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Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Glitter Wizard Interview in Copenhagen May 2014

So when did Glitter Wizard first start and how did you get recruited?

Glitter Wizard was formed by Wendy Stonehenge in Santa Cruz about 8 years ago. Wendy moved to the bay area a year or two later and visited an oracle. She took his blood and read his tarot, it was foreseen that Doug Graves and Fancy Cymballs shall be recruited to play synthesizer and drums respectively. Filling in the rest of the band were Gayngel on guitar and Arthur Tea on Bass. Gayngel eventually sprouted his wings and flew to the gay heavens. Lorfin Terrafor soon replaced him on guitar. This line-up released the first Glitter Wizard 7 Inch (Black Lotus b/w Witches Limbo) and the Solar Hits LP. Shortly after the release of the LP Arthur Tea left the band. The oracle visited me in a dream; her head rose out of flaming church and spit tongues of fire at me as I lay tied to the ground. She burned off the ropes, setting me free. My only debt to her was to join Glitter Wizard as their new bass player and thus Kandi Moon was born.

How does the band go about writing songs?

For most of the early material Wendy wrote the songs out on bass and would bring them to the band. Wendy has a certain idea for how the song will go but the band members write all of their own parts. If we get too off base Wendy will guide us in a particular direction but we are never told specifically how or what to play. As long as it is within the chord progression of the song it is up to us. Recently, Lorfin Terrafor has been sharing the song writing duties with Wendy. Similarly he will bring songs/riffs written on guitar to the band and we will write our parts accordingly. The structure of the song is always up for debate and can be altered. Some parts may be added or deleted depending on the feel of the song. Things always sound different when you add three more instruments and vocals to it. I contributed the song “Sunlit Wolves” to Hunting Gatherers and helped write most of “Space”. It seems as we grow as a band the song writing process has become more collaborative and will continue in that manner.

Clearly, the band has a great sense of humor.. How did Hunting gatherers title and artwork concept come to life?

As with many of the things involved with the band, both of these were Wendy’s brainchildren. Whether he consulted the oracle again I do not know. He could have also been very horny at the time. 
Borrowed from www.metalnews.de

You just completed a crazy European tour.. can you tell me some of the stories, the highs and the lows….

This was quite an endeavor. One that has given us much joy and much stress. A definite highlight was playing Roadburn, probably one of the greatest festivals that I have had the honor to be a part of in my musical career. We played last at Stage 01 on the first day of the festival to a raucous crowd. The show was wild and it was hot as hell in there. The feeling was electric in that room and I think we rose up and delivered and excellent performance. We played an awesome show in Kassel, Germany the day before with Swedish/Norwegian shredders Brutus and partied all night. Those guys rule! Another highlight was playing with our American buddies Carlton Melton in Liege, Belgium at La Zone and raged all night. That was a great show, Carlton Melton are an amazing band and seem to get better all the time. We hit a rather large bump in the road in Vicenza, Italy. The bump was in the form of a SAAB hatchback and the van was totalled. We were stranded in Vicenza for three days and had to cancel the Vicenza, Budapest and Croatia shows. Luckily the promoter Eric and his friends helped us get all of our gear to a safe place and arranged a hotel for us. Our driver Simon, had to take the train to Lithuania to grab a new van and after a couple days of not knowing whether or not we would be able to continue the tour we were on the road again. We played a rager in Berlin at White Trash and picked up some cocaine so we were partying all night. The recording of our set was ridiculously fast and the sound guy chose not to put anything in the PA except for the keyboards and vocals and nothing in the monitors. We sang like deaf kids and the instruments sounded like shit but people seemed to like it, so fuck it. The next night in Bayreuth, Germany was a really fun show this awesome promoter Peter put on at this squat/skate park/venue. We played really well and a good amount of locals came out and were ready to party. The night didn’t end so well for me specifically. All tour I had refused to skateboard claiming that I would hurt myself. After we had packed up I headed to the green room to do a final double check for any left behind gear. I had to walk through the skate park to get there and my hammered brain decided I was going to skate the park. Bad idea. I ate massive shit skating this quarter pipe and was pretty sure I broke my ankle or leg. Lorfin and the rest of the band seemed to believe that I had only sprained my ankle. I have a high tolerance for pain and when you’re drunk and the pain is excruciating that is a very bad sign. They carried me to my hotel room and my girlfriend, Alejandra, nursed me through the night. The next day we had a 9 hour journey to Copenhagen. Mind you we have a completely full van, so I had to sit up normally with my feet on the ground for 7 hours, I got to put my foot up for 2 hours while we were on the ferry, and then back to the car for another hour. The only pain killers I had were some IB Profin. We pull up to the venue and the band goes in to check in. Alejandra checks my ankle and it has swollen to the size of my thigh. I can barely keep my eyes open at this point because I was in so much pain. We head to the hospital, I was hoping to get some pain pills or a splint and play the show. The doctor takes one look at my leg and sends me up to get an x-ray. Turns out I broke my tibia in two places and my fibula, both of which are clean fractures and the only thing holding my foot to my leg was skin and muscle. He told me that I would not be playing at Heavy Days in Doom Town that evening and that I would need surgery. The band had to play the set without me, but thankfully Dr. Space sat in on modular synth and Doug playing some of my bass parts on synth. Wendy also played bass on “Summertime”. I just listened to the recording yesterday and am damn proud of the dudes, they pulled it together and played a badass set at a doom festival with no bassist! All in all I spent 7 days in the hospital and needed 4 hours of surgery with 13 screws to piece my leg back together. I have been heavily medicated since then and am currently healing at Dr. Space’s place in Copenhagen. The positive thing is that Denmark has socialized healthcare, even for dumb foreigners like me, my operation and stay in the hospital were completely free. I’m a dumb lucky son of a bitch. 

