Interviews 2013+

General discussion about Mazzy Star

Interviews 2013+

Postby Emma » Fri Sep 20, 2013 2:08 pm

Here are the first interviews given by Hope Sandoval and David Roback for the release of Seasons of your day:

Rolling Stone

Mazzy Star's 17-Year Silence: 'Music Is Its Own Language'
'We never stopped writing or recording. We just stopped performing and releasing things'

By Steve Baltin | August 20, 2013


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Caption - Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star - Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images


When Mazzy Star last released an album, 1996's Among My Swan, Bill Clinton was still president. Seventeen years later, the duo of David Roback and Hope Sandoval are set to return with the forthcoming Seasons of Your Day.

Roback tells Rolling Stone the impetus for finally releasing new music was simple: an upcoming tour that will kick off in November. "We just decided to release a collection of songs," he says. "We're going to be doing more concerts in the future, so we thought it would be exciting to perform some of our unreleased newer songs."

Mazzy Star was widely believed to be on hiatus for some time, but Roback and Sandoval say they have continued to make music all these years. "We're always recording music, writing songs," Sandoval says.

"We never stopped writing or recording. We just stopped performing and releasing things," Roback adds.

The prospect of a wealth of hidden Mazzy Star tracks will make the duo's many diehard fans salivate. While Roback isn't sure what will happen with all the material, there is hope people will hear the songs. "Some of them may appear in our live concerts, some of them we may release later," he says.
However, the music they've been making all these years is primarily for themselves. "When I'm working on music with Hope, the person that's foremost in my thoughts is Hope," says Roback. "We tend to get quite caught up in just the making of music for ourselves."

Roback does admit he's curious to see how the band will be greeted after such a long absence. "We've met a lot of interesting people who like our music, and it's always been kind of interesting to us to take our music out of our private world and share it with other people," he says. "It's an interesting thing, if not necessarily always our priority."

He's looking forward to bringing the new music from Seasons of Your Day to the stage. "This new album has a lot of different combinations of instruments, acoustic and electric in different combinations we haven't used so much before. It's kind of a subtle thing we're more aware of, but it's interesting for us to perform this music live now," he says. "There's a lot of subtlety in the music, and to actually put that across live, when it happens, it's really exciting."

For Sandoval, the thought of reintroducing some of their back catalog is just as gratifying. "I personally am excited about playing a lot of the old songs," she says. "I do think they'll fit in with the new music, because it's the same people that are playing the music."

Mazzy Star are known for doing very few interviews, but we found them very entertaining and gracious in their own way. Discussing film, whether it's Antonioni's seminal Blow Up or the more recent An Education, the duo open up. "We have a sort of Chauncey Gardner approach to music," jokes Roback, referring to the famed Peter Sellers character in Being There.

"It's hard to translate musical ideas into words," he says. "I think the music is its own language."


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Stereogum

Q&A: Mazzy Star Talk (A Little) About Seasons Of Your Day, Their First New Album In 17 Years

September 11th 2013
by T. Cole Rachel @ 12:30pm


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Mazzy Star 2013

Mazzy Star is one of those rare bands whose very name has come to define a certain aesthetic. Many of us who make a living writing and talking about music are all probably guilty at some point of describing a new record as having a very “Mazzy Star” kind of vibe — i.e. anything pretty and dreamy and druggy and gorgeously slow. If anything, it’s a compliment to the band that they have managed, over the course of 23 years, to carve out their own private and very woozy niche. Mazzy Star makes music that brings to mind hints of the folky Paisley Underground, soporific blues riffs, reverbed guitar lines that go one for days, and a voice — courtesy of Hope Sandoval — with the same sonic quality as opium smoke, rising and weaving through songs that always sound best when played in the middle of the night (or, for those of us of a certain age, perhaps during a college makeout session). It’s been 17 years since the duo last released an album (1996′s Among My Swan), but this month they will break their long silence with the release of Seasons of Your Day, an album that pretty much sounds exactly like Mazzy Star (in the most beautiful way possible). I contacted Sandoval and bandmate David Roback via the world’s most complicated Skype scenario: Hope in Ireland, David in Norway, and myself in Brooklyn. Not surprisingly, given their reclusive nature and the famously reserved quality of their music, the two musicians might just be the unchattiest people I’ve ever tried to talk to. I don’t mind, though. Mazzy Star’s music has seen me (and a lot of people) through some dark and confusing (and also wonderful) times … and even if they aren’t all that psyched about explaining themselves, I’m just happy that they are back.

