Posted in Reviews on December 23rd, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Because it is on balance so abidingly, outwardly mellow, and because it opens with the seven-and-a-half-minute “Now That I Lost Your Attention,” a light-boogie jam that seems to acknowledge its own hypnotic aspects in its title, it’s easy to miss the innovative aspects of Frydom as you make your way through its eight songs and 40 minutes. But Sander Haagmans, who at the time of this recording was the sole denizen of the band — meaning that the mellotron, drums, guitar and bass on that entrancing and self-aware opener/longest track (immediate points) aren’t coming from an actual group of players; it’s all him; a solo-jam, recorded DIY (Arthur von Berg mastered) and self-released — makes the atmosphere part of the message on his third The Whims of the Great Magnet full-length.
And by smoothing out some of the noisier edges of the recording as compares to 2019’s Good Vibes and High Tides, Haagmans is able to refine the sense of craft that brings about the mood the album, which is content if not as showy as “serene” might imply, casual and lightly stoned in the strum of “Sunstroke Serenade,” but optimistic in spirit. Frydom is dynamic and isn’t trying to do the same thing for each of its pieces — which already is something that a lot of solo-type works can’t say (not that they all want to have a full-band sound) — and it is drawn together fluidly between the hooks of “Same New,” “Baby Blue (Hit Song),” which follow the opener in succession, and the penultimate “Reborn,” or the languid improv in the guitar that makes “Only Jams in Major” and “It’s a Good Day to Shower in the Nude” feel so off-the-cuff. But while Haagmans is casting it as a full-band sound and has since put together a stage-ready incarnation of The Whims of the Great Magnet, the material is united by a sense of intimacy in the recording. Bedroom heavy.
In the instrumental passages, Haagmans remains a strong presence, and a soft, melodic vocal delivery, particularly in the straightforward redirect of “Same New” and “Baby Blue (Hit Song)” after “Now That I Lost Your Attention” starts with such fervently far out intentions, helps reground the flow that becomes so crucial to Frydom as a whole work. The trades between structured verses and choruses and broader jamming — or in the case of the two-minute “It’s a Good Day to Shower in the Nude,” an effective bit of minimalist noodling and some field-recorded street noise, — create a feeling of movement, but it’s not too much, and it’s not uncomfortable, and it’s not trying to push. Frydom doesn’t want for quirk at any point, from the howling drawl of the guitar solo in “Only Jams in Major” like Yawning Hendrix to the hook “Kill your brain/Free your soul/Get reborn/Go insane and let the ax swing the right way” in “Reborn,” which greets its post-Nirvana-feeling quiet insistence with brainwash melody, and this gets further emphasized in the sound-collage “Bonustrack” that closes out. Run through with an organ-laced drone, it comes across like some kind of ritualistic cleansing for your noncorporeal self, ending with a dry “oi!” to snap you back to the real world before you run the car into that tree.
Or something like that. Because while Frydom is able to put the listener where it wants them at any given time, it never sounds lofty in its ambition to do so in a way that would undercut the impression Haagmans is trying to make. That is, if “Baby Blue (Hit Song)” went about its business not with the easygoing, sun-coated fuzz and Beatlesian lead guitar that make it very much the fuzz-indie joy to behold it was recorded in order to become, the mood — the v-i-b-e vibe — being conveyed in the songs would fall flat. Further, while one hesitates to bring notions of authenticity to any discussion, ever, barring perhaps one about myths people chase to their own detriment, it’s worth nothing that the sincerity and the heart that come through in these tracks, regardless of an individual piece’s modus, is a great strength. Haagmans sounds sincere in wanting you to chill out. So maybe think about doing that, hmm? He made a record that should help out a lot if you give it the time. Its easy to be taken in by the unassuming nature of its presentation, and that’s very clearly part of the point.
The innovation comes into play in a way that feels very much rooted in Haagmans‘ composition, and maybe that’s inevitable since he wrote the songs, but “Same New” and “Sunstroke Serenade,” et al, aren’t haphazard in their unfolding, and as much as Haagmans got his start in the jam-based heavy psychedelia of the early ’10s, there’s growth audible even from where The Whims of the Great Magnet were on their last studio album, as well as heralds of the changing dynamic to come in earlier 2024’s Live at Bankastudios, Maastricht, 22-12-2023 (review here) and Gronsveld Jams ’23, both of which capture the full lineup of the band, one on stage, the other in the rehearsal room.