How many new songs did you play on the tour and what are they called?

I think we played four new songs, “Death of Atlantis”, “UFO LSD”, “Fungal Visions”, “Circle of Kings” and a cover of Rainbow’s “A Light in the Black” that was new to us and quickly became one of my favourite songs to play. 

     I love this new one Death of Atlantis… it seems to be much more complex and almost like prog rock, comments?

     This song truly unleashes our love for bands like Uriah Heap and is a good example of the direction the band is headed. We have a couple new songs on deck including “Smokey God” that take you on an epic journey, rarely repeating itself throughout. I think we are progressing as a band and accordingly our song writing and song structure are progressing. I am excited for the new record and am looking forward to what we will come up with next.

     Tell me about your other band that you have with Lorfin, the guitar player from Glitter Wizard?

     Lorfin and I play in another band Buffalo Tooth under the assumed names of Sean Grange and Greg Downing. Lorfin plays drums, I play guitar and sing and our bassist Eric Kang fills out the three piece assault. I would describe our sound as everything badass with all the fat cut off. We have released two 7 Inches, our sold out S/T debut and a split with SF prog\shoegaze shredders Creepers out on Under the Gun Records. Better snag that one quick, because it is almost sold out as well. Our debut full length, Gardeners of the Devil’s Lettuce, will be out on Captcha Records by the end of the summer.

What other bands do the other guys play in as well….

Every member of Glitter Wizard has played in tons of bands, Doug Graves has by far the longest roster of any member. As far as current projects go I think Buffalo Tooth is the only one still active. Doug and Fancee are in the process of starting new projects. Recently Fancee played in an outfit called Iron Witch and Wendy played in a band called Fruit Stripe Band, but I believe both are not active anymore. Wendy and Doug also play in a Hawkwind cover band called Ad Hawk and Doug has played in a Devo cover band called Mongoloid for years, both bands are amazing cover bands.

It seems that the people in Europe are much more into the Glitter Wizard than the US, what do you think??

It seems that Glitter Wizard gets more love in Europe, we definitely sell a lot more merch, get paid more and people seem to be a little obsessed at times. We had two guys in Gdynia, Poland that drove two hours just to see us! That’s insane, no one would even drive 45 minutes in the states to go see us, not even our friend’s haha. We also had opportunities to play several festivals on this tour, something that has never been offered us in the states. I think Glitter Wizard likes playing Europe more anyway, maybe the states can just fuck off. Too many entitled pricks. When we played Roadburn, the next day we went to get paid and Walter (Mr. Roadburn) heard that we were there and came down to personally thank us for playing, told us how much he loved our record and that he would love to have us back. Holy shit!!! That is amazing!!! He doesn’t need to say anything to us, he runs fucking Roadburn but he did because he actually cares. Touring Europe made us feel like we were actually doing something important whereas playing in the states you end up feeling like a piece of shit slacker cause that is what everyone is telling you that you are.   
Greg at Roadburn...borrowed from the site..... www.roadburn.com 

You guys only have toured on the west coast of the USA or only in California (and now Europe)…

We have toured the full west coast and the furthest we ventured east was to play Reno at a shithole called Jub Jub’s Thirst Parlour a place I will never go to or play at again. We might do a more extensive tour of the U.S. it all just depends on how things work out with booking and what not. The Space Booking Agency says that they are interested in setting up a tour for us so we will see how it works out. Until then I need to heal my broken leg so it won’t be for some time.

Do you think you guys will start recording the next record later this year? 

That is the plan, we just need to write about two to three more songs. Lorfin and Wendy say they have a couple on the back burner so hopefully we can begin recording in the fall or winter.

Will you try to get back to Europe next year?

Without a doubt, this was the best tour we have ever been on and I can imagine the next European tour will be even better. Ricky from Sound of Cobra/Swamp booking is an awesome dude and we would love to work with him again. Europe also knows how to party and really appreciates music, I can’t wait to come back.

The  link below is the tour diary the band wrote if you want to read more.. This is a great band it was so cool to play with them as well. Please support the band! 
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