STEREOGUM: Thanks to both of you for taking a moment to chat with me. It’s been nearly seventeen years since you last released an album. Why the long gap between records?

ROBACK: We’ve been writing and recording music all along, we just haven’t released anything up until now. But we’ve been working on and off all along, so it really doesn’t feel like a break for us.

STEREOGUM: So what made now feel like the right time to release a record?

ROBACK: I’m not even sure that right now is a good time to release a record. I’m not sure there is a good time to do it.

STEREOGUM: The announcement of a new album after so many years away has caused a lot of excitement among your fans. Have you been surprised by the reaction?

SANDOVAL: We don’t really know. It’s hard for us to tell.

ROBACK: We haven’t been playing any shows recently, so I don’t know … but we’ll be starting to play shows again next month, beginning on Halloween.

STEREOGUM: The two of you have been making music together for nearly two decades now. Has your way of working changed much over the years?

SANDOVAL: No.

STEREOGUM: You’ve both made lots of interesting music outside of Mazzy Star, but there seems to be something particularly special that happens when you write songs together. What is it about the dynamic between the two of you that makes for such amazing songs?

ROBACK: Well, we like to play live — at least when we’re working alone — and when we record it’s like we’re playing our songs live in the studio. We like for everything to have a very live kind of feel and the songs kind of mirror that live experience. That’s something that we’ve both always been very into, both me and Hope.

STEREOGUM: I know that a lot of this record was recorded in either California or Norway. David, do you live in Norway?

ROBACK: I actually spend most of my time in London these days. We recorded there as well.

SANDOVAL: I live in California.

STEREOGUM: I’ve always read that touring and playing live was kind of nerve-wracking for you guys. Hope, has that aspect of the band changed for you over the years? Do you find that performing in front of people has gotten easier?

SANDOVAL: No, it hasn’t changed.

STEREOGUM: How do you deal with it?

SANDOVAL: I haven’t really figured it out, to be honest. I just make myself go out there, and hope for the best.

STEREOGUM: The record comes with a nice little epigraph: “Music for lovers, music for broken hearts.” How does that relate idea relate to these songs specifically?

ROBACK: For people who are having a really intense emotional experience in their lives, they often have very intense connection with specific songs. I think it’s always been that way with our music.

STEREOGUM: Music for lovers, music for broken hearts ….that could really apply to your entire back catalog. People have such an emotional attachment to the kind of music you make and it becomes a really powerful thing. I remember when you guys played Coachella that there were people scattered around the audience crying and having this very intense experience with you. Do you feel that when you play live?

SANDOVAL: Sometimes, yes. It’s great.

STEREOGUM: You mentioned that you will be playing shows beginning in October. Will the live setup be different from how you’ve done things in the past?

ROBACK: Not really. Some of our songs are very acoustic and some of it is very electric, so playing live we tend to go back and forth between the two. Trying to project while playing an acoustic song that might be just a little bit fragile — you know, to a big room — it’s different every night. It depends always on the room and the mood of the audience. You never know.

STEREOGUM: I was a little worried about that when I saw you playing at festivals. You guys managed to pull it off, though.

ROBACK: We’re more comfortable in smaller venues and intimate rooms, for sure.

STEREOGUM: Was there ever a point during those seventeen years between records when you wondered if this band was over? When it seemed in doubt that you’d ever make another Mazzy Star record?

