Maxmilián Hruška is the frontman and founding member of Madhouse Express, the psychedelic band from Prague.

Max plays guitar, keyboards, and theremin; he’s the lead singer and songwriter. In September 2023, Madhouse Express released their second album ‘Something With Space’.

“The palette of the colours of the mind”

Max, what preceded the formation of the band? Can you tell us about your musical beginnings and influences?

Maxmilián Hruška: When I was a child, I used to drive my parents crazy by dragging out pots from the kitchen. I would drum on them, sing and make all kinds of weird sounds. Like the other day we were having lunch with the boys from the band, and we mentioned the game called Guitar Hero and I remembered that I actually had it with a whole drum kit and a guitar. When my parents saw how much I enjoyed it, they wanted me to go and learn to play the guitar, but I hated it. On the other hand, I enjoyed just jamming and strumming along with my favourite songs. My dad taught me to listen to Led Zeppelin and classical music. Then my mum introduced me to Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ – at first, I didn’t understand why she liked it, I told her to turn it off, because I thought it was terrible. But you know it: I gave it a second listen years later and suddenly I started to enjoy Pink Floyd a lot, especially Syd Barrett’s work. My decision to go down the road of making psychedelia-tinged music was then topped off by MGMT’s track ‘Time To Pretend’.

When and how was Madhouse Express created?

Each of us had a band before Madhouse. Gregor von Kolofon (the bass guitarist) had a band inspired by the 60s. Dan Novotný (the current guitarist) had formed a band together with Jan Černý (the former drummer). Petr Podzimek (the current drummer) played in a band called Baro Chandel which he founded with his twin brother Pavel. For example, me and David Sedláček (the former guitarist) started playing together with Jonáš Ledecký in primary school. After a while we grew tired of the music we were playing and we wanted to play something more in the style of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd or Cream, not a school rock showcase. So, David and I broke away and started to create music that we fancied more. David’s always been into blues and classic rock, while I was into weird sounds, experimenting with all sorts of instruments. Later, we started looking for new members of the band. Ironically, we found them through an ad. David forbade me to do it, but I did it anyway and voilà, suddenly we came across Kolofon and Jan.

Why psychedelic music? What does the term psychedelic mean to you?

Freedom. The palette of the colours of the mind. Tension, release, emotions- at the same time something that plays with your senses. Madness, calm. A genre of symbolism, mysticism, mystery and the possibility to run deep. Everybody’s idea is different, it’s such a fluid genre, as if adapting to an imaginary vessel. At the same time, I’m into the aesthetics and music of the 60s and 70s, when psychedelia boomed and became more widely known. A modern take on psychedelia with contemporary techniques and experience from previous eras is also an interesting spectacle. I’m curious to see where it goes from here, there has been a lesser stigma attached to it for some time now and I’m glad to see that.

How did the name Madhouse Express come about?

It comes from one of my first lyrics to the song ‘Express to the Madhouse’. David and I were at my house in Černošice (outskirts of Prague) and we were digging through all of my lyrics to see if something would hit us. We came across the lyrics to ‘Express to the Madhouse’ and we liked the name of it. So we just scrambled the words into, The Madhouse Express, after a while we dropped “The” and there it was. Name of our band.

It is said that at one time you had a rehearsal room in the psychiatric hospital in Bohnice and it directly influenced the creation of one of your songs…

Yes, yes. That was the period of ‘Surreal Meadow’s’ creation. It’s about the song ‘She Knows’. There was this lady, I guess she was patient there, and she heard us rehearse and badly wanted to join us and sing along. She was convinced that her friend Jarda (Jerry) was there with us and she demanded that he must open the door for her. Unfortunately, Jarda (Jerry) couldn’t do it as he was non-existent.

At the end of 2015 you released your first EP ‘Lunatic’s Strange Dreams’. What do you remember about this period and how the first songs were created? What influenced the lyrics?

Huh, I have a vague memory of that time as we were constantly in the rehearsal room in the anti-nuke bunker in Břevnov (district of Prague), composing and practicing. Our first recording session in Faust studio felt like experiencing a water slide for the first time. The lyrics were influenced by the intoxicating pleasures of summer, fantasies, but also the loss of contact with some of the people close to us. A lot of mixed feelings. David left us, we recruited Dan. We had our first “tour,” so as I said: a period of mixed feelings.

