The Obelisk Questionnaire: Methadone Skies
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: Methadone Skies
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Long story short: a productive way to spend our free time that turned into a hobby and ultimately a passion, really. It all feels like baby steps since we’re approaching our 15th anniversary as a band, but from randomly playing at home to playing with some of our favorite bands or sending our music in dozens of countries around the world, it’s a lovely and at the same time, humbling feeling. We mainly bonded over our love for Queens of the Stone Age songs back in 2008 among other bands, then we pushed ourselves to find a sound of our own. We never took anything for granted and maybe this is why we still play together today.
Describe your first musical memory.
Playing our first show as Methadone Skies in front of about 200 people, opening for a local band, The :Egocentrics, whom we previously went to watch perform multiple times. It was scary, stressful, but awesome. We were unaware at the time, but our soon-to-be guitar player Alex was at that show too.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
There are a few that will stick forever with us, such as our Ukrainian gigs in 2012 which were great, crazy and lots of fun. Also, opening for Yawning Man, getting to spend time talking with them about the whole desert scene, how things developed from there for hours after the gig. We played a cover of “Rock Formations” at our first gig. Maybe the most encompassing was organizing the Haywire Festival in our town for three years in a row, meeting lots of bands. We grew a lot from moments like those, whether musically or how to handle various sides of booking, promo, etc. Being an independent band, handling everything ourselves, it meant a lot.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Maintaining focus as a band starting 2017, when our guitar player Alex moved to work in Hamburg, Germany. It wasn’t easy to adjust, since most of our songs were born at our rehearsal space by jamming. It forced us to rethink our approach and since then, we’ve been moving into a different direction, where we think more about song structures and sound from the moment an idea is born. We adapted and there was an upside to that, as we are more aware of our strengths and flaws today.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
The sonic journey you embark on each time you start writing a new album becomes trickier with each LP. There is the ever-looming trap of repeating yourself, due to the comfort zone you might find yourself circling while jamming. Escaping that is a progress in itself. This is why we always try to move on from one record to another. Sometimes it’s a natural progression, but other times you just want to incorporate something different to keep things exciting. Even now, we feel we’ve found a new side of ourselves in the songs we’ve been developing, so that makes us stoked to finally have them in a recorded form.
How do you define success?
For us, success is to create a sonic journey we are proud of. We never aimed for commercial success and with each new LP it seems we’re deliberately moving farther from it. Nevertheless, as long as people are into it and there’s feedback coming from fans who listen to us, watch us perform or write about our music, it means we’ve accomplished something.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
All those interminable stretches of highways while travelling from one city to another. How long will it take before we can teleport from one gig to another?
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
A soundtrack to a movie no matter how weird or obscure it is. It should be an interesting project for us.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To take you on a journey, make you forget about the daily routine. Whether it’s a movie, song, concert, painting or any other form of art, if it inspires you, makes you react in any way, then that is an essential function. We’re bombarded with so much information every day, therefore we need an escape to recharge ourselves.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Right now, we’re all looking forward to our holidays, travelling to visit new places and countries.
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