ROBACK: You know, we’re still very into playing music together and writing songs together — just like we always were — I don’t think we ever even thought about it, really.

STEREOGUM: I was admiring the artwork and packaging for the new record, which reminded me that I’d always been told that Hope was the one responsible for creating all of the band’s visuals and all the merch and stuff. Is that true?

SANDOVAL: No. I did some of it, but no. Who told you that?

STEREOGUM: A friend of mine who’s in another band — and is an avowed Mazzy Star superfan — mentioned that to me. I’d always heard that as well.

ROBACK: We kind of do it together, and we have friends who help us out from time to time.

STEREOGUM: Your band has one of the most carefully maintained — and most instantly recognizable — aesthetics in all of rock music. Is that something that’s been hard to maintain or is it something that just kind of happens naturally when the two of you make music together?

ROBACK: We’ve always experimented with different sounds and different textures, but ultimately we’ve always just made the music we wanted to make that sounded the way we wanted it to. We make music that we’d also like to hear. That’s what we’ve always done.


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Spin

After 17 years, the enigmatic Hope Sandoval and David Roback are back with the lilting new 'Seasons of Your Day'—thanks in part to a mystery named Herman.

WRITTEN BY Colin Joyce
September 17 2013, 8:00 AM ET


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It is painfully clear that a crackly Skype call is as close, literally and figuratively, as I'm going to get to Mazzy Star. Separated by thousands of miles, three computers, and a thick wall of disaffection, there on the other end of the digital wire in Ireland and Norway, respectively, are bandmembers Hope Sandoval and David Roback.

How are you both today?

"Good," says Sandoval.

What are you up to?

"I'm in Norway," offers Roback.

And you, Hope?

Silence.

Hello?

"Hello," Sandoval whispers dryly.


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Ah, it's good to have Mazzy Star back. It's been 17 years since we heard a full-length statement, 1996's Among My Swan, from the languorous twosome. That album, like the gorgeous new comeback effort Seasons of Your Day, floated Roback's dusty slide guitar and Sandoval's snowflake vocals over softly swaying rhythms and strummed acoustic six-strings, a seductive respite from much of the era's distorted alt-rock flailing — and a successful one. On the strength of the single "Fade Into You," 1993's So Tonight That I Might See, went all the way to platinum.

A lot can change over the course of nearly two decades, but, as with their sound, Mazzy Star's members' commitment to opaquely carrying out their publicity duties hasn't. (They're infamously monosyllabic and terse — when they say anything at all.) Prior to his efforts in promoting the new album, Roback, a founding member of the L.A. psych-rock bands Opal and the Rain Parade before forming Mazzy, hadn't taken an interview since Bill Clinton was in office. And while Sandoval's work with My Bloody Valentine drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig in Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions has afforded her several opportunities in the interim period for public interaction, it's still not exactly something she relishes. But with initial pleasantries unpleasantly out of the way, the duo lurches into a marginally less stilted discussion of Seasons, emphasizing, however timidly, that the gap between albums was simply the result of life's natural flow.

"We don't think about the rate we work at," explains the 55-year-old Roback.

"We don't really keep track of time," affirms Sandoval, 47.

Nevertheless, after Among My Swan the core duo scattered, with Roback heading to Oslo and Sandoval splitting her time between her native California and Ireland, where she worked on Warm Inventions material. As time passed, it was natural to assume that Mazzy Star was done, or at least on an indefinite hiatus. But Roback says that was never the case.

"We've been working on songs more or less all along," he says. "We were writing and recording songs ever since [Among My Swan]


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Despite the distance between them, Roback and Sandoval never stopped creating material, which they diligently stockpiled. The eventual decision to put out ten of those long-gestating songs (two of which, "Common Burn" and "Lay Myself Down," were released as a single in 2011) on their own Rhymes of an Hour label was more pragmatic than nostalgic.