Then followed three excellent singles ‘Time is Lying,’ ‘Mindcoaster’ and ‘Spirals’ with a slight shift in sound…

‘Time is Lying’ is a track recorded in a punk-like fashion- in the basement studio of our friend Václav Pastor. Then came the double singles, recorded at Theremin records. By the way, the main sound engineer, David Veleminský, was assisted by Lukáš Polák, who helped us with the production of a recent album ‘Something With Space’. So far, every recording we’ve made has been with someone else’s participation. First EP at Faust Studio, first LP at NAPA records, second EP at Golden Hive, second LP at Tropical Cell. It’s kind of volatile, but I’m actually looking forward to seeing where we decide to record our next stuff.

Your first album ‘Surreal Meadow’ is full of interesting imagery and stories. Max, you once mentioned that the song ‘Dreamstorming’ is directly influenced by one of your very bizarre childhood experiences…

‘Dreamstorming’ is generally influenced by quite bizarre experiences and dreams. And as the title suggests, it is derived from the word “brainstorming,” which means putting together as many ideas as possible from a group of people. Yet, in this case, it was about dreams. At a couple of gigs anyone from the audience was able to write their dreams on a piece of paper and put it in a little box. Then I would randomly choose some and read them in one part of the song. I used some dreams from the box, some of my friends, and some of my own for the recording. And yes, the fever dream from my childhood is in the song, too. In my dream, I saw a big liquid sphere turning into a stretching tube, a pulsating tunnel leading through an infinite room. That line was pulsating at the speed of my heart rate, and I thought I was going to die. I had such a feeling for the first time, the feeling that comes back to me whenever I feel anxious. It’s a deafening sense of smallness, as if something is pulling your mind out of your body, like a puppeteer pulling strings behind you.

If you have any other similar experiences that inspired songs and you want to share them, here’s your chance…

For example, Petřín hill in Prague has been transformed into a strange velvet meadow that rippled like the surface of the sea, and on the green waves, I saw abstract, surreal objects that would disappear and then re-emerge. That’s how ‘Surreal Meadow’ came about.

Then there’s ‘Erwin,’ our family dog, who was often my companion during our enchanted sessions. When he passed away, he appeared in my dream flying off into space, and his fragile shell and battered consciousness were finally free.

For example, ‘Something In the Sky’ is a return to my childhood, when I felt that I had seen a UFO, and ‘Indigo’ is about my cat, while also being a parallel to the perception of home. There’s more to it, but let’s leave some room for personal interpretation.

The single ‘Event Horizon’ came about as a collaboration with the band Acid Row. How did this collaboration come to be?

We’d been thinking for a while that we’d like to do some kind of collaboration, and Acid Row have always been good friends. The opportunity arose when we were at Kasárna Karlín venue, and the topic was brought up. We all got excited about it and went for it. The trickiest part was finding time and a place for rehearsals.

As a band, you also have a strong visual presence, often accompanied by liquid-light projections at your concerts. Who’s behind them?

They’re the creation of Weird Visuals. We’ve been teaming up with them for a while now, and we always love diving into their kaleidoscope of colours. Perhaps in the future, I’d like to fuse their magic with projections at the Prague planetarium, once it’s doable after the renovation.

How did the idea of a gig at the Prague planetarium come about? What was it like to play there, and how did this experience influence you?

Me and Martin Packan (our manager) had that idea for quite a long time, I can’t remember who mentioned it first. Capturing sound in that dome is quite tricky, but we hired Czech crème de la crème – Amak Golden. We struggled a bit because every time we looked up at the projections, our heads started spinning, and it threw us off here and there. But it was worth it because both attendance and popularity were huge. Usually, you don’t see the projections because they’re behind you, but in the planetarium, they’re suddenly all around. I’ve always wanted Madhouse to be associated with interesting visuals, so we usually perform with projections that I put together myself. That’s also why I enjoyed collaborating and choosing the projections with the planetarium’s head projectionist – after the setlist was built, I wrote the script for the projections to songs and then we just approved the videos that would be played. After that, during the show, it was just a matter of the promptness and wit of whoever was in control of the projections at the time.

Your second album ‘Something With Space’ was released in September 2023. What was the recording process like? In what way did your music change compared to your earlier work and how will the new album be different? What inspired you?

