1) The first song on your EP “Crusades” contains an audio clip from the infamous
movie “Network”. The actor speaking in the clip is the late Peter Finch, who
received the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for that
very movie, though the award wouldn’t come until several months after his death.
He is the only actor thus far to receive that specific award while no longer
living. Do you feel that it is more important to have success in your lifetime,
be remembered when you’re gone or some kind of combination of both?
SL: I feel a combination of both would probably be most rewarding. It must be
quite saddening to know your work has only been fully appreciated once you're no
longer around to promote it. I would love to have our work celebrated in the present,
and even after death.
2) You’re from Johannesburg, South Africa and it just blows my mind that (If I
could be so bold as to sum up your music in three words) an instrumental post
rock band could exist in such a country. It is probably because I do not know a
lot about the country other than what implications come with the word “Africa”,
but what is it like being a post rock kind of band there?
SL: It has it's advantages and disadvantages; Sometimes we feel a little
restricted to what we do, as a lot of venues in Johannesburg almost have this
"scene" to them, like "This is a metal venue", or "This is a venue for quieter,
folk orientated bands to perform in." So we pretty much try to perform anywhere
we can. We have some amazing venues here though; There is a small independent
cinema called The Bioscope Theatre located in Newtown where we feel most at
home, it captures the essence of our live show vs the live visual effect on the
big screen. There is also a little cafe in Linden called Amuse Cafe where we have
a lot of fun at, run by good people too!
3) You also have a band called Her Stems Spiral. How did that come about? Why
couldn’t whatever you felt needed to be done that justified creating a whole new
band couldn’t just be done in your existing band?
SL: Her Stems Spiral is a project I created to escape conventional song-writing
and structure, particularly dealing in multiple fields from mathcore to shoegaze.
This is not a band, however I would be open to recruiting a rotating cast of
musicians to help me perform these songs live in the future. Eyes Like Mirrors is
a collaborative effort, we all write our own parts of music depending on who
brings in the skeleton idea, it's a combination of all of our thoughts, feelings,
likes, dislikes, objections, beliefs etc.. as opposed to writing in Her Stems
Spiral, where I have complete control over everything.
4) What do you feel are the differences between Eyes Like Mirrors and Her Stems
Spiral?
SL: As I said in the previous question, Eyes Like Mirrors is a full time band,
Her Stems Spiral is a side-project where I can experiment and share my every
thought. Eyes Like Mirrors is a combined effort, where we can mix all of our
daily emotions and influences into one collaborative procedure.
5) If you were to ever tour the United States in the near future, would you open
for yourself?
SL: Assuming you are referring to Her Stems Spiral opening a show for Eyes Like
Mirrors- I'm not exactly sure how that would go down, but I would definitely be
open to it. I'm not too sure if it's the right "fit", but it could definitely
give people a better understanding of our individual influences. To be perfectly
honest, I would actually rather have another great american post-rock band open for us, or
vice versa, there is so much we still have yet to learn about the american
post-rock scene, we would truly love to visit, as we feel we would have some good
reception over there!
6) You are in the process of recording your first full length (Eyes Like
Mirrors)… how is that going? Any secrets to share? Will the album be released
on vinyl or at least cassette?
SL: Currently, we're still in pre-production stages of our first full length
record. We have over 60 minutes of new material written, and even some working
titles so far. Unfortunately, nothing is set in stone yet as we're trying to save
up to completely record this album ourselves. We need to fund all the necessary
equipment to make it all happen, and we plan to record at our drummer, Matthew's
house, and home studio, called MoonSwing. At this point I can't say on what
grounds this will be released, but vinyl would be an amazing option. Who knows,
on our budget, we may just go the 'eco-cd' route again. But we'll see what
happens!
7) Final thoughts, questions, myths about South Africa dispelled to naïve
Americans, etc…??
SL: Well, we have been asked the stereo-typical questions before, like, "Do South
Africans ride lions and elephants to work?", or "Where do you perform? Inside of tribal huts?" - which I fail to believe anyone actually thinks is what really goes on here.
Otherwise, just a thank you to everyone who has supported our music, whether it's
Eyes Like Mirrors, Her Stems Spiral, Jaysynth, Humanimals, Lemuria or Bye Beneco.
Keep up with us on facebook!
And thanks for the interview!
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