"We wanted to start playing more live concerts," Roback says of the motivation behind the release. "We thought, 'Well, maybe it'd be interesting to have more of our music out there when we start to perform.'"

Sandoval's reasons for returning? "I don't remember," she says. "In a way…" Then, as they so often do with her, the thought slides away unfinished.

There may be a kind of clue in the way that Sandoval lets her sentences trail off, content to let them float into the ether. Musically for better, conversationally for worse, the band's nonchalant musical air isn't a put-on, it seems to bewho they are. Almost like hobbyists, they're just two old friends holing up for days, weeks, months at a time and tinkering away in their home studios.

As different as Mazzy Star's sound once was, it's proved to be influential. The careful production, dreamy melodies, and bittersweet aura is echoed by contemporary acts like Beach House, Tamaryn, and Widowspeak.

"At the time that the first Mazzy Star records were coming out, a lot of the musical trends of the moment weren't quiet and reverential," says Widowspeak singer Molly Hamilton. "When we first started writing songs, we were similarly trying to take a step back from hearing a lot of noise."


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Even if they don't like to discuss much, Mazzy will talk, even excitedly (or their version of it), about the work of other musicians, particularly those who guest on Seasons of Your Day. Old friends and longtime Mazzy Star touring members Suki Ewers (keyboards) and Keith Mitchell (drums) both pop up in the album credits and will reportedly accompany Sandoval and Roback on their upcoming fall tour. The late, great Scottish guitarist Bert Jansch, with whom both Sandoval and Roback had collaborated previously, shows up for a space-age etudeon "Spoon," and his spirit imbues both Sandoval and Roback's textured playing on the record.

"Bert's guitar playing was unbelievably unique and brilliant," raves Roback. "He was a really inspiring person to work with."

Ó Cíosóig, who also played drums in the studio with Mazzy, says that Sandoval and Roback’s reticent personalities actually helps make them easy musical partners. "They have a band telepathy," he says. "They don't really need to talk too much about what they do. It seems to happen very naturally. It flows very comfortably."

His involvement, Ó Cíosóig supposes, came about because Mazzy Star's core were recording and he "just [happened] to be there." That laissez-fair spontaneity, coupled with an insistence on putting down their material live, is how [he explains] the wispiness that Sandoval and Roback have managed to maintain over the course of their nearly quarter century career together.

"They really like to give things a live feeling, to try to get a good atmosphere going," He explains of the mood in the studio. "It's just about getting a good feel down and not overdubbing too much."

That vibe is evident on "California," a silvery ballad in the mold of Among My Swan's "Halah." Couplets like the title track's "Won't you let me come inside / I've unlaced all of my pride" are given emotional heft through Sandoval's silky delivery. While Roback's slide lines still function as ellipses between the vocal melodies, elsewhere strings and harpsichord skitter in to fill the negative space.

Ó Cíosóig points out that the album's intricate sound (and long delay) isn't mad-scientistperfectionism in the vein of his usual boss, MBV's Kevin Shields. He assures me that the time and conversation in the studio is more geared toward nailing Mazzy Star's particular mood than it is spending hours dialing in guitar tones.

"We spent a lot of time just hanging out together listening to records — being friends," He explains. "We'd do some music. It was quite casual."

And cryptic. When I ask Roback and Sandoval who made the biggest ideological contribution to the record outside of the two of them, the singer opens up a wormhole.

"Somebody by the name of Herman was involved," she chuckles. "He did a lot of things. You should talk to Herman."

Well, what's Herman's last name? How can I get in touch?

"I'm not sure that we know his last name," she says.

So how did you find him?

"How did we find Herman?" wonders Sandoval. "I think he found us."

And that's as much as she'll say. "Herman" isn't mentioned in any of the press releases, the band's publicist has never heard of him, and even Ó Cíosóig, who swears to me that Roback and Sandoval aren't pulling a fast one, won't share any more.

