AN ALBATROSS are a band that doesn’t care about genres. Or conventions – instead, they defy them. Btu as it turned out during the interview, the musicians are very interesting and charming people that have a lot to say, apart from the usual business-related stuff. To keep the spirit and the strange humor of the answers the whole interview is kept in English and won’t be translated. Interview Your new album is certainly no easy listening-music and makes the
listener ask: what kind of people create such music?



The individuals who comprise the musical aggregation known as An Albatross
are part of the Freedom People Liberation Conglomerate of the Electric
Americas. It is a loose-knit organization of militant lovers that are bent
on facilitating an environ of pure musical fertility.



Sometimes this is expressed in soothing harmony, other times it is touted as
aurally cumbersome and a musical endurance contest.




How long did you need to write the songs of the album? Do you need to
be
in a special mood, a special mindset to work on the songs?



Usually we develop songs over a year or so period prior to officially
"organizing" them into a proper song. The basic framework of a new song can
be heard almost every time we play a concert - we take a few new songs and
bring them on the road to give them a "road test". After playing a new(er)
song night after night, through a long stretch of different PA systems you
will eventually solidify the song & ready it for the studio.



For "The Family Album", we basically spent from October of 2007 until
February of 2008 writing the first half. We spent a few weeks on the road in
the spring of 2008 and then came back and recorded the rest of the album in
June and July of 2008.



There is definitely a certain mood/mindset that needs to be established
while writing and creating. We have a warehouse space that's void of any
windows and tends to lend itself to a "time vacuum" when we're actually in
there and working. I think that it's important to free yourself from your
daily routine and non-band life when you're focusing on creating a record.
It's good to reflect who you are and your experience into it (the song
writing), but it's critical that you don't have distractions while writing.



On that same note - it astounds me sometimes the kind of wonderful music
that people on extremely limited income and living in the midst of serious
political and economic repression have been able to drum up. Fantastic!



Did you have outlines/ drafts for the songs of the album or did they
evolve during the songwriting process without a guiding hand?



Half of the songs were written with our old guitar player, Jaek. His style
was very much along the lines of creating the majority of the song, then
delivering it to the band and allowing us to elaborate a bit on it. But
basically, the framework of the song is there and usually didn't permit MUCH
variation either way. Jaek would have an idea sometimes and really want to
stick with it.



The other half were written with Jay being more or less the guiding hand and
the band truly collaborating on the song writing. It was our first
experience actually "jamming" on ideas and coming up with material. I think
this is evident in the length of some of the songs, compared to the concise
and short nature of our previous releases.




Certainly bands like MR BUNGLE or THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN are
mentioned when one tries to describe your music - are those valid
comparisons?



I would say so. There are members of our band who enjoy both of those
groups. I've personally never listened to much of Mr. Bungle, though I was a
big Faith No More fan - especially the "The Real Thing" and "We Care A Lot"
albums. We have also played a couple of shows with The Dillinger Escape
Plan.



What are the lyrics on the album about? Are they important to you at
all?



The words on the record are paramount to the music. I think that quite often
their dismissed as psychedelic gibberish and cheeky - but for the most part,
they're sensationalized metaphors for real issues and concepts. The lyrics
on this record in particular are a huge metaphorical exercise in summing up
the shifting political and economic tides of the world. It tells a story of
pilgrim-zealots who gain the attention of a winged deity who transports them
into a spiritual bliss and returns them to earth with "divine knowledge"
that erupts into a global revolution. I like to think that it's a cross
between psychedelic mysticism/shamanism, excerpts from the Vedic Scriptures
and the Old Testament...



Who had the idea for the album title? Does it contain a hidden meaning?



The meaning isn't hidden: it's essentially a summary of the atmosphere in
which "The Family Album" was created. We reeled in all of our most loved
friends and former bandmates and created a very inclusionary recording
process that yielded what we consider to be our most "special" recording...
Hence, "The Family".



How often do you play live? How would you describe your live-shows?



We have probably played around (if not over) a thousand shows since 1999.
Our shows typically bathed in perspiration, psychedelic and cosmic. I like
to think of it as a psychological bloodletting for a sympathetic and
mimicked reaction. It's a large sociological experiment and it's
unadulterated rock music and embodies the spirit and hopes of the people on
stage and an offer for a direct connection and barrier-erosion to our
friends (ie: audience)... That's if people actually show up to our shows...



Do you have any plans to go on tour 2009?



We do, indeed. We are currently looking to train a new guitarist for touring
purposes and then tour Mexico, Canada, the US west coast, Europe, Russia,
Isreal and hopefully Japan and Australia!



You are one of the bands that doesn't maintain a full website, but
instead moved on to MySpace - why did you do so? Aren’t you afraid that MySpace
becomes more and more a monopoly, which is rarely a good thing?



MySpace concerns me in many ways, indeed. We fortunately do own the domain
for www.analbatross.com
and wouldn't hesitate to gravitate our energies back
that way if the time comes where we feel MySpace is in breach of what we
believe in.



Since the US have a new president for some weeks now, let's talk a bit
about politics. do you tink mr. obama can live up his promises? How did he
do in the first weeks of his presidency?



We will see, it's interesting. For one, the fallout that Barack Obama had to
carry the weight of entering his term is unreal. The United States has been
put through the shredder economically, politically, sociallly and
spiritually for well over eight years of the Bush regime. With two
unresolved, active and economically/socially taxing wars, and a crippled
national and global economy, the job and promises that Barack Obama is now
in charge of commandeering is horrifically daunting.



For one - I think that there are unrealistic expectations put on his
shoulders. No one man can be responsible for overturning an economic crisis
that involves hundreds of different variables and entities. He is
unfortuantely in a position where he is damned if he succeeds and damned if
he doesn't: it's almost as if the future of liberalism as a whole is being
put on the table. If his economic recovery programs do not envigorate and
cause widespread change (ie: creation of jobs, a stabalizing of Wall
Street), his opponents will claim that liberalism and "excessive spending"
are ultimately failing ideologies. If his strategies DO happen to work, he
will be deemed a "socialist" by his conservative opponents.



Do you think the US government handles the current economic crisis
well?


In regards to the Bush administration - No.

In regards to the Obama administration - we will see - he's been the
president for under a month now.



Isn’t it a bit weird that in country that had to much self-confidence
and pride and trust in capitalism the government helps collapsing
companies
(which banks are too)?



Yes, it is. Right now the US is experiencing a very strange hybrid of
economic systems, it's a highly federally-restrained "free market." It's
hard to comprehend how a "free market" can truly be "free" when it is
accepting federal bail-out money to compensate for their private-sector
failures. Without interjecting my political views TOO much into the
discussion (because I don't believe they represent the rest of the band
fully) - right now it's like us (taxpayers, workers) are experiencing
socialism WITHOUT the benefits! If tax money is being spent on the private
sector, then the "return" from the private sector should go back to the
PEOPLE! dig?



...On a side note, with that last sentence, I don't think it's difficult to
imagine where my political ideologies lay.



And with that: some final word, shoutouts, greetings?



We'll see you on the road, brothers and sisters! Right on! Thanks for the
interview.