Obviously next on that we’re-a-band to-do list would be a full-length album made as a group. I don’t know how the songwriting will change from Frydom forward as guitarist/vocalist/synthesist Arthur von Berg (who mastered here and has worked on other Whims recordings), bassist/vocalist David Eering (also founding guitarist/vocalist of The Machine) and drummer Jonathan Frederix (Heisa, The Shovels) join Haagmans in the creative process. Even if Haagmans retains a central role there, the very nature of having multiple players changes how a piece might sound, and the direct, unpretentious, calm persona that resonates across Frydom will be a tricky thing to preserve balanced against what’s sure to be an invigorated approach.
It’s not without risk (what is?), but neither is this collection in how it boldly finds its purpose and expressive voice in bringing forward with clarity the posi-psych and mellow-jam mindset that has been in development all along for The Whims of the Great Magnet. And it works out just fine here, so the future is more exciting than harrowing for the band, and with the good-times vision Haagmans rolls out across Frydom, it sounds like things are gonna be just fine. The joy in these songs is not there by mistake. That in itself feels like a brazen statement of who The Whims of the Great Magnet are.
M-E-L-L-O-W, and that’s not a complaint. The apparent pull of the Great Magnet spoken of by Hunter S. Thompson whose whims Gronsveld, the Netherlands-based guitarist/vocalist Sander Haagmans has been following for the last 12 or so years would seem to have been drawing the former bassist of Sungrazer toward turning his solo-project into a full band. Live at Bankastudios, Maastricht, 22-12-2023 isn’t the first The Whims of the Great Magnet offering with a full lineup, but the 59-minute set recorded by Edis Pajazetovic at — wait for it — Bankastudios, in Maastricht, NL, and mixed/mastered by Arthur von Berg does comprise the first live release they’ve done, and it feels purposeful in its psychedelic soothsaying in a way that could indicate a new direction for the project which, true to its moniker, has up to this point seemed to resist set parameters of style around Haagmans‘ songcraft.
Or maybe part of that is wishful thinking as the gracefully jammed, flowing takes on the title-track of 2021’s Share My Sun EP and the 2023 single “Same New” (review here) present extended interpretations around the root structures and memorable melodies. Those pieces, which on Live at Bankastudios (if you’ll pardon the truncated title) run 14 and nearly 18 minutes, respectively, are also the only two songs included that were previously released, which also speaks to composition happening, perhaps also in a group context. While it’s ultimately pointless to speculate whether this incarnation of The Whims of the Great Magnet will embark on one or more studio releases with this configuration — mathematically speaking, they either will or won’t — the exploratory aspect of their work here and the reads-as-declarative chemistry of their performance highlights potential for what they might accomplish should the pursuit continue.
But that’s getting ahead of Live at Bankastudios itself. Beginning with the nine-minute raga-type warmup jam “Das Schwarze Munster,” a thread of improvisation seems to wind through the proceedings. Obviously there are structured parts, both in the two longer cuts already noted and the casually rolling fuzzer “Reborn” that precedes the open-spaced finale “Frog.” but with that bookending excursion into the unknown-till-they-get-there, the three-minute instru-shuffle of “A New Bro Rider” and the cosmic-leaning feel added to the middle of “Share My Sun” by means of keys/synth, everything comes across as being either built from an improv foundation or actually improvised. It is loose. Not so much in terms of the band being sloppy, but in the utter lack of pretense of the execution and the seeming willingness to let the songs unfold as they will, The Whims of the Great Magnet indeed feel ready to let themselves be drawn in whatever direction the material itself might want to take.
The lineup around Haagmans is well suited to that task of letting go. The already-mentioned von Berg handles the synth as well as guitar and vocals, and Jonathan Frederix drums. On bass/vocals is David Eering — also the founding guitarist/vocalist of The Machine — and his pairing with Haagmans feels significant in a way that undercuts some of the intentionally-low-key presentation of the album, though more conceptually than in the actual listening experience. That is, a collaboration between Eering and Haagmans is a big deal if you recall 12-14 years ago when, in The Machine and Sungrazer, they were at the vanguard of a new generation of jam-based heavy psychedelia.
In terms of hearing Live at Bankastudios, it feels much less like an ‘event’ on that level. Given that it it was recorded live, even live-in-studio, it is inherently more concerned with its present than its pedigree, and appropriately so. The chemistry between them — Haagmans also did a few shows with The Machine when they were between bassists, so the two are well familiar with each other — becomes part of the full-band persona with Frederix and von Berg‘s likewise noteworthy contributions.
