Rocking Psychedelic BluesName: Lachlan Paine, bass
Star sign: Goatsnake
Favourite meal: Dutch smoked cheese, twiggys, stuffed baby capsicums and a can of Solo.
Motto to live by: “Thrash.”
Childhood dream: Vet
Spare time is spent: hanging out with reptiles and thrashing like a maniac
Favourite song off the E.P.: Psychonaut, because it is hell fun to play and the end is brutal
Name: Marcus De Pasquale
Star sign: Scorpio
Favourite meal: Thelemic mooncake
Favourite alcoholic beverage: Ale, Tea
Childhood dream: An owl
Spare time is spent: Reading
Favourite song off the E.P.: Procession. I like the double tracked vocal line with a high and low harmony.
Name: Clinton, drums
Star sign: Aquarius/Pisces, whatever that means
Favourite meal: Baked bean jaffles with Tabasco© sauce
Favourite alcoholic beverage: Usually whatever is on special at the supermarket, but not VB, at the moment Carlton Black has a special appeal
Motto to live by: “Mind your own business.”
Spare time is spent: Play guitar, sleep
Favourite song off the E.P.: I have no favourites
Lachlan:
How did you come up with the name Looking Glass?
It’s one of those ‘temporary’ names you have when you are trying to think up a name for your band, and then all of a sudden, you get a great gig, and everyone remembers you for the name you were never supposed to have, so it sticks like a fly to a steamer. I know how Mark Hamill must feel every time someone at his local takeaway calls him Luke Skywalker.
Describe Looking Glass’s sound/musical style?
Our sound is definitely loud! We are all fans of rock music, but each appreciate different aspects of the music. I think it probably shows a bit in our recordings and shows. Clinton is quite a technical drummer, in that his playing always makes sense musically. Here’s our big secret - he actually keeps the whole band together! Haha. Me and Marcus are into similar stuff – loud guitars and Black Sabbath. Having similar instrumentation as Black Sabbath (Vox, guitar, bass, drums) contributes a bit so us having similar song sounds and structures. You might be able to hear a bit of Zeppelin here and there. It helps that we can all get our way around our instruments pretty well. We are wanting to explore acoustic instruments a bit more in our recordings and maybe eventually incorporate it into a live set.
How did your song Procession’ get on the Devils Kitchen 2007 Compilation CD?
The Devils Kitchen gig came about by chance. For anyone that doesn’t know what the Devils Kitchen is, it is a traveling stoner-blues-grunge-rock music festival that cruises around to many cities in Oz. We ended up getting on the Wollongong gig last year with about 10 other bands from all around. We only got on the bill because somebody else pulled out. The crew who organize the whole thing wanted to put out a free compilation cd for everyone who attended the 2007 gigs, made up of bands who were playing one or more of the shows.
I guess they liked the track or something, or somebody got confused maybe, but we ended up being the second track out of about twenty five.
What are the ambitions behind the upcoming recording you are doing in September this year?
Well, the last cd we did was an EP. We recorded five songs and the cd ended up being about twenty five minutes. It was an easy amount of songs to prepare to go into the studio without too much getting out of hand. So I guess it was through the last recordings success that we decided to stick to a similar blueprint for this next one. Same studio, same engineer.
Five or six songs – about 25 minutes again. We find that because quite a number of our songs are longish, it’s hard to pick a flowing, cross-section of our set to record without leaving out anything killer.
We come up with most of the concepts for the artwork too, so there is heaps to keep us busy for the next few months.
Where do you hope Looking Glass will be in five years time?
Until Clinton joined the band about two or three years ago, we were struggling to get any attention from anyone. Now with a way better live show, things have finally taken off and snowballed into its own beast – better gigs are coming our way without having to look for them. Opportunities seem to be growing all the time.
