Earthless | Interview - It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine

The most exciting outdoor event in rock has been launched: Live In The Mojave Desert is a livestream concert film series, deep in the heart of the California wilderness, with performances from Earthless, Nebula, Spirit Mother, Mountain Tamer, and Stoner.

Schedule:
Earthless: Saturday 23rd January, 2021
Nebula: Saturday 6th February, 2021
Spirit Mother: Saturday 20th February, 2021
Mountain Tamer: Saturday 6th March, 2021
Stoner (Brant Bjork + Ryan Gut + Nick Oliveri): Saturday 20th March, 2021

Inspired by Pink Floyd’s iconic ‘Live At Pompeii’ film, each of the concert films will be premiered online, and presented in a two-hour long live, hosted program. Some of the biggest desert rock legends will be on set attending and hosting, and the bands themselves will join the stream. Each concert film will become a live album! The five albums will be available on vinyl, CD and DVD.

Interview with bassist Mike Eginton and drummer Mario Rubalcaba

It’s probably quite awhile since you played together. How was it to play in the Mojave desert?

Mike Eginton: It was great! The Mojave desert is a beautiful place and to play outside in that environment was a wonderful experience.

“For the first couple years of our existence 75% of our live sets were improvised.”

Do you maintain the script while playing live, or do you feel more free to expand in that setting? Do you find yourselves experimenting as you’re playing live?

Mike: There are structured passages that are a basic blueprint of what we are playing, but live we can improvise and expand on or in between those passages. We do improvise quite a bit in those free areas. A few of our songs/riffs have come from improvisations during shows. I think it’s necessary for us to do this. For the first couple years of our existence 75% of our live sets were improvised. We weren’t able to practice very often due to the fact we were not all living in the same city. So I think for us, it’s very important that we do this.

Earthless Live in the Mojave Desert | Photo by Miroslav Peric

A quick few words about effects and pedals for our musician readers. How are you micing and what electronics do you find most helpful for your sound? How do you determine when to use, what to use, and how not to overuse effects?

Mike: I use a pretty minimal pedal set up. I have a MSL (make sounds loudly) gain/overdrive that I run the whole time. Amazing pedal. It’s a mainstay on my board. I use a Black Arts Toneworks ‘Black Sheep’ for my distortion. Also a mainstay. And I use an MXR Phase !00 and Dunlop mini bass wah as well for little accents here and there.

As a musician, how are you coping with the current world pandemic?

Mario Rubalcaba: For me personally it’s been a huge shift into dad life, and that has been great and a bright spot in this whole pandemic. Touring definitely makes you miss out on lots of family stuff so it’s been great to just be home with my kids full time for once.

The whole music industry is struggling. Do you think there will be a fresh wave of excitement when all this is over and the live music will be stronger than ever?

Mario: I think there will be – that is once people feel safe and confident about being in venues. Might take a bit though. Wish we could just snap the fingers and make it go away…

There seems to be more interest in reissues lately than in new music.

Mario: For me I’d say that is true and has been for a long time. New music has to be given a chance though and it’s out there.

Any sense of direction for your next venture? Do you have any new plans for recording some new material?

Mario: We are currently working on a few new ideas and pieces. It is going well and yes, working on getting back in the studio in a few months I’d say. Excited about that.

Records, records, records. I’m sure now that we all have a bit more time at home that we are listening to more music. To that end, who’s on your turntable right now?

Mario: Yes indeed, last two records I listened to today were The Doors ‘L.A. Woman’ and Bobby Hutcherson ‘The Kicker’ LP. Both were sounding great!