Now
on Sludgelord it is my pleasure to be interviewing Psychedelic/Progressive
Stoner Metallers – Blue Aside – whose blend of Psych Progressive Sludge/Stoner
Metal riffs have seen them win a huge legion of fans within the Sludge/Stoner
Metal community.
They
have released two brilliant albums so far
I
have been a fan of Blue Aside since The Orange Tree. It's blend of blazing
riffs mixed with Doom/Space Rock vibes made it a standout album within the Stoner
Metal scene.
I
felt it was time for me to find more about these trippy spaced out rockers. So
lets gets started with Blue Aside.
Q1
– Hi guys, How are things with you today. Thanks for doing this.
Things
are going pretty well for us!! Thank you
for contacting us!!
Q2
– For people not in the know can you give a brief history on how the band came
about.
Netto
and I were in Palace in Thunderland. I
was playing bass, Netto was the drummer and Monte and Andy (x Black Pyramid)
were the guitarists. Palace broke up
around 2007. In early 2009 I contacted
Netto to see if he wanted to collaborate on a recording project of this
style. Things came together pretty
quickly and we recorded a demo within the first couple months. Then we released ‘The Orange Tree’ on
Hydro-Phonic records xmas 2009. While we
were recording ‘The Orange Tree’ we decided to tryout a bass player to form the
official live band. We quickly found Joe
Twomey, an excellent local musician who I have played in bands with before, and
the power-trio band was formed.
Q3
– Where did the name Blue Aside come from.
It’s
sort of a play on words. Like homicide,
genocide and pesticide have the suffix ‘cide’
which means to kill. In this case it
would be bluicide – the killing of the blue, where blue stands for the
ocean. But Bluicide looked ugly on paper
so we went with Blue Aside.
Q4
– How would you describe your sound. As you guys have a lot of different styles
going on.
I’ve
never been good at categorizing bands.
Our sound is a combination of our collective musical styles.
Yes!!
We are very pleased by the response in
the Stoner Metal community and we hope they continue to support us after the
new album is released!!
Q6
– Your music does have a Sci-fi influence to it. What made you include Sci-fi
based themes into your music as your last album feels like a Sci-fi novel set
against a backdrop of progressive music.
At
the time we started the band, we were sick of interweaving politics and general
dissatisfaction into the lyrics so we constructed a fantasy world with a
storyline to help guide us.
Q7
– Which bands and artists influenced you as musicians.
Pink
Floyd. The Melvins, Jimi Hendrix, Hawkwind, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, The
Doors, BOC, etc…
Q8
– What is the song writing process in the band. Is it a collective partnership
or down to just one individual.
The
song writing for Blue Aside is a collective partnership. Someone will come up with a riff or the
general song structure then we will develop the song until we feel that it is
ready to record.
Q9
– Your hometown of Boston has a brilliant
Sludge/Stoner Metal scene with bands like Phantom Glue, Summoner, Razomov, Vygr
and Ichabod giving us their fair share of blazing riffs. Is there a good scene
for you guys to gig locally on a regular basis. Or do you have to travel
further afield.
I
will have to agree with you!! Boston does have some awesome Sludge/Stoner
Metal bands!! I love each one of those
bands you mentioned along with Elder, The Scimitar, Olde Growth, Black Thai,
Cortez, White Dynamite, Hey Zeus, Van Walton, Whitey, Gozu and many others that
I cant think of at the moment. Yeah
unfortunately for Blue Aside we don’t fit into the Boston music scene and have
never played a show with any of the bands you mentioned.
Q10 - What are your favourite bands you are currently listening to. Any bands that
myself or our readers should check out.
Kadaver,
Ice Dragon, Borracho, Black Skies, etc…
Q11
- What are your views of bands using websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo to
fund their new album releases. Some people and bands are for it. Some are not.
Would you consider doing some thing like that yourselves.
We
never considered using Kickstarter or Indiegogo to fund our albums. Mostly because we do most of the recording
ourselves so the costs aren’t as high as a band who would have to pay top
dollar for each studio session.
Q12
– How big of a help has Bandcamp and the Stoner/Sludge/Doom Metal Blogging
Community in getting your music across to the masses. As I discovered you
through the legendary Sludge Swamp. Even bought an Orange
Tree CD straight away after hearing it.
Bandcamp
and the Blogging Community have helped us out tremendously!! If it wasn’t for the internet, underground
bands like us could go unnoticed.
Q13
- What are the most and least rewarding aspects of participating with the band?
Obviously, the reality of how expensive it is being in a band could be
considered as a negative aspect
Being
in a band has its ups and downs. Yes of
course the downs would be the financial burden of recording, playing shows and
renting the practice room. On the other hand, the rewards would be making your
fans happy by releasing music, making yourself happy by playing music and the
fact that your hobby, if it’s recorded, will get across to multiple people here
and abroad and it will continue to do so for a lifetime.
Q14
– Your currently recording your 3rd album. Can you tell us what to expect
and when it will be released.
It’s
hard to predict when the album will be released. We hope sooner than later. We’ve started working on it already but can
only get so far until we hit Sonelab Studios in Easthampton, Ma late November to
record the drums. After that we will carefully do all the other tracking at our
home studio, then back to Sonelab to mix.
Even after it is recorded, mixed and mastered there might be a delay
depending on who releases the album. A
good guess would be around September 2014.
Q15
- If you could provide words to wisdom for people wanting to start a band –
What would it be.
Don’t
set your goals to high because you could be waiting until you die to reach
them. Just have fun with the music and
always stay positive because the grass will always appear to be greener on the
other side (except of course for the bands who can make a humble living then
the grass would most likely be greener on their side.) You could admire a band and think to
yourself, “If that was us I’d be happy.”
But in fact the internal politics of the band that you admire could be
twisted and the members are also unhappy with where they stand.
Q16
– What equipment do you use to get that signature Blue Aside sound. As your
music does have a great style of it's own.
I
am not sure if it’s the equipment as much as the layering for how we get our
sound. Since we record at our own studio
we can take the time and carefully overdub multiple tracks without worrying
about the costs.
We
use a Gibson SG played through an Orange Amp or Super-O for the guitars and a
Gibson Thunderbird played through an Ampeg SVT for the bass. Netto plays a Yahmaha Stage Custom. We use a Nord Lead 2 for all the synth
sounds. We use lots of delay and other
effects on the guitars to get some of the spacey sounds.
Q17 - What pisses you off most in music. Or do you not let the bad things in music stop you from performing and writing songs.
Nothing
pisses me off too much. I will continue
to perform, write and record songs as long as I still can.
Q18 - Finally do you have anything to say to your fans.
I
wanted to thank all of our fans for supporting us!! The positive responses, and even the
negatives ones, are what drive us to continue working on our music.
Well
guys thanks for your time. It has been a real honour for me doing this
interview. Been a fan for a very long time. Can't wait to hear your new album
when it's released.
You can check this brilliant band from the links below.
BandCamp
