Droning psychedelic shoegaze and twisted garage rock ala the
killer Mexican underground scene, Has A Shadow provides music in the form of a
hazy, faded din erupting a voluptuous curtain of golden grey smoke.  A devastatingly effective one two punch of
psychedelic infused garage rock jabs and frenzied psychedelic uppercuts of
raging feedback and gnarly distortion promise to lay just about any listener
flat on their ass within five minutes of dropping the needle on their debut
full-length album Sky Is Hell Black released on the ever killer Captcha
Records.  Normally, with imagery this
dark and such a healthy dose of shoegaze and even a smattering of electronica
throughout, I’d be done and out the door. 
Has A Shadow is far greater than simply the sum of their parts,
though.  They’ve managed to assimilate
label mates Lorelle Meets The Obsolete’s amazing recording and production
values, recruiting Beto to mix and master the reverb ridden, echo drenched
sounds they manage to trap on tape perfectly encapsulating the sound and
emotion of the music.  When you listen to
The Sky Is Hell Black, it’s hard to believe that it’s the debut album from a
band that had only ever released a three track EP before that.  Songs like “John Lennon” and “Don’t” quickly
draw you into the nightshade cloak of psychedelia Has A Shadow summon from the
darkness, while they conjure head bopping tunes like “Drive”, “Can’t Stop The
Fall” and “May Never” to ensure that you’re not going to be doing anything for
the thirty-nine minutes it takes you to drift, trip and tumble through the
infinitely swelling and undulating corridors of The Sky Is Hell Black.  Look, I mean, I could spend all day talking
up just how amazing this group is, and how they’ve done nothing but both
impress me since day one, and how they continue to improve with every single
song they release, but I don’t think Has A Shadow needs all that.  They’ve stood only on their merits and talent
since day one which doesn’t show any sign of changing at this point.  And I don’t want it to.  So, dig on some of the most sickeningly
sweet, utterly dark and delicious psychedelic, garage, shoegaze awesomeness I
can muster!  Everyone Has A Shadow
afterall…

Listen
while you read: http://captcharecords.bandcamp.com/album/sky-is-hell-black

Or:
http://hasashadow.bandcamp.com/

What’s Has A
Shadow’s lineup at this point?  Have you
guys had any personnel changes since the band started?

Graciano:  Daniel
Graciano, Remi and Daniel Arp.  There’ve
been a lot of changes.  First was moving
from Guadalajara to México City.  That
required getting used too another place, or at least finding a way to keep our
rhythm doing things.  Daniel Arp was thirsty
to play, met him at a party and it was all settled.  Before, we played with another guitarist, but
lost contact with him little by little. 
Arp came in and helped resolve a lot of technical problems we had.  It was pretty cool he was into rock ‘n roll
as much as we were, it made the mix easy.

Are any of you in
any other active bands at this point? 
Have any of you released any music with anyone else?  If so can you tell us a little bit about it?

Remi:  Daniel Arp’s
currently working on a solo album of electronic music.

Arp:  Daniel Graciano
and Remi use to have some solo projects, but right now it’s just Has A Shadow.

Where are you
originally from?

Remi:  Daniel
Graciano’s from Gómez Palacios in the north of Mexico, Arp and I are from Mexico
City.

What was the music
scene like there when you were growing up? 
Did you see a lot of shows growing up? 
Do you feel like it played a large role in your musical tastes or the
way you play today?

Arp:  I was never
involved in the local rock n roll scene while growing up, the way I play is
influenced by the records I used to hear, and currently hear, from early blues
to Sonic Youth.

Remi:  It was quite
shitty, you either had to go to punk shows or try and catch anything that
sounded like worth going out for and seeing. 
The internet was very primitive at that time and culture, music and art
was a privilege or a luxury if you were an average child.

Graciano:  The scene
was strange back there, there aren’t many people.  In fact, there weren’t many things in
general.  There weren’t many shows back
then…  Or shows I was interested in or
could afford, I dunno…  But, if it wasn’t
for that environment I’d probably be hanging somewhere else.

What was your
house like when you were younger?  Was it
very musical?  Were either your parents
or any of your relatives musicians or extremely involved/interested in music?

Arp:  Yes, it
was.  My mom was always listening to
classic 60’s – 80’s rock and pop music, and most of The Beatles and The Doors
albums were available.  It was definitely
a great starting point.

