The Obelisk Questionnaire: Clément Márquez of Red Sun Atacama
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Clément Márquez of Red Sun Atacama
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
You mean with the Atacama band? We play a mixture of heavy desert rock, with regular slides into psychedelic jams and an always on punkish abrasive spirit. The first album Licancabur was still rooted in desert rock but the upcoming album will push even further the crossover of styles!
We came to do this kind of urban/desert rock crossover very naturally. Since late teenage years we‘ve been listening to Stoner and Heavy Psych -music much more associated with beaches/space/desert- while growing up and living in big cold grey city!
Describe your first musical memory.
My very first musical memory must be witnessing my uncles on stage when I was five or six! They were an important act of Chilean folk music (Illapu) back in the days and without a doubt must the very first band I’ve ever seen live. Memories are blurry of course, but I remember the electricity in the air, the lights…and the smoke machine! (lol)
However, back then I cannot say I cared that much about the music per say, or at least as much as any form of entertainment.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Tough one! As an audience, it’s a close game between the Stooges in 2007 and Motorpsycho in 2014. The Stooges gig was just MADNESS. Fury on and off the stage, sound insanely loud… as a sweet nineteen youngster, there was a real feeling of both danger from being in the frantic crowd and ecstasy from the sonic magma and energy pouring from the stage.
The Motorpsycho gig was kind of a “blind date” for me. I went there without knowing much of the band and on the recommendation from my friend Seb “Flyin Caillou” (from More Fuzz blog/label). I was blown away. Everything was so powerful yet beautiful, perfectly fluid while complex. They are really unique and hard to put a label on. One of the very few gigs that moved me to a tear, and I’ve been to a few!
As a band, again a tough one. We played various places and audience size, but strangely enough my best gig memory must be in Ghent’s Kinkystar, a smallish rock venue.
The event was organized by the NoNameCollective crew (they are rad!), and was iconic of what a good bar gig should be : place fully packed with bodies up to the entrance door, beer flying across the room, friendly mosh pits and risky crowd surfing, with music rattling windows and glasses on the bar. Electric.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
I cannot say to be fair. I really consider music as something personal, and to a greater extent in the rock/metal music niches we are in. You have to be open to other people tastes and opinions, but at the same time should not feel compelled to satisfy and follow the pack neither.
There is some bands I really don’t dig but I would never presume they are “bad” and vis versa.
But again, and I don’t want to sound corny, I find that the Doom/Stoner/Heavy/Psych niche to be way less judgmental than some other Metal/Rock scenes!
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
I think when you start out, you have a lot of influences to digest and you often tend to mimic some music/style/bands you already dig. Then, gigs after gigs, rehearsals after rehearsals, if you found the right match of band mates…you end up with something that’s more “you”.
That’s a progression that you can witness with most bands, usually the first album is kind of the “proto” version of the band, then the second and/or third album is really when the band defines itself!
Artistic progression is not be judge on how famous the project gets but how much it you feel like it’s “you”.
How do you define success?
Oof. Tough one again. The simplest common way to answer would be “to be able to do only what you like without having to worry about the money” but that a bit reductive and a lot of successful bands in the scene must work “regular jobs” when touring and recording is off.
The way I see it, and maybe this is “thinking small”, success would be when the whole band feel like they have reached what they aimed for at first, they are proud of what they accomplished, and that anything that comes after is bonus.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Maybe I’m lucky, but in the context of the music scene, both as an audience and a band, I can’t recall something I wish I hadn’t seen. We had a couple of crappy sleeping places after some shady gigs, but that’s just bad experiences which make for great spicy memories to share later! (lol)
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I have this idea for some years now, to start a band mixing post-hardcore, sludge-doom and kraut elements. The whole thing with guitars, drummer(s?), bass, synth and at least 3 singing members. I have ZERO time to start such a project but that’s stuck in my head!
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
I have the sensation that art and even more music is the last transcendental domain we have left.
(sorry, so much gravitas, I know! lol)
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Same thing as most of the world : get back to a much “normal” life!
On a more personal note, also the release of our second album with Atacama. We just started to look for labels but we are really excited about this one!
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https://morefuzzrecords.bandcamp.com/
