The Obelisk Questionnaire: Jackie Russell of Exosphere
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: Jackie Russell of Exosphere
—
How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
We regard Exosphere as a Psychedelic Sludge Metal band, though that certainly was not the goal from the outset: our guitarist Steven originally hit me up to try and make a track that mixed Doom Metal and Thrash Metal. This presented an inherent challenge, as those subgenres are on opposite corners of the metal landscape because of their differences in tempo, performance style, and aggression. This first track we made together was called “Paralyzed,” and from there we honed in on the parts of that sound that we enjoyed to create our first EP. Since then we’ve been experimenting more and more with hardcore and shoegaze styles, which eventually blended our style into the Psychedelic Sludge gumbo that we know and perform today.
Describe your first musical memory.
At our first show we were passing around a joint between the stage and the audience, and it was Steven’s turn in the roto. An audience member came up to help him light it but accidentally Steve’s hair on fire while he was playing. Even before we could afford them Exosphere has always loved Pyrotechnics apparently haha.
For me personally I remember playing with a cello (badly) when I was six at some music event for kids in Seattle. It made me realize the huge range of noises possible with modern instruments, and I’ve been attempting to utilize them all throughout the musical works I’ve taken part in.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Our best memories are being made as we speak: we had the opportunity to work with Billy Barnett from Gung-Ho Studios for the mixing of our newest single “Beg Towards the Sky.” Billy has worked on a number of big albums, but the one closest to us at Exosphere was the Yob album Our Raw Heart. To hear his intense and visceral production on our recording is truly the most excited I’ve personally ever been for this band, and it’s only going up from here.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
When the band started our guitarist Steve hated pedals with a passion. It was amp tone and that’s IT. One of mine and Steve’s mutual friends helped usher Steve into the complex world of pedal building and tone sculpting, and while it took a while for the egg to crack Steven eventually started collecting and experimenting with various overdrive, fuzz, and modulation pedals to create a sound beyond anything we would have imagined upon recording our first EP. Steven is so into the sound now that he is helping me to build up a pedal board that complements his for this next record of ours.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
To new heights! Stagnation is something I fear constantly, and because of that I have a deep desire to never repeat myself musically — why would I be redundant when I can explore new ground? Exosphere is in line with this idea, and within our next album this is extremely apparent: The vibe is so much more chaotic than before, yet with a unique central focus that evades common ground with both our past work and the work of our peers.
How do you define success?
Being able to eat three meals a day and pay my bills. All I need musically to feel successful is to have a musical product I’m happy with, a point which I’ve been able to reach for several years now. Our hope is that as we grow we’ll be able to rely more and more on the financial income of Exosphere to help fund the band so we can afford to save our personal wages for eating and self care.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Steve posts some really interesting pictures on Facebook dot com. Probably about 30 percent of his feed I wish I hadn’t seen.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I’d love to get a live orchestra, or at least live orchestral players, onto some of the next Exosphere albums. As of now we utilize synthesizers for most of our accompaniment outside of the rock band quartet that we are made up of, so it would be cool to have more acoustic instruments. I graduated with a degree in Music Composition, so part of me just has all this knowledge of different voicing and techniques for orchestral strings that I know would fit like a glove in an Exosphere track.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
I don’t think there’s one right answer. To me it’s a release from the high stakes but mundane existence that we’re forced to live through. That said, when writing music I actively draw comparisons between our existence and the thematic material at hand to better understand this world and my reactions to it. Simultaneously music has the ability to effect my emotions in a multitude of ways that can’t be quantified. All of this is to say there’s so many different functions that music serves for me alone, and delineating one as the ‘true’ function of music wouldn’t give the breadth of experiences it can create any justice.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
I’m excited for the inevitable heat death of the universe after which all of our actions will be forgotten by time.
https://www.instagram.com/exobear_official
https://www.facebook.com/exosphereband
https://exosphereband.bandcamp.com/
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/exosphere/1462583406
https://open.spotify.com/album/2Ylo37gkrFQfgrHzF6odmC