"He just comes and goes when he feels like it," Ó Cíosóig says about the mystery man. "He'd come and hang out. You could tell whether he liked [a track] or not. I don't know anything about him either, but you get a lot of strange characters around Mazzy Star."

Like many things in Mazzy Star’s world, talking producesmore questions than answers, and more silence than questions, so their records continue to exist in a strange vacuum, free from any pigeonholing pretentiousness or painful pontificating in interviews. A beautiful album, a blink, a decade, another beautiful album. Slow ebbs, long flows.

"We got together when we got together," says Sandoval, "and when we weren't together we did other things." She sighs. "I'm sure it'll continue to be that way."

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The Guardian

Mazzy Star: 'We weren't really in the mood to release music'
After 17 years away, most bands would be happy to make a comeback. Not Mazzy Star. Still, their long-awaited fourth album, Seasons of Your Day, is as captivating as ever

Dorian Lynskey
Thursday 19 September 2013 15.42 BST


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You might think that a band letting 17 years elapse between their third and fourth albums was unusual. You might therefore assume that there was an interesting reason for such a hiatus. You might even, recklessly, suppose that they could be pleased to be back. All these thoughts seem reasonable, until you try speaking to Mazzy Star about their new record, Seasons of Your Day.

"I don't think it's unusual at all," singer Hope Sandoval says in a barely audible murmur. "I don't think we were really in the mood to release music."

"We were always recording and writing. We just didn't release any of it publicly," adds guitarist David Roback in the tone of a man on a plane reluctantly looking up from his book to engage in small talk with an irritating fellow passenger.

So why is now the right time to release it? "I don't even know that the time is right or wrong now," he says. "We just did what we wanted to do at the time."

We are talking via videoless Skype. She is in Ireland; he in Norway; they are distant in more ways than one.

Interviewing Mazzy Star is like throwing stones down a deep well and waiting for the faint splash. Every inquiry, however straightforward, is met with a pause that would have made Harold Pinter antsy. There are background noises – the click of a lighter, the bark of a dog – before one of them yields a wearily non-committal response and the cycle begins again. Next to Mazzy Star, such famously reticent interviewees as PJ Harvey and Kate Bush are like Peter Ustinov on Parkinson.

Roback and Sandoval are 55 and 47 respectively and they don't appear to have changed a jot since the early 90s, when one exasperated interviewer compared the process to "drinking sand" and another mentioned "cancelled tours, interview walkouts and profound, belligerent silences". They are equally remote on stage. During one early concert, the audience became so frustrated that they began shouting: "Talk to us!"

So why, frankly, does anybody bother? Because Mazzy Star's music has always been captivating. On Seasons of Your Day, Sandoval sings like someone about to fall asleep for a very long time, while Roback sews her a quilt of dark-velvet Americana: reverb-heavy country-rock tinged with the faintly sinister languor of Velvet Underground ballads. It would have sounded as good in 1998 as it will in 2020. They operate on Mazzy Star time.

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Born in California, Roback was always an outsider. "I was fairly different from the other kids, I didn't get on with them," he once said. "We didn't have many common interests. My hobbies were psychiatry and history … I'd psychoanalyse my friends." After studying art at Berkeley he became a key figure in the early-80s LA psychedelic scene, known as the Paisley Underground, working with the Bangles' Susanna Hoffs and his own acclaimed band the Rain Parade. He left to form Opal with Kendra Smith of Dream Syndicate, until she abruptly walked out of the band during a concert in London in 1987.

Sandoval grew up in a rough part of east LA, the youngest of 10. "My brother was involved with gangs, and everybody knew that in the neighbourhood so nobody messed with you," she once said. She formed a folk duo called Going Home with her friend Sylvia Gomez, who asked Roback to produce their (never released) debut album in 1986. He thought Sandoval's voice was "really intense and completely unique" and said yes. After Smith's departure Sandoval joined Opal, who became Mazzy Star.

