Para os iniciados o Soundpool é uma daquelas prediletas do submundo dos bons sons, aquele shoegazer groovy já tem local cativo nos coracões dos gazers de plantão. E é exatamente do Soundpool que nasceu o The Stargazer Lillies, o casal Kim e John junto com seus comparsas Johnny Lancia e Ej Decoske criaram essa preciosidade shoegazer sonhadora com um album simplesmente lindo intitulado We are the Dreamers lancado no final do ano passado e que chega tardiamente nas páginas do TBTCI.
Tardiamente mas não no que tange a audicões ininterruptas em silêncio em busca das nuances e suas dissonâncias intermináveis, simplesmente porque We are the Dreamers é algo a se embriagar lenta e suavemente, sem pressa, a fim de saborear e inebriar-se a cada audicão.
Indispensável para qualquer colecão shoegazer que se preze.
Srs, The Stargazer Lillies no TBTCI.
***** Interview with The Stargazer Lillies *****
Q. When did Stargazer Lilies, tell us about the history...
The Stargazer Lilies were born a few years ago. It happened really by accident. We were writing a series of songs and they just ended up feeling different than our other band, Soundpool. We knew these songs were for a different project. We had been going through some intense things personally and the natural shift from Soundpool and the way we were writing to this new project was totally organic and unplanned. Even the name... our friend Jennifer asked if some flowers on our dinette were "stargazers" and John said what are stargazers?Jennifer replied "lilies, stargazer lilies" and John said, "there are flowers called stargazer lilies? I love that name" and that's how we got the name. Q: Who are your influences?
Our influences are really wide musically. We have all of the obvious early shoegaze influences of course. Our most favorite being My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Chapterhouse. But we also love from that period Mazzy Star, Red House Painters etc. And a little later Stereolab, Broadcast, Sigur Ros, Air etc. John and I both absolutely love Bossa Nova-- Jobim, Astrud Gilberto, Getz/Gilberto, 60's girl groups like the Shangri La's. We listen to a lot of 60's French soundtrack stuff also 60's pop like Francsoice Hardy, Claudine Longet. We're really in to 60's-70's pych. We've actually been listening to a lot of early Pink Floyd lately.
Q. Made a list of 5 albuns of all time…
John: Dot's and Loops, Dark Side Of The Moon, Tomorrow's Harvest, Revolver, Loveless, Souvlaki... although the list could change and always does.
Q. How do you fell playing alive?
Playing live is so many things. The spectrum of emotions is so enormous… I guess that's part of what makes it addictive. You really feel alive when you're playing your music for people. It's exciting… it can be totally invigorating and soul healing but it can also be frustrating and at some times crushing if you don't have a good venue or especially a good sound tech. We've been really fortunate lately with the touring we've been doing. We've been so lucky to have played so many amazing venues where the atmosphere is pro… the stage, the gear, the sound techs. It's really been so nice after so many years of playing out live to finally have the opportunity to know that we're going in to good situations to be able to pull off our sound appropriately with good systems and good techs. Playing live is such a delicate thing. You can really be doing your band a big diservice if you're going out and not sounding good. It's unlike the studio where you're able to control what comes out. We've grown a lot this year… After this next tour this Aug/Sept we will have done around 60 shows this year all in different cities across the US and Canada. We've covered a lot of ground!
Q. How do you describe Stargazer Lilies sounds?
The Stargazer Lilies sound is pretty dynamic. First of all it comes from a place of searching and reaching. It should give the listeners feelings of dream state and bliss. There is a definite sadness and depression to our music but overall this music should be therapeutic. Our songs in general have a very classic writing style but all that under an intense wall of sound with heavy guitar, airy vocals drum and bass. There are elements of shoegaze, ambient, psychedelia/experimental 60's pop and ultimately we are mostly dream pop.
Q: Tell us about the process of recording the songs ?
The recording process usually starts with John on guitar playing around with pedals and coming up with cool sounds or maybe strumming an acoustic…. Then he'll start to play around with chords and the song starts to form organically that way. Next usually is drums and bass and then more guitar layering. Usually Kim will write the melody line and lyrics but sometimes we do this together as well. We do all our recording here at home. We have basically turned our downstairs into a working studio. We have one room that is our sort of "family room" but is a functioning recording room. The room next to it is our "guest room" with a bed and everything but it's our live room where all our gear is set up. We do all our band rehearsals in there and we have all the cables running in to the recording studio room so we have somewhat of an iso room as well.
Q. Which new bands do you recommended?
The New Lines, Young Prisms, Blouse, Melodies Echo Chamber, Black Moth Super Rainbow, All In The Golden Afternoon, Dead Leaf Echo, Nightmare Air, Tame Impala, The Casket Girls, Nothing, Whirr, Ringo Deathstarr and so many more.
Q: Which bands you love to made a cover version? We are so focused on coming up with new original material that we rarely discuss covering other ban'd songs. We did however cover the song "Beat" by Bowery Electric once.
Q: What´s the plans for future....
We have a few shows heading across to the West Coast in late Aug/Sept with Dead Leaf Echo in PA, Columbus OH and Milwaukee, WI where we'll also meet up with friends and awesome band Brief Candles. Then we head all the way to Portland OR to start a 2 week tour with Tobacco and Oscillator Bug. After that our plans are to finish up our next album which is already almost complete and to start working on everything that comes with that release… art, videos etc. We're really trying to find a way to spend most or at least a good portion of the winter in L.A. ha! ha! We'll see if we can pull that off! After last winter… We can't handle the idea of another 6 month extreme winter in the Poconos.
Q: Any parting words?
Thanks so much for your interview! We really hope to get down to South America some day! We've been feeling a lot of love from that area for many years now… Would be great to visit and do some shows!
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* Thanks friends
http://thestargazerlilies.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Stargazer-Lilies
