From time to time, I’ll be conducting interviews and having conversations with bands, record label folks, and other music aficionados. For the blog’s very first interview, it’s with great pleasure that I was able to shoot the breeze with Psych Rock trio Mos Eisley Spaceport, whose stellar debut EP I reviewed a few weeks ago.
Mos Eisley Spaceport is:
Daniel - Voice and guitar
wizardry
Sebastian - Bass and synths sorcerer
Guido - Master of drums and thunder
First off, congratulations on the release of your first EP, The Best of their Early Year. It’s been gathering a lot of great feedback on Bandcamp and on various social media platforms and deservedly so as it’s a blast to listen to from start to finish. You already have such a polished sound as a band; how long have you guys been playing together and how did you meet?
Daniel: Well, thanks for your great compliment. There's indeed a whole lot of energy coming through our music. We've been playing together just for a short period of time now. We first met in November 2019 at a small, but very cool bar called Karo in Bremen. My bandmates were looking for musicians via the Internet. I wasn't very interested at first, but my girlfriend, she's a singer, was looking for a music project and she told them she knew a guy who played bass. So I joined the first meeting, we were drinking and talking and arranged a first jam session. At the session, I played Sebastian's awesome six string bass and after some songs I asked if I could play the guitar. It was stunning! We played a funky blues and after that I think it was clear that they had found their new guitar player. I really like to thank my girlfriend that she took me to the meeting.
Guido: Yes, it`s awesome feedback we got in the last few days! We never expected our music to be so popular so soon. In fact, you can say that we found “our own sound” pretty quickly. As the name of the album “The Best of Their Early Year” suggests, we actually haven't even been around for a year.
Sebastian: Guido and I had also just gotten to know each other in August. We had experimented with different sounds, styles and instruments for a few weeks but didn’t really know where to go. When we met Daniel more or less by accident, it just clicked and it somehow was really easy to write songs together. All of us have played in bands before, we know how to arrange and record songs. But I think most important is that we all are able to express musical ideas, but also to be very open towards the ideas of our band members and to understand the band sound as more than just the sum of its parts. It certainly also helps that I have collected a broad palette of fuzz boxes over the years, so we could add interesting new flavours to the different songs.
Daniel
The band’s name and EP artwork are direct references to Star Wars. How did you guys decide on naming yourselves after that famous spaceport on Tatooine and how big of an influence was Star Wars on your music?
Guido: I think Sebastian can tell the story best. But one thing should be made clear from the get-go. We figured out pretty quickly that there are three guys and neither of them is a Trekkie.
Sebastian: About ten years ago, I was on a festival near an airport with all the transmission poles and the lights everywhere and it somehow reminded me of Mos Eisley Spaceport and I thought, “that would be a great band name”. It simply tells a great rock ’n’ roll story: There’s the boy from the farm, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, who suddenly gets in trouble with the authorities. He makes it to this place that he was always warned against by his family: Mos Eisley, a dangerous and wild spaceport full of outlaws and freaks. And this is where the story really takes off: He visits a very obscure and shady jazz bar, meets a couple of strange criminals, escapes into space and eventually becomes the superstar of the revolution. How cool is that? And when it turned out that we would be some kind of psychedelic space rock band, the boys were quickly sold on the idea. Like Guido said: No Trekkie among us…
Sebastian
The Best of their Early Year features a broad palette of musical genres from Psych rock to Blues. In terms of music, what genres and what bands inspired you to pick up the guitar/bass/synths/drums?
Sebastian: Regarding Mos Eisley Spaceport, especially during the recordings for “The Best of Their Early Year”, I was very inspired by early Santana lately. That’s why we have so many shakers, cowbells and bongos on the EP. The boogie rhythm in “Drop Out” came from listening to “Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac”, one of my favourite albums ever. Initially the song was a lot slower and had a very straight rhythm.