Remi:  Rolling Stones,
The Beatles, The Animals, Los Panchos, Violeta Parra, were played a lot in the
house and on family trips.  My uncle was
the one who was into music.  He used to
give me these tapes of The Ramones, Roxy Music, Bauhaus and The Gun Club when I
was thirteen.  I guess that awakened my
interest in music, but it didn’t offer proper guidance or any idea of a time
line.

Graciano:  When I was
a child my mom bought me a radio recorder so I could listen to cassettes and
CDs.  I used to listen to all kinds of
stuff.  I didn’t have much taste, but
never I missed tapes of The Doors, The Animals, Queen, The Beatles…  So, my father had his acoustic guitar and I
started to play and there was internet by that time, so I used to spend my
afternoons playing songs, watching tabs, or finding chords and notes on the
computer.  My granddad played and sang in
a trio, taught my dad how to play, and then my father played and sang in a rock
band called Septiembre Negro.  Almost
everyone from my dad’s side of the family plays an instrument or sings, or
both.

What was your
first real exposure to music?

Arp:  Listening to The
Beatles, The Doors, Deep Purple, Supertramp, Queen from a very early age.  The first album I stole for myself was
Staring at the Sea, by the Cure.  It all
went from there.

Remi:  When I heard
The Ramones.

Graciano:  I’m not
sure, I feel like there’s been many.  One
I can recall, is when I took drum lessons for two weeks and then left ‘cause I
thought classes were boring.

If you had to pick
one immaculate moment of music in your lifetime, a moment that changed
everything and opened your eyes to the infinite possibilities of music, what
would it be?

Arp:  As a teen,
listening to Autechre, Aphex Twin and Coil in “altered states”.

Remi:  When I got into
the house of this guy who sold records to museums and collectors.  I would spend hours in there after school,
sometimes got out of there empty handed. 
But it keeps happening every time I listen to a record I like.

Graciano:  When
programs like Ableton or Reason first came around.

When did you
decide that you wanted to start writing and performing your own music?  What brought that decision about?

Arp:  I’ve been making
my own songs since I got my first guitar, when I was about twelve years
old.  When I was exposed to music making
software, early versions of Fruity Loops and Reason, when I was about
seventeen, it was a big deal because I could do everything, from drums to
vocals, and I got to develop my listening and my understanding of electronic
music terms and techniques.  So, it
wasn’t very hard to use new tools like Ableton, Logic, and a variety of
plugins.  Performing is a different
issue, because I performed as an electronic music producer, but it’s quite
different from performing as a guitar player in a band, and since I hadn’t done
that since high school, I feel that I’m learning to perform with every show in
Has a Shadow.

Remi:  I’ve always wanted
to do it, tried to play in a few bands but none of them wanted to follow the direction I wanted till I moved from México City to Guadalajara.  I’d had other band experiments there, but it
all started to make sense when I met Daniel Graciano.

Graciano:  The first
time I decided, I was like eighteen and ended up concluding that I wasn’t ready
for that kind of performance.  I wasn’t
pleased with my voice, and so I moved out from my home town to the México City,
started to play with a friend, Pedro Silva who wanted to start a band, and
sometimes I would sing there, but never considered being a singer.  I used to say that I wasn’t a good singer,
but a good imitator…  Eventually, Pedro
and Remi encourage me to do it, and since then it’s been an odyssey.

When and how did
you all originally meet? 

Arp:  I met Remi when
he was in high school and I was in my first year of college.  From there, we had periodic encounters, since
he was in college with a close friend of mine. 
But we actually bonded at a party where I met Daniel Marciano, and when
Remi told me they had a band, I asked them to invite me to play.  From there it’s all history.

Graciano:  I Met Remi
at a party.  This guy, Pedro Silva
introduced us.

What led to the
formation of Has A Shadow and when exactly was that?

Remi:  Early 2012,
after the breakup of We Ride Phantoms, a band that only lasted a year.  We were angry, sad, and poor.  It took us a month or two to start jammin’
again, but songs started to flow, and they seemed to be attached by a common
feeling.  Back then it was just Daniel
Graciano and I.

Arp:  I joined Has A
Shadow after they’d already recorded The Sky is Hell Black.

Is there some sort
of shared creed, code, ideal or mantra that the band lives by?

Graciano:  There’ve
been some, but I can’t recall a good one. 
I like ones taken from jokes we make, but they’re pretty dumb, so you
don’t need to know any of those.