Nuances like the maybe-backwards loops of low end after seven minutes into “Das Schwarze Munster” and the voice-push in the later choruses of “Same New” enrich the spaciousness overarching throughout, and the grunge-informed languid roll of “Reborn” should offer a thrill to those listeners who hold Sungrazer‘s output dear even as it branches off from that to chase its own ends. Positioned between “Share My Sun” and “Same New,” “A New Bro Rider” has an inevitable grounding effect, following a single bouncing progression for about three minutes without the need for much else around that until it comes apart near its end and the drums snap into the start of “Same New,” fluid and pastoral, clear in sound and what the instruments are doing and all the more you’re-in-the-room with the Dutch spoken between some of the songs. Above all other concerns, Live at Bankastudios feels committed to organically representing this version of The Whims of the Great Magnet has to offer an audience/listenership.
And that too might be part of why it feels so much like a showcase of potential between the in-moment immersion, abiding sweetness of melody and mostly relaxed grooves; because part of what resonates from Live at Bankastudios is the sense of a beginning. That runs counter to the fact that Haagmans has been putting out songs under the banner of The Whims of the Great Magnet since 2012, but it’s true nonetheless, and crucially, it’s not just about his bringing Eering into the mix, or von Berg or Frederix. It’s about what the four of them conjure as a unit. Live at Bankastudios is almost humble in how it highlights the character of this version of The Whims of the Great Magnet, and of course there’s no guarantee they’ll ever do anything more together — all the more reason to put this out, frankly — but even the fleeting nature of an outing like this that happened while it was happening and then was over and (sooner or later) everyone went home feels like a story only starting to be told.
One hopes it turns out to be precisely that, if it needs to be said, but in case the Great Magnet pulls Haagmans in another direction, the ephemeral nature of Live at Bankastudios makes it all the more a special moment to have captured in the first place. The lesson — which becomes to let the future be what it will and focus on now — is not lost, even if that does prove to be something of a challenge.
The Whims of the Great Magnet, Live at Bankastudios, Maastricht, 22-12-2023 (2024)
Welcome back to the Summer 2023 Quarterly Review. I hope you enjoyed the weekend. Today we dig in on the penultimate — somehow my using the word “penultimate” became a running gag for me in Quarterly Reviews; I don’t know how or why, but I think it’s funny — round of 10 albums and tomorrow we’ll close out as we hit the total of 70. Could easily have kept it going through the week, but so it goes. I’ll have more QR in September or October, I’m not sure yet which. It’s a pretty busy Fall.
Today’s a wild mix and that’s what I was hoping for. Let’s go.
Quarterly Review #51-60:
Weite, Assemblage
Founded by bassist Ingwer Boysen (also High Fighter) as an offshoot of the live incarnation of Delving, of which he’s part, Weite release the instrumental Assemblage as a semi-improv-sounding collection of marked progressive fluidity. With Delving and Elder‘s Nick DiSalvo and Mike Risberg in the lineup along with Ben Lubin (Lawns), the story goes that the four-piece got to the studio with nothing/very little, spent a few days writing and recording with the venerable Richard Behrens helming, and Assemblage‘s four component pieces are what came out of it. The album begins with the nine-minutes-each pair of the zazzy-jazzy mover “Neuland,” while “Entzündet” grows somewhat more open, a lead guitar refrain like built around drum-backed drone and keys, swelling in piano-inclusive volume like Crippled Black Phoenix, darker prog shifting into a wash and more freaked-out psych rock. I’m not sure those are real drums on “Rope,” or if they are I’d love to know how the snare was treated, but the song’s a groover just the same, and the 14-minute “Murmuration” is where the styles unite under an umbrella of warm tonality and low key but somehow cordial atmosphere. If these guys want to get together every couple years into perpetuity and bang out a record like this, that’d be fine.
