Just a few weeks after their debut album was nominated for a Grammy, Shiny Toy Guns made a pit stop on December 22 at the legendary Wiltern Theater in L.A. to play their final 2007 show. They ended their breakout year with a bang by playing a special hour and a half set featuring old rare songs, the entire "We Are Pilots" album and new material from their next record. We caught up with band members Jeremy Dawson (synths) and Carah Faye (vocals/bass) backstage at the Wiltern to discuss all kinds of shiny happy things.

PLAYBOY: You were just nominated for a Grammy—Best Electronic/Dance Album. How does it feel and what was your reaction to the news?
DAWSON: It just came out of the blue sky. I guess there’s no way to have a presumption that’s going to happen. It was freaky. I didn’t even know it was the Grammy cycle or when the Grammys were. It was like “whoa.” It’s pretty crazy.

PLAYBOY: How’s the next album coming along? What’s it going to sound like?
DAWSON: It’s like one of those things like—I want my child to have brown hair, blue eyes—and you think it’s just never going to happen organically. As it’s going, we want to make sure we keep some silence around it. Once we’re happy with it, and it’s all done, then everybody can hear the whole thing for what it is. We won’t leak a song here or there. We want to keep the mystique, the mystery of it. Especially for people who have been around the band and have listened to the band for two to three years, back since our demos. It’s going to be especially cool for them, to just all of a sudden have a whole new record drop on them.
PLAYBOY: Have you ever had any surreal moments where a band you grew up listening to becomes a fan of your music and approaches toy to praise your work?
FAYE: Jeremy has—Jesus Jones.
DAWSON: It was crazy! When I was 15, 16, I was obsessed with this British band, Jesus Jones. I was the biggest, straight-up, cheeseball, super fan. I had their videos on VHS, I was in the fan club, wrote letters, everything. We played a show last year in London, and the keyboard player showed up. I heard he was coming to the show but wasn’t sure he’d actually go, but I knew he was on the guest list. I was walking through one of the corridors and this guy walks up and says, “Hey, I’m a huge fan,” and it was Iain from Jesus Jones. It’s like meeting a band that’s the biggest thing in your entire childhood and meeting them full circle 15 years later.
PLAYBOY: You guys did an amazing cover of Depeche Mode’s “Stripped.” Do you plan on covering any other tracks?
DAWSON: We are, but we won’t say what it is—that would be, again, breaking the mystique.
FAYE: Speaking of Depeche Mode, it’s another band we all like. I don’t know if Martin Gore likes our band, but I know that he likes this track. It’s his favorite cover of “Stripped.” He basically asked somebody, “So what other bands have you seen?” They said “Oh, we just saw Shiny Toy Guns.” He said, “that’s the best cover of ‘Stripped’ I ever heard.”
PLAYBOY: One cool dynamic about your band is that you have a lead male and female vocalist. How do you decide who sings what?
FAYE: Well, it’s really about who writes the lyrics. You can write the lyrics from the other’s perspective, but when you’re writing a song and have an idea, you just add a vocal and go for it. It comes naturally, it really does.
PLAYBOY: Do you have any favorite female vocalists, maybe ones that influenced and inspired you?
FAYE: Björk is pretty universal, I love her. Etta James, Nancy Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald.
PLAYBOY: Do you have any shocking musical tastes or CDs in your collection that would surprise fans?
FAYE: Spice World. [Laughs]
DAWSON: I like country—old country, like Johnny Cash era, Hank Williams Sr. I like cool, sort of weird psychobilly country. It’s like 10% is rockabilly sounding with punk undertones, but it’s country-western influenced.
PLAYBOY: Your band name, Shiny Toy Guns, comes from the lyrics to your song “When They Came For Us.”  What made you choose that as the band’s name?
FAYE: That was where it came from, the band liked that one lyric.
PLAYBOY: Does it have a special meaning?
DAWSON: The song does. The lyric is part of the meaning of the song. The name of the song used to be “Shiny Toy Guns.” We didn’t have a band name—it was just like wait, this sounds like a band name. We just took one of the song titles and made it the name of the band itself.
PLAYBOY: Did you always bet on being in a successful band or did you have a back-up plan in mind in case things didn’t work out?
FAYE: I wanted to sing since I was six-years-old, but I always wanted to get into psychology. I love that. When I was little I also wanted to be a gymnast.
DAWSON: I’m really into weather, meteorology. I still try to dabble in it.
PLAYBOY: It seems like labels and bands are obsessed with sales and having hits. Do things like chart placement and all that matter to you?
FAYE: Of course, I mean this is our career. We definitely started with the idea of let’s make this as big as we can—world domination, apparently. So everything does matter. It’s the only place to go. It’s not just about playing a live show, or just this or just that, it’s everything. It’s a business.
PLAYBOY: How long do you see yourselves doing this? As long as the Rolling Stones?
FAYE: I’d like to.
DAWSOM: Yea, it’s the kind of thing you just do. If you can still spill out melodies, lyrics and songs and get up onstage and play them, then you should be able to consider doing this and focusing on this for life. You got to learn to not get caught up in failure.
PLAYBOY: Carah, if there was a demand from fans and if Playboy ever asked, would you pose for a pictorial?
FAYE: Totally nude? I don’t know, I mean, maybe. I don’t know about right now. In swimwear maybe [Laughs]. I don’t know about nude things. It’s not my style to be, you know—not who I want to be known as.
PLAYBOY:  There’s a fear amongst fans that you might pull a Gwen Stefani and put out a solo album. Would you consider doing that one day?
FAYE: If I did, it would not be directed towards pop. It wouldn’t be like, “Oh, I want to make a lot of money.”  I’d do like a Cardigans thing. Cardigans is like my all time favorite, I love them. I’d do music that I like. I wouldn’t be doing songs like Gwen Stefani. I’m nowhere near thinking about it right now.

To see the band’s latest video, click here.