Arp:  I’ve been
thinking about that.  I’m sure there is,
but it’s an unspoken one.  I’d like to
have some kind of ritual or something. 
We’re together because of chemistry and the kind of music we like.  We can all identify certain things in music
that we can relate to, and that’s how we manage to work, and sometimes travel
and live, together; we love music, and we love rock n roll.

Remi:  We had some
difficulty getting gigs in the past because of the trends that were happening
at the time; it was like a smoke curtain that stopped everybody from doing
whatever they wanted, where they wanted. 
Mexico’s idiosyncrasy is shit and kills lots of things.  That being said, we try to avoid all those
lies and things that only serve selfish purposes.  We’ve all got strong personalities that keep
assholes in their place, and believe me, there’re a lot of them around here.

What does the name
Has A Shadow mean or refer to?  Who came
up with the name and how did you go about choosing it?

Arp:  Daniel Marciano
can explain it better.  For me, it was
easy to relate to, because of the way my mind works, and I’ve always felt that
it fits the music.

Graciano:  It came up
from the book The Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze,
where he mention the subject of subject holes, something like, as we live we
get unconcluded wishes on our way to accomplish things or whatever…  That’s something you can’t erase, it becomes
a hole, and you try to fill it with many other desires to fulfill the very
first desire which created the hole itself. 
I see this idea reflected in how we were living at that time and the
reality I tried to assume, ‘cause we had lots of trouble living together, and
we really wanted to make music, our first band split up dramatically, after
months and months of trying to create something we wanted, but failing…  There was also a song we used to play in our
old band; one of the lines says, “Everybody is sick, everyone has a
shadow”.  So there was a song about The
Anti-Oedipus and a line of it became our band’s name.  Remi wanted to call the band, “Fire Mountain”
but nobody was sure, so we put it to a vote with friends, and the rest is
history.

Where are you all
currently located at?

Has A Shadow:  Mexico
City.

How would you
describe the local music scene where you’re at?

Arp:  I believe Remi
has more to say about it, I feel there’re a lot of politics and social
interests that I can hardly relate to. 
So I just play and enjoy it.

Remi:  There is no
scene.  There’s a model to be successful
here in this country, and so many people think that’s the goal, but it’s like
being part of the mafia.  On the other
hand, there are people trying to do something about it, a very few with a clear
vision and consciousness of the problems all around.  But, there are some pretty cool bands and I’m
sure there are more of them I haven’t heard yet.

Graciano:  I agree
with Remi.  And, I see sadly that the
music scene in México is inconclusive, the way the business works, the lack of
bands.  This is where everything should
begin, from the same bands.  But the ones
with true potential dissolve, and then… 
You could say, we Mexicans are victims of a chain reaction, ‘cause if we
aspire to a solid Mexican scene, we have to start with the prime matter, the
bands.  It can’t happen spontaneously.

Are you very
involved in the local music scene?  Do
you book or attend a lot of local shows? 
Do you help to record or release any local music?

Remi:  We try to go to
as many shows as we can and also hang out with bands we like, even if we
haven´t met them.  There are some plans
to help record two projects.

Arp:  Yeah, we do
attend gigs in local venues to see local bands. 
We like some of them and are friends with some of them.  I personally don’t do much, besides going to
the shows.  Remi and Daniel are more
active in that sense.  Because of my job,
I have very little spare time.  So, I
play, rehearse and record with Has A Shadow, and use the rest of my free time
on my personal music production.

Graciano:  I don’t go
out too much and as a result, I don’t record either.  Lately, we played some music for a video that
Remi made for Natalie Amkie, a fashion designer.  Pretty cool video, it’s on YouTube.

Do you feel like
the local scene has played a large or pivotal role in the sound or history of
Has A Shadow?  Or do you feel like you
could be doing what you’re doing and sound like you do regardless of your
location?

Remi:  Not in that
sense, but indeed, in the way we want them to hear us.

Arp:  The scene has
definitely not influenced our sound, I even feel like we’re outsiders in our
own city.  There are a few bands that we can
relate ourselves to musically, but we met them long after the record was made,
and our sound is evolving regardless of what’s happening in our city.  We listen to a lot of “old” music, and the
combination of what we’re listening to marks the direction in which the sound
moves.

Graciano:  I think
it’s influenced us in a sense that is part of the “stuff” we reject at some
level, to maintain the band working.

