Crazy Town [ tickets ]’s debut album had been in stores for nearly a year, and after the first two singles stiffed, the record looked to be dead in the water. But with the release of the third single, “Butterfly”--which samples the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Pretty Little Ditty”--Crazy Town’s fortunes turned.

Guitarist Squirrel said that he knew at first listen that the bouncy beat of “Butterfly” would be a hit. It’s only in recent months, however, that the listening public has shared his opinion. “I was ecstatic when it was doing great and [Los Angeles radio station] KROQ picked it up ...” he said. “But it was when I heard it was on three radio stations in New York, and it was doing that all over the place, that’s when I really knew.”

Squirrel joined the seven-man Los Angeles band last May, after the departure of guitarist Rust Epique. Singers Shifty Shellshock and Epic Mazur had cut their teeth on hip-hop, and only began playing rock when Crazy Town formed a few years back. During the recording of the band’s 13-track debut “The Gift of Game” with producer Josh Abraham (Orgy, Coal Chamber), rapper KRS-One [ tickets ] heard some demos and dropped by the studio to lend vocals to the song “B-Boy 2000.”

“Everyone was, like, you gotta be kidding me, that’s KRS-One,” Squirrel said. “[Epic and Shifty] didn’t believe he was going to show up at all.…When you start to work with people who were your idols when you were a kid, that’s just amazing. It totally happens: here you are, working with someone who, when you were 14, you were buying everything you could by them. That’s the s---.”

A veteran of rock bands such as Chemlab, Squirrel said that plugging in alongside a DJ requires him to look at his guitar playing in a different light.

“Basically, I’m a songwriter and most of the guys in Crazy Town are songwriters. I don’t really just look at the guitar parts, I look at the whole song. So it’s like, 'When would I put a guitar part in this song?' As opposed to just thinking about guitar. I like the dynamic of having a verse where there’s no guitar at all, and a chorus where it comes in and then goes away. I like it when it goes in and out. I don’t need to play for the entire song, not unless the song needs it.”

Currently writing with an eye towards a second album, Crazy Town will tour later this spring. Squirrel said that the group can’t wait to take to the road.

“It’s all about the rock show. All the other things you do during the day are just part of your routine and schedule that gets you to the rock show. That’s what makes it all worthwhile. Being on a bus for 12 hours at a time, being in the freezing cold, bus breaks down, all that stuff you’ll deal with because you have the opportunity to turn it up loud and play. And we all love to do that.”