A Q&A with Anji Bee just went up on the DAXX site. You can read the full interview over there, but here’s a good selection of topics.

DAXX: In 10 words or less, describe your demeanor.
ANJI: “Mellow” is always the word that comes up about Ryan! I’m kind of a mix of mellow and intense, depending on the situation. Ryan always says I’m “sweet”. Other people tend to say that I’m “cool.”

DAXX: What genre of music do you like to produce? To listen to?
ANJI: We had been making Atmospheric jazz step drum ‘n’ bass the past couple years, but we just completed a downtempo vocal track last night, and I hope we go in that direction for some more songs. We’re also talking about trying a vocal house tune, probably with the help of our jazzy house collaborators, Gabriel D. Vine and Doron Orenstein. They’ve gotten us more interested in deep house stuff ‘coz they have a great band, called Toof, that does that sort of thing. I’m thinking about doing stuff along the lines of some of the Om Records releases — very groovy, mellow dance music with sexy vocals. Ryan wants to use a lot of Rhodes and sax, and experiment more with the beats and grooves. We want to keep it very jazzy, and atmospheric — that’s the main thing!

DAXX: Name 3 of your biggest influences, and why.
ANJI: Oh shit, that’s hard! Right now, I’d say Miles Davis is having a big influence on Ryan’s musical thinking. He’s reading about the making of Kind of Blue and getting really inspired by that modal jazz movement. I’m really stoked on the new Soulstice album at the moment. They are amazing! We’ve also been listening to some Svek and Good Looking stuff recently, feeling the deep house thing. We just saw Bukem and PFM spin last month, and they continue to impress us with their musical output.

DAXX: What type of hardware/software do you currently use to mix?
ANJI: If you’re talking about producing, we use ProTools and a Spirit mixer, plus various other gear. As far as spinning goes, we have two 1200s and a little NuMark mixer. We could use a better one, but that’s a low priority compared to recording gear right now.

DAXX: How much dedication have you put into your work?
ANJI: An awful lot! I’m obsessed by music and spend most of my waking time thinking about it listening to it, and working on it in one form or another. I can’t live without it!

DAXX: When did you start “dropping” (spinning) wax? Why?
ANJI: Ryan began deejaying about 3 years ago out of curiosity, and it became a good way for him to promote his new music. He’d tried playing live with his old vocalist, and it was always difficult for them. Once he began making full DJ mixes, it was fun to press acetates and bring them out to clubs. He doesn’t spin very often anymore, since we’re trying to put together songs for a new album. DJing can take up a lot of time and money! As for me, I was a college DJ for 3 years, but I played as many CDs as I did vinyl, so I don’t have all the club mixing skills. I think about learning to beat mix sometimes, but I guess we don’t need 2 DJs in our band.

DAXX: Do you buy your wax in the U.S.?
ANJI: Yeah. We find more stuff in San Fran than L.A., too, by the way.

DAXX: Do you think that England produces better music to spin with?
ANJI: Ryan’s collection would certainly seem to argue that!

DAXX: What are your opinions about the underground scene in LA right now?
ANJI: Well, there just isn’t all that much that we’re into going on in LA, but then again, it’s hard to stay on top of all the events around town, so we probably miss out on a lot. We’ve been staying home to work on music more, so we don’t see as many shows as we used to. Generally, it seems like most people like much harder music than we do.

DAXX: What do you do to pass time?
ANJI: Think about or listen to music, read, write in my journal, see a movie, pet the cats — all that normal stuff.

DAXX: List your favorite book/movie/cd.
ANJI: So many!!! I’m not good at favorites. I tend to be really into whatever I’m digging at the moment, I think Ryan is that way, too. I’m excited about the new Jeanette Winterson novel “The Power Book,” I already mentioned Illusion by Soulstice, and we both enjoyed the film “Memento” a lot last month.

DAXX: What did you think about the movies “Run Lola Run” and “Groove”?
ANJI: We’re pals with Wade, from Ryan spinning at La Belle Epoque, so it was really cool to see him up there on the big screen in “Groove.” I actually interviewed him about the movie etc last year; you should check that out at: http://choler.com/articles/wishfm.shtml I also reviewed the sound track, which may be a teensy kiss-ass, but here’s the URL: http://choler.com/reviews/wishfm_groove.shtml

DAXX: List your top three websites.
ANJI: I tend to go to Mp3.com and Google on a daily basis. I used to really enjoy Live 365 a lot, but have cut back a bit on my streaming radio intake. We were really into Napster for a while, too. I don’t really surf that much; I just go search for specific information when I need it. I don’t really enjoy reading articles or news very much. That’s Ryan’s thing. He devours information on the Internet through lots of sources, then he just tells me about the best stuff he’s read. Some of the sites he visits often are Fucked Company, Harmony Central, LA Times, plus all the news from his Yahoo page and the links off there.

DAXX: Sum up the future of music: what is it going to be like in five years?
ANJI: Lord only knows! It’s a weird time for music right now and we’re all anxiously waiting to see how it’ll turn out.

DAXX: What is going to be the future of mp3s?
ANJI: Well, Ryan fears that people will forget about CDs and start listening to mp3s only, which means that sound quality will plummet. I can understand his qualms, because I’m pretty addicted to them myself, but when I put a CD on the stereo — my god, the difference! Or when you hear vinyl on a good system… mp3s can never compare to that! They are convenient, though, for sharing music quickly and cheaply, that’s for sure. We both hope that people won’t forget about CDs or vinyl, or some type of high quality audio hard copy formats. We’ll just have to wait and see how it all goes down, I guess.

DAXX: If you could change one thing, what?
ANJI: I’d like it if Ryan and I could just work on music full time, so we could get an album together more quickly and then have time to work up a live set and tour a bit. It’s too hard to be a serious musician when you’re forced to have a day job to survive.

DAXX: What does the future hold for LOVESPIRALS?
ANJI: More tunes, a new album, hopefully a new live set up. Lots of changes and new growth!