Tā būtu intervija ar turku interneta žurnālu Futuristika!
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Hello there,
I am Baris Yarsel, editor of the Turkish e-magazine Futuristika (http://www.futuristika.org) from Istanbul.
Our non-profit e-magazine is a collective of articles on any subject that is "unique", "pleasurable", "interesting" and "extraordinary" on a wide variety of themes such as fine arts, music, literature, cinema, culture, politics, etc.
Q: Thanks to the internet, we have found and deeply fallen in love with your album "I Have A Lyubovnik". So we can begin with your views about the online music promotion. Is this an evolution to a better musical and social height or is just a quick revolution that may eat its own children; musicians and listeners?
A: Yap, internet is really nice – you can find anything there, even wife or husband or both in the same time…If we speak about music promotion trough internet, especially music which we create, then we see it as 100% natural thing to do, because playing music for is purely hobby and has nothing to do with business, neither we "dream, hope, believe, etc" that one day we’ll be such big band or rock stars that we will earn lot of money with music . That’s way we decided to offer our album for download trough our website. Also – really who uses CD players these days anyway? In some way we believe that CD format is dying species... But I still buy sometimes some – if they’re funny or special, because our guitar player's (Martins...he is only one with the car...hahaha) car music player doesn’t support mp3 ;D
Maybe it’s evolution of music promotion, and maybe this evolution means, that those times are gone when with music records you can earn lots of money…But probably we don’t care about that much – we all work full time jobs, which are no way connected to music.
About "eating its own children" - I believe that there will be always people for whom music is hobby and they will create a lot of seconds and minutes and hours of really beautiful music and there will be listeners for that music…
We believe that this situation redistribute power between music companies and musicians in decision making about what music people should listen...actually it's not about some imaginary POWER but about chance to reach people by our selves with out some ones help and about sharing.
Q: Regarding to "I have a Lyubovnik", please pardon my ignorance, as far as I know we can translate that as "lover", which reminds me the movie of Valery Todorovsky's drama Lyubovnik (2002). A great piece it was. Is this name related to that movie? If not, how did you come up with it?
A: Woouh, didn’t even knew that there is such movie and that Russian language word really is written that way in English.
So, it isn’t connected with movie. We came up with such album name without intention. We’re sitting all in airport, waiting for plane…and then suddenly, with no logical reason Aija (bass guitar) looked at some small boy (which was also waiting for that plane) and said: "I have a Lyubovnik"... And when we recorded album, then we understood that this "I have a Lyubovnik" perfectly fits for it in all ways.
Q: Since we are on to names, what does Gaserata mean? How many of you are there? - "4" according to the myspace page. Could you please introduce us these musicians who create that cinematic, oceanic atmosphere?
A: Gaserata has no explanation or meaning – it happened when band name was "Saare". Ex-drummer leaving the band and wanted to keep band's name for his new band because it was his idea. So we was forced to get new band's name. Some time ago our drummer red one title call GASERATA on mineral water's label. That word in Estonian means – still water. After first concert base player Aija came to him with bottle of water and shows: "You misread the word – actually it is GASSERIMATA - not GASERATA" But we played one concert already – so we decided to leave this title.
That’s right – we’re four people in band. Our girl Aija plays bass guitar, Maris loves to play drums and then there’s two guitarists – Nauris and Martins. Four people with quite different characters and musical histories somehow managed to get together and made something out there...
Q: You have very interesting song names in the album (i.e How Are YOUUU Doin'?! , La Pission Impossible, Incidental Sex (With Feelings)). Maybe we should look more carefully into your musical views as a general sadness embraced with groove and humor. How do you make decisions for the name of the song?
A: As we have no lyrics, then song names always has been hardest part of song "composing".
That’s why we have unusual song names – those names come from some small situations or moments which sometimes has no connection to songs at all. But when we speak out those phrases, then it’s clear for us, that this specific phrase perfectly fits for our song. Anyway, for us it’s more about sounds and music, rather than words - somehow it happened, that trough instrumental music we can express lot more feelings and emotions, and understanding of ourselves than trough words.
And, yes, you put it that way – altought our music is sad or serious and deep, we do that with smile on face, with groove and humor.
Q: According to me - as an ordinary but hardcore instrumental and progressive listener- your sound is carrying funky tunes as well as some eastern melodies. I can put your CD along with Grails, German Krautgods CAN and Grobschnitt. What are the band's general music influences?
A: Funky tunes come from earlier periods of Gaserata, when we had little bit different line-up. Then there were more sounds from funk and jazz, and, as one of guitarists is from those times, he still has those influences somewhere inside of him. Hard to explain eastern melodies – I didn’t know we have them.
General music influences… Hmm, I would say that there are no "general" influences, because music which we played before Gaserata, was very different. Martins played in post hardcore – emocore band, Nauris and Aija played in funky – jazzy band, and Maris played in modern – indie rock band. We got a good mix of all kind of influences – maybe that’s way that sound is sometimes eastern type.
Q: The album's artwork by Jancis and Emīlija Lielā is lovely. Who are they?
A: I have heard that they are from space. Emīlija is lovely girl, which do arts stuff – paints, draws, makes some d.i.y. arts stuff and speaks very loud. She made those creatures which are on album’s artwork. And Jancis – I even don’t know what isn’t he. In this case he’s the guy, who took drawings of those creatures and made digital design part of artwork. Besides sitting at computer and making albums artwork, he also plays drums in magnificent band TESA and Silards and is tattoo master – he has made five for Martins and two for Maris.
Q: Being in a studio and being on the stage? What are the differences for Gaserata? Do you play the songs as they have been recorded or is the band open to perform freely, improvising?
A: We’re 100 % stage band. Gaserata has been to studio only once – to record those songs which we play on our live performance set. We didn’t get any special preparation for recording - only when we’re recording we changed some guitar parts, to make them sound more "full". Also, our songs are never "finished" – we do some small changes all the time, doing some kind of improvisation stuff.
Q: Any bedside books/magazines nowadays?
A: Marins: Hm, bedside books and magazines…I would say, that I have none, because I don’t have much free time, especially when in bed.
Maris: I have some pile of decent books of English, American and Russian writers near the bead but i didn't finish no one yet.
Nauris is the one who read lots of books.
Aija's books are in music shool.