As soon as they received attention they resented it, assuming that people only came to their shows because they were the hot new thing. "I think a lot of it is frivolous," sniffed Roback after they released their debut album She Hangs Brightly in 1990. "It's like being popular at school. What does being popular at school mean? It means nothing." Sandoval refused to discuss her lyrics, turned down autograph requests and hated performing live. Only her autograph policy has changed. "Interviews are difficult," she says now. "Performing live is difficult. But," she sighs, "nobody's forcing us to do it."

Unfortunately for them, people persisted in enjoying their music. The stunning Fade Into You became a breakout hit in 1994, driving sales of their second album So Tonight That I May See to platinum status. It still helps pay the bills, appearing in such unlikely settings as Desperate Housewives and CSI: Miami. Do they have any idea why that song was so special? They do not. "I think it's a good song," says Sandoval. "I think a lot of our songs are good."

This period was as extroverted as Mazzy Star got. Sandoval dated the Jesus & Mary Chain's William Reid for three years and sang on the band's wonderful Sometimes Always. After 1996's Among My Swan, however, they slid out of view. A few years ago Sandoval told the LA Times: "I had to beg to get out of my contract with Capitol. They wanted me to work with big producers. I wanted to produce my music, and they weren't having that. I'm sure they were happy to let me go." Maybe she regrets that renegade blurt of candour because now she flatly denies there were any issues at all: "There wasn't any unhappiness. We were comfortable."

They never broke up, says Roback. "We hang out a lot. We always have. And when we hang out we make music." The singer only released music, however, with her new band Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions, and electronic producers such as the Chemical Brothers, Death in Vegas and Massive Attack, although she prefers long-distance working relationships. "I don't even like to sing in front of my own band members so it's easier for me if they send me the music and I record my vocals in my own studio."

Roback, meanwhile, worked with musicians including Beth Orton and legendary folk guitarist Bert Jansch, who recorded his contribution to Seasons of Our Day before his death in 2011. Extracting even basic information from Roback proves comically difficult. When did they start writing these songs? "I don't really look for the origin of everything." Why did they finally decide to resume touring last year? "We just thought let's go on a stage someplace. It wasn't any more complex than that." Did they find that they had missed performing live? "We're happy to be where we are now. I don't think we look back on whether we missed something or not." As for anything about their life outside the band, forget it.

There is, I suppose, something impressive about the duo's unwavering purist militancy – their apathy, bordering on revulsion, towards everything to do with music beyond the act of making it. After a miserable hour for all three of us, I'm no longer surprised that they took 17 years to release Seasons of Your Day; I'm amazed they released it at all. Do they even care if anybody beyond their close friends hears their music?

"Maybe, for musicians, it's common to release things more frequently than we do," says Roback. "[We're] like other types of artist. They make their sculpture or painting, they write books or poems, and whether they have an exhibition is almost irrelevant."

Is this a difficult line of work for such reticent people? Pause. "Only when shyness is misinterpreted as arrogance," says Roback. Does that happen in their case? Pause. "I don't really know." Of course not.

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Newsweek

Mazzy Star Reunites After 17 Years With New Album, ‘Seasons of Your Day’
By Nisha Gopalan / September 20, 2013 5:45 AM EDT


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Caption: Frazer Harrison - Getty

Silence is the recurring theme throughout any Mazzy Star interview: the long pauses, the truncated sentences, and the reticence that comes with preserving their mystique. It’s also the hushed dream-folk aesthetic that set this band’s music apart from alt rock’s heavier acts (such as Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails) in 1994, when the duo’s soporific single “Fade Into You” broke through to Billboard’s Hot 100. That surprise hit propelled the band’s album So Tonight That I Might See to move more than a million copies.