I love listening
to music and I love sharing it with people. However I do not love having to
describe it to people.  I’m not one of
those people that likes to use labels and adjectives to describe music and
unfortunately as a result when I try to describe music that people haven’t
heard before I usually end up coming off like a rambling pratt.  Rather than me making some bizarre attempt at
describing how you sound to our readers, how would you describe Has A Shadow’s
sound to our readers who might not have heard you before?

Arp:  I find it hard
to describe any kind of music.  For me,
Has A Shadow is loud, distorted rock n roll.

Remi:  Dark, hypnotic,
hazy rock ‘n’ roll meant for driving in the night.

Graciano:  There are a
lot of ways to describe it, I like to say it’s a synthesis of music that goes
from blues, country to dark wave, garage, or whatever.  Hear it for yourself and you can label
it…  Most of the time I compare it to
wine, motorcycles, drugs, social affairs, ghosts and David Cronenberg.

You guys have a
really cool sound.  It seems to be as
firmly rooted in contemporary music as it’s steeped in the hazy garage sound of
the 60’s and 70’s.  Can you talk about
who some of your major musical influences are? 
What about influences on the band as a whole rather than just
individually?

Arp:  In Rock n Roll,
Dead Boys, The Cure, Richard Hell and The Voidoids, Velvet Underground, Rolling
Stones, Iggy Pop, The Stooges, Lou Reed, Birthday Party, Rowland S. Howard, Joy
Division, Bauhaus, PIL, Wire, Nine Inch Nails, Sonic Youth, At The Drive In,
Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf, Link Wray, The Cramps, I could go on…

Remi:  The Chameleons,
Dead Moon, Nikki Sudden, Rolling Stones, The Human Expression, Nico,
Kaleidoscope, Spacemen 3, The Last Drive, The Asteroid #4, Singapore Sling, The
Chocolate Watchband, BJM, Michael Yonkers, Rowland S. Howard, Dead Skeletons,
The Blue Angel Lounge, The Zombies, and APTBS.

Graciano:  The Music
Machine, Lee Hazlewwod, Suicide, Vibravoid, Brian Jonestown Massacre.  I also took a lot from some sixty’s
compilations: Tommy Knockers Beat Club, Scum of the Earth, Nuggets, Acid
Visions, The Cicadelic 60’s, and Wyld Sydes.

While we’re
talking so much about the history and makeup of the band can you talk a little
bit about Has A Shadow’s songwriting process? 
Is there someone who comes up with a riff or more finished idea and
brings it to the rest of the band to work out, compose and tighten down?  Or is it more of a situation where you all
just jam a lot, come up with an idea as a unit and then work on tightening the
tune down as a band?

Arp:  It’s a little
bit of both, we do jam to develop simple riffs, and sometimes someone brings an
almost finished piece, and we go from there. 
In my experience with the band, Daniel Marciano brings most of the
starting ideas in and we go together from there.

Remi:  Daniel Marciano
has this great way of composing; pretty sixties.  After that, I try to make it walk through a
dark mood and Daniel Arp gives it these crazy crying noises.  It depends on the song, but we really try,
over and over to get it right.

Graciano:  It’s been
exactly like both of your examples, someone comes up with a riff or it comes
together during a jam, and I can’t think of one, but I’m sure some other way
too…

Do you all enjoy
recording?  As a musician myself I know
that there’s not a whole lot in the world that beats holding that finished
product in your hands, knowing that it’s yours and you made it and no one can
take that away from you.  Getting to that
point though, especially when it comes to recording with an entire band, can be
a little stressful to say the very least! 
How is it recording for you all?

Remi:  I love
recording!  If there’s anything that didn’t
come up in the rehearsals or ideas that we weren’t sure about immediately, it
comes to the surface and we got to do it right for the sake of the song.  I’m too intense on the way the songs should
sound.

Arp:  You got that
right.  I love recording, I love playing,
and I very much enjoy the writing and recording process.  I like and know the mixing/mastering process,
but I must say I find it very hard to match the ideal sound and ideas of three
individuals, so I sometimes can get a bit tired.  But when you finally hear the song as it
should sound, it’s worth it.

Graciano:  It’s pretty
fun, because it always involves this sense of experimentation, and it’s in that
process we found the sound and the feelings we wanted to express.

Do you all utilize
studio environments for recording or do you all handle those duties on your
own?

Arp:  We have a modest
space which we’ve all invested in and we have tools that are available to all
of us.  We often exchange pedals or amps
while rehearsing and recording, we all try to make the most of what we have at
any given time.