The fourth album from Portland, Oregon’s Mizmor — the solo-project of multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer, vocalist, etc.-ist A.L.N. — arrives riding a tsunami of hype and delivers on the band’s long-stated promise of ‘wholly doomed black metal.’ With consuming distortion at its heart from opener/longest track (immediate points) “Only an Expanse” onward, the record recalls the promise of American black metal as looser in its to-tenet conformity than the bulk of Europe’s adherents — of course these are generalizations and I’m no expert — by contrasting it rhythmically with doom, which instead of fully releasing the tension amassed by the scream-topped tremolo riffing just makes it sound more miserable. Doom! “No Place to Arrive” is admirably thick, like noisy YOB on charred ambience, and “Anything But” draws those two sides together in more concise and driving style, vicious and brutal until it cuts in the last minute to quiet minimalism that makes the slam-in crush of 13-minute closer “Acceptance” all the more punishing, with plenty of time left for trades between all-out thrust and grueling plod. Hard to call which side wins the day — and that’s to Mizmor‘s credit, ultimately — but by the end of “Acceptance,” the raging gnash has collapsed into a caldera of harsh sludge, and it no longer matters. In context, that’s a success.
With a couple quick drum taps and a clearheaded strum that invokes the impossible nostalgia of Bruce Springsteen via ’90s alt rock, Netherlands-based The Whims of the Great Magnet strolls casually into “Same New,” the project’s first outing since 2021’s Share My Sun EP. Working in a post-grunge style seems to suit Sander Haagmans, formerly the bassist of Sungrazer and, for a bit, The Machine, as he single-track/double-tracks through the song’s initial verse and blossoms melodically in the chorus, dwelling in an atmosphere sun-coated enough that Haagmans‘ calls it “your new summer soundtrack.” Not arguing, if a one-track soundtrack is a little short. After a second verse/chorus trade, some acoustic weaves in at the end to underscore the laid back feel, and as it moves into the last minute, “Same New” brings back the hook not to drive it into your head — it’s catchy enough that such things aren’t necessary — but to speak to a traditional structure born out of classic rock. It does this organically, with moderate tempo and a warm, engaging spirit that, indeed, evokes the ideal images of the stated season and will no doubt prove comforting even removed from such long, hot and sunny days.
German instrumentalists Sarkh follow their 2020 full-length, Kaskade, with the four-song/31-minute Helios EP, issued through Worst Bassist Records. As with that album, the short-ish offering has a current of progressive metal to coincide with its heavier post-rock affect; “Zyklon” leading off with due charge before the title-track finds stretches of Yawning Man-esque drift, particularly as it builds toward a hard-hitting crescendo in its second half. Chiaroscuro, then. Working shortest to longest in runtime, the procession continues with “Kanagawa” making stark volume trades, growing ferocious but not uncontrolled in its louder moments, the late low end particularly satisfying as it plays off the guitar in the final push, a sudden stop giving 11-minute closer “Cape Wrath” due space to flesh out its middle-ground hypothesis after some initial intensity, the trio of guitarist Ralph Brachtendorf, bassist Falko Schneider and drummer Johannes Dose rearing back to let the EP end with a wash but dropping the payoff with about a minute left to let the guitar finish on its own. Germany, the world, and the universe: none of it is short on instrumental heavy bands, but the purposeful aesthetic mash of Sarkh‘s sound is distinguishing and Helios showcases it well to make the argument.
A 2LP second long-player from mostly-traditionalist doom metallers Spiritual Void, Wayfare seems immediately geared toward surpassing their 2017 debut, White Mountain, in opening with “Beyond the White Mountain.” With a stretch of harsher vocals to go along with the cleaner-sung verses through its 8:48 and the metal-of-eld wail that meets the crescendo before the nodding final verse, they might’ve done it. The subsequent “Die Alone” (11:48) recalls Candlemass and Death without losing the nod of its rhythm, and “Old” (12:33) reaffirms the position, taking Hellhound Records-style methodologies of European trad doom and pulling them across longer-form structures. Following “Dungeon of Nerthus” (10:24) the shorter “Wandering Doom” (5:31) chugs with a swing that feels schooled by Reverend Bizarre, while “Wandersmann” (13:11) tolls a mournful bell at its outset as though to let you know that the warm-up is over and now it’s time to really doom out. So be it. At a little over an hour long, Wayfare is no minor undertaking, but for what they’re doing stylistically, it shouldn’t be. Morose without melodrama, Wayfare sees Spiritual Void continuing to find their niche in doom, and rest assured, it’s on the doomier end. Of doom.
