Are you already working on your next album?We aren’t in the recording phase yet, but we’ve been slowly piecing together some songs as best we can in the pandemic. I’m not sure when we’ll be able to put it out, but we’ll do our best.
Is it still a bit difficult to put together live shows now?Even though it’s nowhere near the way things used to be, this year we’ve been able to play 4 or 5 shows, so it feels a lot better than last year. We used to play 40 to 50 shows a year before the pandemic, which I think may have been on verge of becoming a mannerism. Being limited in frequency in terms of both practice and playing live has also had its positive side in that it makes each time we play feel that much more fresh. COVID has definitely put a lot of people in music in a tough spot both mentally and financially, but if I had to name one good point of all this, it’s that we were able to do a hard reset of things like I just mentioned. Still, for a while there in 2020 we weren’t able to play live or practice at all, which was beyond a reset, more like reaching a state where I could easily imagine myself losing my identity and becoming no one, so this was of course pretty awful.
We’re curious about your daily relationship. Do you listen to music regularly?It’s not like I’m always listening to something, but when I do, it’s usually on vinyl or more lately, music subscription on my PC or mobile phone.
What kind of music are you listening to recently?Someone recommended this book Rave Culture: The Story of Ecstasy Culture & Acid House to me not so long ago, so I’ve been listening to acid house from the late 80s/early 90s as I read it. Not that that has any bearing on my own music, though. This book talks about how a drug like MDMA, or say LSD in the case of psychedelic rock, can become a culture, and I found myself kind of interested in the music and atmosphere of the era that emerges from that. As I read, I kept wondering, “If another movement like this were to come around, what would it be like?”
In closing, tell us about your vision or personal goals for the future.That’s a question I get asked a lot, but to be honest I don’t have any specific vision. My usual answer is simply “I’ll just keep on doing whatever I’ve got lined up before me,” but that’s the actual truth.
Translation to English: Luke Baker