“We didn’t really experience it,” claims notoriously shy singer Hope Sandoval, who, along with guitarist-songwriter David Roback, has just released Seasons of Your Day, their first album in 17 years. (A North American tour will follow in November.) “We were living in London and just hearing through the grapevine that our music started to get popular.”


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Caption: Ellen Ane Aggen - Roback first became influential in his 20s, when he was part of the psych-folk band Rain Parade.


After three albums and roughly a decade together, the group went on an indefinite hiatus in 1997, after Sandoval asked Capitol Records to release them from their contract. “I just didn’t think that we were going in the same direction,” she says. It’s possible that had something to do with label pressure that came after So Tonight That I Might See’s follow-up, Among My Swan, which was received tepidly upon its release in 1996. Sandoval says, “I just wanted to move on, and I think they did too.”

Details are scant about the nearly two-decade interim—and that’s by design. “We’re not going to tell you about our personal lives,” says Roback, 55, who adds elusively, “but we will tell you that our friends all have families.” We do know that Sandoval, now 47, released two full-length solo albums and guested on tracks for groups such as the Chemical Brothers and Massive Attack. And Roback? “I did a song for the Norwegian Cancer Society that was quite satisfying ...” he says, trailing off.

Mazzy Star formed in the late ’80s after both halves had made names for themselves in other bands. Sandoval, who grew up in rough East Los Angeles, formed a folk band, Going Home, with her friend Sylvia Gomez. Still in high school, they opened for noise rockers Sonic Youth and punk influencers the Minutemen. “It was intimidating,” says Sandoval, who names another punk icon, X vocalist Exene Cervenka, as an immeasurable influence. (“Exene taught me how to bend my notes when I sing,” she says. “That’s her style. And I learned that from her.”) Even back then, Sandoval could bewitch an audience with her voice. Once they started playing to the raucous crowd, she says, “everybody sat down. It’s surprising, but they really liked it.”

As a teen on the other side of Los Angeles, Roback had been in a band called the Unconscious with future Bangles frontwoman Susanna Hoffs. “The only thing we ever released were cover versions of two songs: Bob Dylan’s ‘I’ll Keep It With Mine’ and Lou Reed’s ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror.’ ” In his 20s, Roback won his first fans as part of Rain Parade, an influential psych-folk band in Los Angeles’s paisley-underground scene. Among his followers was Sandoval, who says, “The most amazing live shows that I’ve ever seen were Rain Parade shows.”


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Caption: Luz Gallardo - Roback recruited Sandoval to join his band Opal, and the two decided to do something completely new. They darkened their sound and changed their name to Mazzy Star.


Gomez slipped Roback a Going Home tape after a Rain Parade show in 1983. “Sylvia and Hope had this amazing thing going musically,” he says, brightening up. “The intensity was so overwhelming to me. I couldn’t stop listening to it.” Years later, he left Rain Parade to form Opal, another psychedelic band, and when the singer of that project quit, he recruited Sandoval. One day they decided, “Let’s do something completely new.” So they darkened their sound and changed their act’s name to Mazzy Star.

The group’s seminal album, So Tonight That I Might See, has shaped the sound of modern indie bands from Grizzly Bear to Dum Dum Girls, though Sandoval reserves praise for one disciple in particular: “I like Beach House a lot,” she says. Meanwhile, the haunting acoustic “Into Dust” has proven timeless. It continues to soundtrack such disparate pop-culture experiences as Marissa Cooper’s slow-mo overdose on The O.C. and an orgy of annihilation in an ad for the Gears of War 3 videogame. “Sometimes that does happen,” Sandoval says, unfazed by hearing the song in odd places. “It’s not a bad feeling.”

The duo technically made their return two years ago—quietly, of course—with a drawn-out yawn in a way that befits their woozy compositions. In 2011 Sandoval and Roback dropped a comeback single, the twinkling, jazz-lite “Common Burn.” Then, a year later, came a buzz-building stop at Coachella. Still, it wasn’t until July of this year, when Mazzy Star released the beguiling, wistful single “California” and announced a new album, that their occasional hangouts actually started to feel like a reunion.