Even when The River make the trade of tossing out the aural weight of doom — the heavy guitar and bass, the expansive largesse, and so on — they keep the underlying structure. The nod. At least mostly. To explain: the long-running UK four-piece — vocalist Jenny Newton, guitarist Christian Leitch (formerly of 40 Watt Sun), bassist Stephen Morrissey and drummer Jason Ludwig — offer a folkish interpretation of doom and a doomed folk on their fourth long-player, the five-song/40-minute A Hollow Full of Hope taking the acoustic prioritizing of a song like “Open” from 2019’s Vessels into White Tides (review here) and bringing it to the stylistic fore on songs like the graceful opener “Fading,” the lightly electric “Tiny Ticking Clocks” rife with strings and gorgeous self-harmonizing from Newton set to an utterly doomed march, or the four-minute instrumental closer “Hollowful,” which is more than an outro if not a completely built song in relation to the preceding pieces. Melodic, flowing, intentional in arrangement, meter, melody. Sad. Beautiful. “Exits” (9:56) and “A Vignette” (10:26) — also the two longest cuts, though not by a ton — are where one finds that heft and the other side of the doom-folk/folk-doom divide, though it is admirable how thin they make that line. Marked progression. This album will take them past their 25th anniversary, and they greet it hitting a stride. That’s an occasion worth celebrating.
Sons of Froglord is the fourth full-length in three years from UK amphibian conceptualist storytellers Froglord, and there’s just about no way they’re not making fun of space rock on “Road Raisin.” “Collapse” grows burly in its hook in the vein of a more rumbling Clutch — and oh, the shenanigans abound! — and there’s a kind of ever-present undercurrent sludgy threat in the more forward push of the glorious anthem to the inanity of career life in “Wednesday” (it doesn’t materialize, but there is a tambourine on “A Swamp of My Own,” so that’s something), but the bulk of the latest chapter in the Froglord tale delivers ’70s-by-way-of-’10s classic heavy blues rock, distinct in its willingness to go elsewhere from and around the boogie swing of “Wizard Gonk” and the fuzzy shuffling foundation of “Garden” at the outset and pull from different eras and subsets of heavy to serve their purposes. “Froglady” is on that beat. On it. And the way “A Swamp of My Own” opens to its chorus is a stirring reminder of the difference drumming can make in elevating a band. After a quick “Closing Ceremony,” they tack on a presumably-not-narrative-related-but-fitting-anyway cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s “Born on the Bayou,” which complements a crash-laced highlight like “The Sage” well and seems to say a bit about where Froglord are coming from as well, i.e., the swamp.
Released digitally with the backing of Abraxas and on CD through Smolder Brains Records, the Cult of Devil Sounds split EP offers two new tracks each from São Paulo, Brazil’s Weedevil and Veraruz, Mexico’s Electric Cult. The former take the A side and fade in on the guitar line “Darkness Inside” with due drama, gradually unfurling the seven-minute doom roller that’s ostensibly working around Electric Wizard-style riffing, but has its own persona in tone, atmosphere and the vocals of Maureen McGee, who makes her first appearance here with the band. The swagger of “Burn It” follows, somewhat speedier and sharper in delivery, with a scorcher solo in its back half, witchy proclamations and satisfying slowdown at the end. Weedevil. All boxes ticked, no question. Check. Electric Cult are rawer in production and revel in that, bringing “Rising From Hell” and “Esoteric Madness” with a more uptempo, rock-ish swing, but moving through sludge and doom by the time the seven minutes of the first of those is done. “Rising From Hell” finishes with ambient guitar, then feedback, which “Esoteric Madness” cuts off to begin with bass; a clever turn. Quickly “Esoteric Madness” grows dark from its outset, pushing into harsh vocals over a slogging march that turns harder-driving with ’70s-via-Church–of–Misery hard-boogie rounding out. That faster finish is a contrast to Weedevil‘s ending slow, and complements it accordingly. An enticing sampler from both.
When I read some article about how the James Webb Space Telescope has looked billions of years into the past chasing down ancient light and seen further toward the creation of the universe than humankind ever before has, I look at some video or other, I should be hearing Dr. Space. I don’t know if the Portugal-based solo artist, synthesist, bandleader, Renaissance man Scott “Dr. Space” Heller (also Øresund Space Collective, Black Moon Circle, etc.) has been in touch with the European Space Agency (ESA) or what their response has been, but even with its organ solo and stated watery purpose, amid sundry pulsations it’s safe to assume the 20-minute title-track “Suite for Orchestra of Marine Mammals” is happening with an orchestra of semi-robot aliens on, indeed, some impossibly distant exoplanet. Heller has long dwelt at the heart of psychedelic improv and the three pieces across the 39 minutes of Suite for Orchestra of Marine Mammals recall classic krautrock ambience while remaining purposefully exploratory. “Going for the Nun” pairs church organ with keyboard before shimmering into proto-techno blips and bloops recalling the Space Age that should’ve had humans on Mars by now, while the relatively brief capper “No Space for Time” — perhaps titled to note the limitations of the vinyl format — still finds room in its six minutes to work in two stages, with introductory chimes shifting toward more kosmiche synth travels yet farther out.