We recorded it at Kasárna Karlín in the Tropical Cell studio with Lukáš Polák. We have grown again musically, and personally and I feel that now we are on the same wavelength with Petr. We added drum pads and more synths. At the same time, we feel like we might have gone a bit overboard with the synths, so we’ll probably treat them like saffron on the next album. But let’s see where our new minds take us.

<a href="https://madhouseexpress.bandcamp.com/album/something-with-space">Something With Space by Madhouse Express</a>

Inspiration? A few songs came from newer and older jams. I think a few times it reminded us of earlier works by Tame Impala, Black Angels. Like with ‘Ragdoll’ at first, I kept thinking of ‘Queen Persephone’ from Dirty Art Club. Then, as it happens, it took a slightly different direction. Anyway, we composed everything at our friend Tomáš Berný’s mill.

What are your other bands except for Madhouse?

I have a solo project called Fialový Samet (Violet Velvet), Kolofon has Thee Lazy Eyes and Candy Flip DJs, Petr has Rekreace, and occasionally, he performs with Baro Chandel. Daniel makes guest appearances from time to time, playing with bands like Nina & Její Kapela. Recently, he had his first performance with the band Urban Fungus.

Tell me more about your solo project Fialový Samet.

Samet is kind of my home recording gig, made up of old ideas, spontaneous ones, and stuff that popped up during Madhouse rehearsals but didn’t make the cut. It feels like the whole project operates on the principle of teasing myself. I composed and recorded most of the songs for the upcoming debut album in about two weeks before my first gig at the Masálka festival. I’m still working on new stuff, but I’d like to have at least that first album recorded so I can keep recording more. But that first one should be ready in the first half of 2024. Adam Bláha, who I get on well with, is helping a lot with the sound.

“Often, psychedelic elements show up in music that doesn’t explicitly claim the genre”

Recently a lot of bands have emerged that are also close to various forms of psychedelia, do you feel that this is the birth of a new psychedelic scene in the Czech Republic?

It’s kind of a strange flow, back and forth; bands emerge, fade away, and then new ones form again. I think psychedelia has never really disappeared; it’s just a matter of more or fewer bands identifying themselves with the genre at any given time. Often, psychedelic elements show up in music that doesn’t explicitly claim the genre. But it’s not quite like “Swinging Prague,” which has always been my dream to create (a kind of modern version of Swinging London in the sixties). Right now, it seems like psychedelia is weakening globally, but I believe another wave will come soon. The question is in what guise. Nowadays, here in the Czech Republic, we have cool bands like Thee Lazy Eyes, Kill the Dandies!, Fumar Mata, Sepie z Hor, Panoptikum, Island Mint, Science Killer, Urban Fungus, Blue Chesterfield, Mlhovina, Olaf Olafsonn and the Big Bad Trip, Marcel Gidote’s Holy Crab, Ed Rosenthal, Lonely Shredder and The Heavy Smokers, China Soup, Sýček. Hopefully, I haven’t forgotten anyone.

You have already had several gigs outside the Czech Republic, how are you received by the audiences outside your home country?

So far, we have been getting positive feedback. The advantage is that I sing in English and I’m getting away with it, hah- hah. I would like to play abroad more, though. It’s just that with English I have the opportunity to express my thoughts and feelings to a wider audience, which is nice.

In the Czech Republic psychedelic music is not a completely unknown concept, at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s there were several bands whose music went in this direction. Did your band follow suit?

Yeah, personally, I started to discover the 60s, 70s psychedelic scene in our country only when I was doing psychedelia myself. But it still accompanied me without me being aware of it. My dad was a stagehand for The Blue Effect and introduced me to The Plastic People of the Universe and other stuff. We have played with the legendary Flamengo recently. I think that by being into psychedelic rock, playing it and all of us living in the Czech Republic, we’re kind of part of it, even though I sing in English.

Is there a memorable gig that was special and different from the others?

Well, the Planetarium gigs are always interesting and fun. My favourite story is from the release show of our first EP, when during the last encore I accidentally cut open Kolofon’s head with a drum. I lifted the drum for him to hit it with his head. We both imagined that he was going to make that kind of “boing” sound, but he didn’t hit the membrane, he hit the rim, so he had to go to the hospital for stitches. Or, when we were playing a gig early in the morning at a festival (we were supposed to play at midnight but there were technical difficulties so we played at 3am) and our drummer fell asleep during the psychedelic part in the song ‘Dreamstorming’.

Sweet dreams I guess.

Peter Markovski

English translation: Hana Čížová

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