It’s mostly older stuff I listen to, Krautrock, a lot of Reggae, Folk, but also electronic music like Binkbeats or High Tone. Since we started Mos Eisley Spaceport, I started listening to bands like UFO or Kadavar, but to be honest, I’m not so familiar with all the typical stoner or doom bands, apart from Black Sabbath, of course. But when I was living in Berlin, I went a lot to very small venues and festivals and saw some very fantastic bands and bought their records on vinyl: Cliffsight became good friends of mine, their album “Kokoro” is incredibly creative and varied. Kaskadeur is a super heavy prog band that’s just super fun. They just released a new album and the first thing I did when I had heard it was to send a link to Daniel and Guido. And I’m a huge fan of Coogans Bluff. Well, they are certainly not a “small band” anymore, but they are just super amazing.
Guido: Basically, I think, less is more - and what’s left for me as the drummer must be tight on bass and guitar. But if I had to name bands, then I would say, of course, Black Keys. Their music probably influences my musical mindset more than I guess. Then, furthermore to mention … maybe various albums from Nine Inch Nails and the music from “Cage the Elephant”. I just love it! - just like thick bass sounds and droning and sliding ‘70s guitar sounds.
Daniel: For me it was just Jimi Hendrix, period!
Guido
As musicians in this Do-It-Yourself era where seemingly thousands of new bands pop up every year, do you find it a blessing to be able to put out music in a much quicker and easier fashion where you have more creative control or is it detrimental and much more challenging to stand out from the pack?
Guido: I think there's truth to both of them, but of course it's cool to be independent and still reach people. And that's actually what we're about. Make good music and give people great moments!
Daniel: We don't see it as challenging. The world is a rat’s race and we don't want to belong to that. We just love music and want to play music that we love to hear. It's only love.
Sebastian: Let's be honest: You can't really control it anyways. The Internet is a great tool for musicians, but whether or not you hit a certain nerve, whether or not a lot of people or “the right” people like what you do – it's not in your hands. I've seen brilliant bands touring through the shittiest clubs for years and years and then there are other bands … you know the game.
Have you guys played a lot of live shows? What would be the ultimate dream stage, concert venue or festival for you to play at if you could play anywhere in the world (in a fantasy Covid-free world, that is)?
Daniel: If I could jump in a time machine, I would pick Woodstock.
Guido: Woodstock actually would be awesome! Unfortunately, being in 1972, we just missed it.
Sebastian: Being in 1972 on a small desert planet somewhere in a galaxy far, far away, that is! No, I just want to go on tour and have a blast. That's the coolest thing about being in a band: You just get the chance to visit places and meet people, and that's pretty much what it's all about for me. I don't need to play the Madison Square Garden if I can have a fantastic time on a small festival in the French Alps or somewhere. I would love to play a club tour in Sweden and Norway. I've never been there before.
Practice Room
One last question and I’ll let you guys get back to making awesome music. Where do you see Mos Eisley Spaceport two years from now; a couple of EPs or albums under your belts, perhaps, playing to big crowds with other bands opening for you, maybe? I thank you for taking the time to let me pick your brains and I’m sure I’m not alone in looking forward to your next song/album release.
Daniel: I don't know. At least we're still existing. A band is progress and where it's going to lead us, I couldn't say. As I said before, I love making music and making music with those crazy dudes and I hope we'll still be making music together in heaven.
Sebastian: I don't know about that heaven part, to be honest… But seriously: Most important is that venues, festivals, bands, artists, promoters, all the grumpy old sound men and all the people involved in cultural work survive the current crisis. We three do not make our living from the music, but of course we depend on people who do. So, until we can talk about big crowds again, those people’ll need a lot of solidarity, a lot of fighting spirit, a shitload of patience and, let’s face it, money. So keep buying records, keep buying T-Shirts, stickers, downloads, tickets, whatever, and support your local scene.
Daniel: Yes, and we also want to thank those who are supporting us. You guys give us wings and we're working on new awesome material that you folks are hopefully looking forward to.
All photographs by Jan Vaceanu-Staicov.
Read my review of The Best of Their Early Year here.
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