Does Has A Shadow
do a lot of prep work getting things to sound just so-so before you record or
is the recording process a more fluid organic one where things have room to
change and evolve?

Arp:  We do rehearse
to prepare for recording, but when we’re in the recording session, it’s very
fluid and flexible, we try different arrangements.  We also comment on and influence each other’s
parts and ways of playing it.  We’re all
aiming for the best way to record a song to preserve the mood and attitude of
it.

The first music
I’m aware of was 2012’s Vibrating In Exile self-released digital EP.  That was hosted on your Bandcamp page which
you’ve suspended since the release of your latest album and I wasn’t able to
find a whole lot of details about it. 
What three tracks were on that release? 
What was the recording of the material for the Vibrating In Exile EP
like?  Where and when was that material
recorded?  Who recorded it?  What kind of equipment was used?

Remi:  It was recorded
in Guadalajara back in 2012.  I think it
was April or May.  It was homemade,
recorded on a rooftop with a TASCAM DP-01FX Digital 8-Track and just a few pedals.  We
didn’t have much gear at that time.  It’s again online by the way.  It includes
early versions of “Drive”, “May never” and “Poison in me”.  We like the way “Drive” sounds on that EP
more than the album version.

You followed up
Vibrating In Exile a year later with Sky Is Hell Black this past year (2013) on
Captcha Records who released it in a limited Clear with Hell Black Haze 12”
vinyl edition.  I know there was also a
cassette tape version of Sky Is Hell Black that was released.  Who put that out?  How many copies was the cassette version
limited to?  Do you know how many copies
of the LP were pressed?

Arp:  I wasn’t present
during the recording sessions, but I was during the negotiation with
Captcha.  I think they pressed 300
copies, maybe.  Remi knows best.

Remi:  There were like
nine or ten cassettes, Alberto from Lorelle Meets the Obsolete helped us do
them.  They were all handmade.  We gave those away at the Austin Psych
Fest.  There’s a second edition that
should arrive next week, which includes our latest release Hollow Curve, which we
recorded all by ourselves.

I know that
Lorelle from Lorelle Meets The Obsolete (Interview here) helped record the
album and if I understand right Beto (The Obsolete) played drums on album?  How did your collaboration with Lorelle and
Beto come about?  How did you all
meet?  What can our readers expect to
hear from Sky Is Hell Black?  What was
the recording of Sky Is Hell Black like? 
Was the recording of the material for the full-length very different
than the session(s) for the earlier EP? 
When and where was it recorded? 
What kind of equipment was used? 
Did Lorelle record all of that material or was anyone else involved?

Remi:  Before Has A
Shadow existed, Lorelle Meets The Obsolete used to be in another band called
Soho Riots.  I saw them a few times and
liked it.  It seemed like we had a few
influences in common, but we never met them while we were both living in the
same city.  When We Ride Phantoms, our
old band we played in, started Lorelle Meets The Obsolete moved to México
City.  I honestly felt regret for not
knowing them before and also that they had started to play a lot with people we
don’t like, slackers and double moral fuckers. 
They didn’t see it that way, they were doing their thing and keep doing
it, I respect them deeply.  Well anyways,
we moved to Mexico City the same year, 2012, and we received an email from them
saying they were thrilled and liked Vibrating In Exile and that Beto would love
to help us record if we had any more songs, or even just those three.  We were so excited, and after we met,
everything else was magic.  It was like,
we had so much to talk about, feelings and ideas, what we thought was right and
wrong.  I think that if there is any code
or ideals in Has a Shadow as a band it came after those encounters because we
knew we believed in so many of the same things. 
They’re our brothers.  Beto
recorded the album except tracks eight and nine; those were recorded by Daniel
Marciano and me in my room.  Beto mixed
them, though.

Do you all have
any music that we haven’t talked about yet, maybe a single or a song on a comp?

Arp:  Hollow Curve a two track single.

Remi:  We’re recording
other songs, looking to finish up an album by November.

Where’s the best
place for our US readers to pick up your music?

Graciano:  Our Bandcamp page.

With the
completely insane international postage hikes this last year I try to provide
our readers with as many options for picking up import releases as
possible!  Where’s the best place for our
international readers to pick up your music?

Has A Shadow: 
Bandcamp, Captcha Records or Fuzz Club Records.

Do you have any
major goals that you’re looking to accomplish in 2014?

