldn't get in. They weren't even letting in people on our list!

ETHAN: This was before we had a booking agent. We invited a booking agent to come down and check us out and they wouldn't let him in! This was like two years ago.

What do you think of the whole New York vs. Chicago thing?

JKRIV: We don't even think about that. I will say that as far as House music goes, the scene in Chicago is a lot stronger. In New York there's a lot of good music and a lot of great DJs, but the scenes are really sort of compartmentalized and spread out. And it's like that with everything in New York.

ETHAN: In New York you could have a House show and get all sorts. Like last week I went to the Body and Soul party at P.S. 1 and it was packed full of people. Whereas I feel that Chicago it's more like a close-knit kind of scene. In New York, there are a lot of people listen to House music but they're not necessarily Househeads.

What about hip-hop? Do you guys listen to it?

JKRIV: I have not been feeling hip-hop for a while. I haven't been into hip-hop since 1995. I liked it a lot before then!

CHRISTIAN: I used to love it. I used to be in a hip-hop band. I played the drums and I did a couple of verses but there was a lead rapper. But I would say maybe even earlier than Jason stopped liking it, you know like the early '90s I stopped listening to it.

So I'm sure everybody always asks you how do you play the drums and sing at the same time...

CHRISTIAN: From having practiced rap. [laughs] Years of playing and singing and combining the two...

When you guys record, do you try to do a perfect take or do you fix it with a computer?

JKRIV: Well the current record is a mix, but most of the songs are not live drums, they're sequenced. There's other live elements in there, live keys and live bass. We're actually having this conversation a lot right now because we're about to embark on the next record which is gonna be a little different from the previous one in that we really want it to focus on what we do live. I think it all really depends on the production style and what the song calls for. We definitely want the root of our music in the next record to be the three of us playing live, we want that to be the feel. As far as release date we couldn't really say right now. We're about to finish up the run of gigs we have through the summer and early fall, and then we're going to take a solid four or five months off to get the album together.

You all have your own solo stuff too.

CHRISTIAN: We all have various things that we're doing. Cooly's Hot Box was a project of mine, still is. I've got another moniker I'm doing stuff under called Cowboy Johnny Christ. I just sang on Spinna's record, his intergalactic soul thing. And I'm doing some work with N'Dea Davenport.