Because of the early difficulties, the band has adopted a kind of do-it-yourself attitude towards the business side of things. We do what we like at our own pace. It’s great. I book the gigs and look after the money at the moment, and do our internerd stuff. I like the different the sides of the band – the playing gigs, as well as hooking up gigs, networking and travelling. We’ve never really had trouble coming up with songs that are great live. I personally think our show is our strongest attribute. If you are entertaining in a live sense, people start coming to your shows. I’ve seen too many awesome musicians pass by unheard.
If we were still recording cd’s in five years time, the way we wanted to, the music we wanted to, and still playing shows in five years – even if there was only one person at these shows, I think we would be exactly where I had hoped.
Our sound is definitely loud! We are all fans of rock music, but each appreciate different aspects of the music. I think it probably shows a bit in our recordings and shows. Clinton is quite a technical drummer, in that his playing always makes sense musically. Here’s our big secret - he actually keeps the whole band together! Haha. Me and Marcus are into similar stuff – loud guitars and Black Sabbath. Having similar instrumentation as Black Sabbath (Vox, guitar, bass, drums) contributes a bit so us having similar song sounds and structures. You might be able to hear a bit of Zeppelin here and there. It helps that we can all get our way around our instruments pretty well. We are wanting to explore acoustic instruments a bit more in our recordings and maybe eventually incorporate it into a live set.
How did your song Procession’ get on the Devils Kitchen 2007 Compilation CD?
The Devils Kitchen gig came about by chance. For anyone that doesn’t know what the Devils Kitchen is, it is a traveling stoner-blues-grunge-rock music festival that cruises around to many cities in Oz. We ended up getting on the Wollongong gig last year with about 10 other bands from all around. We only got on the bill because somebody else pulled out. The crew who organize the whole thing wanted to put out a free compilation cd for everyone who attended the 2007 gigs, made up of bands who were playing one or more of the shows.
I guess they liked the track or something, or somebody got confused maybe, but we ended up being the second track out of about twenty five.
What are the ambitions behind the upcoming recording you are doing in September this year?
Well, the last cd we did was an EP. We recorded five songs and the cd ended up being about twenty five minutes. It was an easy amount of songs to prepare to go into the studio without too much getting out of hand. So I guess it was through the last recordings success that we decided to stick to a similar blueprint for this next one. Same studio, same engineer.
Five or six songs – about 25 minutes again. We find that because quite a number of our songs are longish, it’s hard to pick a flowing, cross-section of our set to record without leaving out anything killer.
We come up with most of the concepts for the artwork too, so there is heaps to keep us busy for the next few months.
Where do you hope Looking Glass will be in five years time?
Until Clinton joined the band about two or three years ago, we were struggling to get any attention from anyone. Now with a way better live show, things have finally taken off and snowballed into its own beast – better gigs are coming our way without having to look for them. Opportunities seem to be growing all the time.
Because of the early difficulties, the band has adopted a kind of do-it-yourself attitude towards the business side of things. We do what we like at our own pace. It’s great. I book the gigs and look after the money at the moment, and do our internerd stuff. I like the different the sides of the band – the playing gigs, as well as hooking up gigs, networking and travelling. We’ve never really had trouble coming up with songs that are great live. I personally think our show is our strongest attribute. If you are entertaining in a live sense, people start coming to your shows. I’ve seen too many awesome musicians pass by unheard.
If we were still recording cd’s in five years time, the way we wanted to, the music we wanted to, and still playing shows in five years – even if there was only one person at these shows, I think we would be exactly where I had hoped.
Their self titled E.P. is available in Australia through Green Media and they will be recording a new one in September which is set to be released this year.
Log on to their official myspace site at www.myspace.com/lookingglassoz listen to their music and add them to your friends list.
~By Simone Saunders with thanks to the members of Looking Glass~
~Featured in Carve Monthly, August 2007
Log on to their official myspace site at www.myspace.com/lookingglassoz listen to their music and add them to your friends list.
~By Simone Saunders with thanks to the members of Looking Glass~
~Featured in Carve Monthly, August 2007
1 comment:
Interesting to know.
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