Arp:  There’s that single I mentioned before, and we hope to release another EP before finishing a
whole new LP.

What, if anything
do you have planned as far as touring goes for 2014 so far?

Arp:  We’re going on a
short tour in June in the north of México and we’re going to support L.A. Witch
on some of the dates they have booked in Mexico in August.  Hopefully we’ll touch base at Captcha Records
in California.

Do you remember
what the first song that Has A Shadow ever played live was?  Where and when was that?

Remi:  February 2012,
“John Lennon” and “Drive”.  It was at a
house party in our house back in Guadalajara.

Do you all spend a
lot of time on the road touring?  Do you
enjoy touring?  What’s life like on the
road for Has A Shadow?

Arp:  I do enjoy
touring, I do get tired of travelling, but playing live is worth it.  We try to have a lot of fun, and stay
creative.

Remi:  It’s
crazy.  I do all the driving and keep
hearing Daniel Marciano and Daniel Arp’s nonsense all the time.  I enjoy it a lot.

Graciano:  We’ve only
played outside México once, so there’s not much experience.  I think we enjoy touring, but we haven’t
toured as much as I guess we want to. 
And the time we have been, it’s not on our own.  I mean, Remi, Daniel and I get along and
understand each other normally, lots of jokes and conversation, but it seem
like we always go with more people, namely bands, friends or girlfriends.

You have played
with some pretty cool bands including Lorelle Meets The Obsolete (interviewhere) who I am more than a little bit obsessed with!  Who are some of your personal favorites that
you’ve had chance to share a bill with?

Has A Shadow:  Oceanss
from Mexico, L.A. Witch from Los Angeles, Gateway Drugs also from LA, Psychic
Hearts from Mexico and Dancing Strangers from Tijuana.

In your dreams,
who are you on tour with?

Remi:  Underground
Youth, Dead Skeletons, KVB, Blondis Salvation, Chatham Rise and Lorelle Meets
The Obsolete (Interview here).

Do you have any
funny or interesting stories from live shows or performances that you’d like to
share here with our readers?

Arp:  There may be
some, but I’m very focused when we prepare for a gig, and I get really tired
from playing since it gets very physical for me, so I can’t really remember
anything specific to share at the moment. 
Our gigs in LA were great; we had a lot of fun and met wonderful and
interesting people.

Remi:  Daniel Graciano
and I started to punch each other before playing.  Ha-ha, I guess we needed it.

Graciano:  That time
in Monterrey, the people running the place weren’t too friendly after they
caught me smoking weed, so there was a lot of tension going on there.  And it seems that the guys that had invited
us were having a bunch of fun, watching us get drunk, me having trouble with
the owners, fighting each other, and then playing like nothing happened.

With all of the
various mediums of release available to artists today I’m always curious why
they choose and prefer the certain methods that they do.  Do you have a preferred medium of release for
your music?  What about when you’re
listening to and or purchasing music, if so can you talk about that a little
bit?

Arp:  Well Bandcamp
and SoundCloud are great.  The way the
music industry has mutated has shown us that all you need to have international
distribution is to upload a wav or mp3 file to any of these services, from
there it’s all about your skills in PR. 
I personally download a lot of music from nodata.tv, I know that’s not
what we want to hear or happen to us, but that’s the way it is.  I’d love to make some cash from playing and
recording, but that’s not why I’m in it, and that’s the way it goes.  We’ll have to get creative and play a lot.

Remi:  Bandcamp is the
best for me.

Graciano:  I agree
with Remi, again!

Do you have a
music collection?  If so can you tell us
a little bit about it?

Arp:  I have a bunch
of vinyl, Tomita, Queen, The Cure, Bauhaus, Joy Division, Iggy and The Stooges,
Velvet Underground, Sex Pistols, The Doors, Jesus and Mary Chain, The Beatles,
The Cramps, Fuzztones, 60’s garage, blues, Miles Davis, Rolling Stones, Frank
Zappa, Autechre, Neil Young…  I would
have to see them to name them all. 
Together, the collection is pretty big and frankly it’s great and very
interesting.  As far as digitally, my
collection is very vast.  Lots of
classical, electronic, old and new rock n roll, punk, jazz, blues, funk,
hip-hop…  I like all kinds of music as
long as it speaks to me, not all music speaks to me, regardless of the genre.

Remi:  Computer is
full!  We’re building our vinyl
collection, and it’s growing pretty good, lots of sixties garage and
psychedelic records.