The debut from Santa Fe-based solo drone project Ruiner — aka Zac Hogan, also of Dysphotic, ex-Drought — is admirable in its commitment to itself. Hogan unveils the outfit with The Book of Patience (on Desert Records), an 80-minute, mostly-single-note piece called “Liber Patientiae,” which if you’re up on your Latin, you know is the title of the album as well. With a willfully glacial pace that could just as easily be a parody of the style — there is definitely an element of ‘is this for real?’ in the listening process, but yeah, it seems to be — “Liber Patientiae” evolves over its time, growing noisier as it approaches 55 or so minutes, the distortion growing more fervent over the better part of the final 25, the linear trajectory underscoring the idea that there’s a plan at work all along coinciding with the experimental nature of the work. What that plan might manifest from here is secondary to the “Liber Patientiae” as a meditative experience. On headphones, alone, it becomes an inward journey. In a crowded room, at least at the outset it’s almost a melodic white noise, maybe a little tense, but stretched out and changing but somehow still solid and singular, making the adage that ‘what you put into it is what you get out’ especially true in this case. And as it’s a giant wall of noise, it goes without saying that not everybody will be up for getting on board, but it’s difficult to imagine the opaque nature of the work is news to Hogan, who clearly is searching for resonance on his own wavelength.
Posted in Questionnaire on May 26th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
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: Sander Haagmans of The Whims of the Great Magnet (ex-Sungrazer)
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I make rock music, teach guitar and I’m a father. So basically that puts me in the dad rock corner. I got my first Steely Dan record last year. Countdown to Ecstasy. Pretty neat. The way I came to make music was just by making sounds and noise from an early age on, like everybody does actually. As a young kid I already felt the need to make songs, record them and make albums out of it. Those first albums, which are cassette tapes that we put in a cigar box and then decorate the outside and inside, are probably my most precious releases to date.
Describe your first musical memory.
My memory is terrible. But I do know I had a poster near my bed with children’s songs that I loved to sing before I went to bed. And later I remember dancing on the table with my best friend to “Walk of Life” from Dire Straits. Or singing with my dad in the car the string parts of “Strawberry Fields.” There’s too many good memories, but I can’t recall the first.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Maybe that was listening to Nirvana as a teenager as loud as possible in a small bedroom with my best friend Willem. He also let me hear “Vortex Surfer” from Motorpsycho for the first time when we were, I don’t know, 20 or something. It was late at night and we had a big hifi soundsystem there. I once talked to a soundguy that used that song for soundchecking the P.A. at shows. Enough low end there, pfff.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
A firmly held belief, eh? I think I first need to think about the answer to the question ‘when was the last time you had a firmly held belief’ or ‘did you ever have a firmly held belief’ or ‘did you ever believe in something’ or ‘did you ever held anything firmly’. Well that’s a lot to think about. Not really though. But let’s stick to your question. I could have skipped that first part of my answer that led to nothing but this. But this is also a way of just writing down words and getting into some really meaningless bullshit that could actually be something I believe in. Well there you go. I think I always believed in a lot of bullshit and now I realize it’s not bullshit, but the truth. No no no no, get that out. Ok, I always believed you should not make any corrections to what you just put down. But I’m seriously having second thoughts about that right now. No…wait… it’s gone. I still believe in it. Damn it.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
For me it leads to musical freedom, improvisation, magical unique moments in jams combined with that chorus or hook that will make you laugh and cry and stay with you till the end of time. In other words it’s just about having some fun and see what happens. These progressions always change and I guess I just try to go with that.
How do you define success?
When there’s a cool result when you tried something or even when you didn’t try.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
You’re a father too. You know it’s the cartoons kids watch nowadays.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
A monster.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
Getting laid, getting high, getting rich, I can’t choose. Art made the world and everything. And everything is everything only if it’s not. But, man what a question. Good one. Really, this is not something you write down. This is bar talk. Or can bar talk be written down? Of course it can. If it can’t be written down it’s not writable on anything. I could dance you the answer.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
