Interviewed by Matt Frighetto
Matt - G'day guys how are you? I know very little about you guys, can we start with how Space Pilgrim began?
Arvid: Hi Matt! Well, at the beginnig of Space Pilgrim there was Colour Haze - it sounds pathetic, but I got to know my mates at a Colour Haze show in november 2008. We went into a conversation about music and we decided, that we should do a jam together. I'd say that we were thrilled by each other. So we thought, that this could be serious, that there's a creative potential that could fuel an interstellar spaceship on a long journey.
Paul: I knew Bobeck before, we share a flat for a while, but even we're both into music and play several instruments, we never had a musical project together until Space Pilgrim.
Matt - Your Self Titled Demo is production perfect for a Demo, where did you record it and who helped in the process?
Paul: Thank you! We wanted to record the stuff we had composed as soon as possible and I met a guy in a music shop who has a studio called LSD-Records Dresden. Althought he didn't know that type of music, he directly understood our ambition to have that sort of vintage sound, low compression and high dynamic range, just as an old sabbath vinyl sounds. It was a blessing and pure luck, that we found that competent person that guided us in a very easy and nice way, so we did all the recordings in 16 hours, including buildup, configuration, mixing and mastering.
Matt - How much did it cost to record?
Arvid: We had students discount, hehe! Price was very fair, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to afford it.
Matt - I imagine you guys are keen to get this released, have you shopped your Demo to labels and got any good responses?
Arvid: Not yet. You know, I was born and raised in a socialistic society, so there's an absence of skills in direct marketing that's only natural, hahaha. But it would really be great, to get a home at a nice, caring niche label, so we'll get a move on it.
Bobeck: Our demo was above all intended as a recommendation for getting gigs or if someone liked our show to take the Pilgrim straight to his own stereo. But it's our dream to have the chance in the future to do a vinyl-record of our music.
Matt - As it sits this Demo could easy be pressed as is, maybe a little mastering but as a whole it's a bloody good job, is this the Space Pilgrim way? To record and tour or are you more a jam band cruising and seeing if fate happens?
Paul: Above all there stands the live-experience!
Arvid: We were surprised, that the result of our recording-session turned out that good, in the end we recorded only, what we play live, there was no time to experiment. A special creative process whilst recording did not happen, but we wanted to record what we already worked out as songs, and I think we'll do it again this way, when we think we have to, but first, we have to saturate our desire to hit a lot of stages!
Paul: Above all there stands the live-experience! Arvid: We were surprised, that the result of our recording-session turned out that good, in the end we recorded only, what we play live, there was no time to experiment. A special creative process whilst recording did not happen, but we wanted to record what we already worked out as songs, and I think we'll do it again this way, when we think we have to, but first, we have to saturate our desire to hit a lot of stages!
Bobeck: I'm very inspired by the depth of space, the aesthetics of shapes you find there, by its sheer immeasurability...
Paul:...and this in combination with a lot of music - Colour Haze, Electric Wizard, Om, Sleep, Ufomammut, Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix, 35007, Tia Carrera, Earthless, Rotor,...
Arvid: What inspires me is the search for the things one might call sublime in nature and art. The obscure, the scary, the supernatural, the transcendent, the uncertain. I imagine what is there, lurking under the sea or what watches us from the stars, or I even think of the history of man itself, with all of its horrors and the terrible things to come in the future. I'm a real fanatic of dystopian/postapocalyptic literature...
Matt - What is Space Pilgrims Writing Process?
Paul: It grows in our rehearsal-room and everyone can spend his ideas on it until there's a certain thread that'll be developed.
Bobeck: In the middle there stands a certain riff, that one of us brings to the session or that emerges whilst jamming, with its own mood and aura. Then we try to render hommage to it, that means, we try together to stage it and to vary it and hopefully not to flatten it, although in permanent repetition lies the key to something hypnotical that we're trying to achieve.
Matt - Do you guys get many gigs; have you been gigging for awhile?
Bobeck: We did some Gigs in our region, all in all we're wet behind our ears.
Matt - Any Bands you guys have supported we might know?
Paul: Not yet, but in november we'll be the support of Colour Haze here in Dresden, and we have a friend with us who's going to present a spacy psychedelic light show for us.
Arvid: In Freiberg we played on a festival together with the awesome Stonebride. Anyhow - I'm not a big friend of that usual "we supported x and y ...". I think, that slowly (and especially here in Germany) emerges a new generation of Doom/Psych Bands, with witch increasingly there will be common, self organized gigs at the same eye level.
But to support Colour Haze in november means a lot for us. It's less to call for attention in the shadow of an established act, instead it completes the circle, because we found us at a show of this great band. And it affirms for us, that our musical ideas are bigger than our rehearsal room (ok, that's not too hard for it is very very small).
Matt - Any Bands you guys could recommend checking out who are from your area?
Bobeck: There are some real cool bands that are friends of us, to name some: Pyrior, Smoking Engine, Head of Taurus, Whitebuzz, Mista Masobi, The Voice - they all really know how to rock, don't miss to check 'em out.
Matt - What was your best gig to date?
Bobeck: For me especially Freiberg with The Machine from Rotterdam, but at least I liked them all.
Arvid: For me it was the Raeubertage-Festival. The audience was superb, although quasi no one knew us, it was 5 in the morning, the cute dog of a friend (a boxer) entered the stage to say hello whilst we were playing and at least the police showed up to end the show, marvellous.
Bobeck: This was the gig where the strings of my guitar permanently slipped out of it's bridge, that was real horror!
Matt - And your worst?
Paul: None so far, the audience always had been great and no accidents.
Matt - What is in Space Pilgrim's Stereo at the moment?
Arvid: The Anouar Brahem Trio with "Astrakan Caf�" was running for some days, but now my wife skipped to the "Appetite for Destruction"!
Bobeck: Mammatus!
Paul: Sons of Otis, the "Songs for worship".
Matt - Do you guys work? If so what do you guys do for a living?
Paul: Me and Bobeck we are chemical technicians, but at the moment we're catching up for the university entrance diploma.
Arvid: I study history of art and I have a Job as well.
Matt - You guys have any hobbies out of music?
Paul: I'm into travelling, shooting films and doing other creative stuff.
Arvid: I'm really digging visual art - photography and its retouch, painting. And eating, I think that one is my favorite one.
Bobeck: My main interests out of music are astronomy, meteorology and physics.
Matt - Where do you see Space Pilgrim in a year from now?
Bobeck: Hopefully on tour, with a beautiful longplayer in our pocket!
Matt - Any last words before we wrap it up? Thanks so much for your time and again big thanks for sending through your Demo. I wish you guys all the best and really hope your music hits the shelves soon. Take care and stay fuzzzzy.
The Pilgrim: Thank YOU that you like our stuff and that you spent your time on us. All the best for you and Planetfuzz in the future!
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