I grew up around
what I would consider a fairly large collection of music.  There was always something awesome about
being able to saunter up to the shelves and shelves of music, pull something
off completely at random.  Pop it into
the play, stare at the artwork, read the liner notes and let the music
transport me off to another dimension. 
As a result of those experiences I grew to love physical music product
at a pretty young age and I doubt I’ll ever shake the magical feeling that
holding a new album that comes over me. 
Do you have any such connection with physically released music?

Arp:  I like to buy a
record I really like a lot, but I’m not obsessed with the object.  I enjoy the sound of vinyl, it’s definitely a
very lovely and interesting way to experience listening to some kinds of music,
but I had lots of CDs and many of them have gotten damaged, or lost.  Maybe that’s why I don’t get very attached to
my records.  I find high quality digital
music, flac, to be my format of choice, especially in high end electronic
music.

Graciano:  Yes I have,
for vinyl; Mua!

Remi:  I really love
physical records.

As much as I love
my music collection there’s always been one fundamental problem with it,
portability.  I was never able to take
enough of it on the go with me to keep me happy, not even with the advent of
cassette tapes and CDs.  Digital music
has changed all of that overnight, I can carry more music on my phone that I
could have in a duffle bag stuffed full of tapes or CDs!  But that’s not even the real kicker, when
teamed with the internet digital music has really proven to be a game
changer.  It’s exposed people to a whole
universe of music that they otherwise wouldn’t have been exposed to.  On the other hand illegal downloading is
running rampant and it’s harder and harder to get noticed amongst the chocked
digital jungle; there’s always good with the bad and vice versa.  As an artist during the reign of the digital
era what’s your opinion on digital music and distribution?

Arp:  As I said
before, digital is the way we can communicate ideas faster.  I think that besides the fact that we’re
drowning in information, digital music and distribution’s very good, we just
have to educate ourselves to find what we want or what we need, and not what is
force fed to us.  Piracy and alternative
distribution is happening, and we do have to avoid the old ways in which the
record labels owned everything and decided what the people heard.  It has definite pro’s and con’s but it is
what it is, and this is our time, so we have to make the most of it using
social media and most importantly, creating good music, and giving great shows.

Graciano:  Well it’s a
fact that nowadays music is sort of a bad business, but it’s all come as a
consequence or an evolution of the market, the demand, and the consumer.  Other ways to sell music must be found, but I
don’t think that’s the question.  Bands
struggles with more than just money issues and all these devices can be helpful
if you know how to use them.  Of course,
there might be a lot more competition, but who knows?  Maybe you’ll become the next Tame Impala or
something…  As for the person who
downloads music or pays two dollars for an album, I think it’s fair for them to
do what they want to, and a lot of reasons could be listed.

I try to keep up
with as much music as I possibly can but there just aren’t enough hours in the
day anymore.  I spend countless hours
listening to tunes online, poring over submissions, flipping through the bins
at the local shop and talking up the employees there mining for tips but a lot
of the best tips that I get come from musicians such as you!  Is there anyone from your local scene or area
that I should be listening to that I might not have heard of before?

Remi:  OCEANSS,
Psychic Hearts and ZEZAREE.

What about
nationally and internationally?

Arp:  I have a renewed
love for Haus Arafna and have been listening to them again a lot.

Remi:  Sonic Death,
Dennis Renfordt, and Las Fritas.

Thanks so much for
taking the time to complete this interview, I know it wasn’t short and I can’t
imagine it was easy either.  You’re done
now though but before we sign off is there anything that you’d like to share or
talk about with me or our readers?

Remi:  We’ll get to
play as many places as our spirit can.

Arp:  I’d like to have
a Skype chat while having a beer and see what comes out.

Graciano:  Nothing,
but thanks for the interview and thanks to the people who bought the album seem
it’s sold out!  (Spooky Theremin sound)

DISCOGRAPHY

(2012)  Has A Shadow –
Vibrating In Exile EP – digital – Self-Released (3 track EP)

(2013)  Has A Shadow –
Sky Is Hell Black – digital, Cassette Tape, 12” – Captcha Records/Self-Released
(Clear Vinyl with Hell Black Haze 12” limited to ? copies.  Cassette limited to ? tapes.)

(2014)  Has A Shadow –
Hollow Curve EP – digital – Self-Released (2 track EP)

Interview made by Roman Rathert/2014

© Copyright http://psychedelicbaby.blogspot.com/2014