But if you ask them, they never truly stopped making music—you just never heard it. “We were recording all the time,” Roback says, “just sharing [the music] with our friends.” Seasons of Your Day, which picks up right where Mazzy Star left off—all gauzy atmosphere, guitar flourishes, and ethereal vocals—would convince you as much. The creative drive to collaborate with Sandoval despite their respective side projects came simply because, Roback says, “that’s what we like to do: write songs together. So this album is a collection, a mosaic of songs and ideas. Each song has its own identity.”

As for what precipitated assembling years of material into an actual album, Roback’s explanation is predictably enigmatic. “We were in Norway recently, and all the hills had snow on them. We were rolling down a hill ... We got to the bottom of the hill and said, ‘Let’s release an album.’” Seriously? “That’s the way it’s always been.”

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Re: Interviews 2013+

Postby Emma » Wed Sep 25, 2013 1:27 pm

Uncut Magazine - October 2013

You can download the full Uncut issue here as a PDF file.

As reported by Hermesacat, this article is also available on Michael Bonner's Uncut blog with different photos and a few extra YT videos. The blog's version does not include the Discography section and the Mazzy Star Related Artists sections that can be found in the hardcopy version. For convenience, I gathered these sections at the end of the article.


Uncut Magazine - October 2013
Story: Michael Bonner
Photo: Stefan De Batselier


Hope Springs Eternal


Seventeen long and sad years after Mazzy Star last released an album, Hope Sandoval and Dave Roback are back, magnificent and unchanged. What happened? Uncut charts the uncanny journey of the pair, from The Rain Parade to the quietly triumphant comeback, Seasons Of Your Day. “We’re not so concerned about the outside world,” admits Roback. “They’re not your normal rock’n’roll people,” understates one of their associates…


Steve Wynn remembers an unexpected phone call he received one day in 1991, from David Roback, the guitarist and co-founder of Mazzy Star. As Wynn remembers it, Roback said to him, “I’ve been thinking, I want to do some sort intense, jammy band like Cream or something like that, and I’d like to do it with you.” Wynn had long admired Roback, and readily agreed. “But I think my instant enthusiasm took him aback,” says Wynn. “He said, ‘I mean, just in theory, maybe some day, not right away, maybe down the line, I just want to see what you thought about.’ So I said, ‘Hey, it sounds really fun, I’d love to play with you so give me a call when you’re ready.’ That was the last time I spoke to David Roback.”

Wynn has known Roback for 30 years, from the earliest days of their careers among the Paisley Underground movement, when Wynn was frontman for the Dream Syndicate and Roback the co-singer and guitarist with the Rain Parade. “Of all the people in that scene, I’ve stayed close to just about everybody in one way or another over the years,” claims Wynn. “But David, he wasn’t that easy to know.”

It’s tempting to ask, does anyone really know David Roback? Along with Hope Sandoval, his creative partner in Mazzy Star, Roback comes across as elusive, often cryptic. Questions about the length of time it’s taken to record Mazzy Star’s new album Seasons Of Your Day – released a full 17 years after its predecessor – aren’t answered as fully as you’d like. Asked, for instance, what the first song was that they recorded for the album, Roback replies: “Well, we really weren’t working on Seasons Of Your Day as it exists now, we were just recording various things. We never really stopped. We just kept writing and recording.”

Such is the degree of mystery Mazzy Star seem to cultivate around their work that one musician contacted for this article wasn’t even aware that his contribution to Seasons Of Your Day had been used; not surprising, perhaps, as he recorded it nearly 25 years ago. Meanwhile, Roback and Sandoval’s interviews with Uncut are conducted via Skype, peppered with awkward pauses and elliptical responses.

“They’re not your normal rock ‘n roll people,” explains Geoff Travis, whose label Rough Trade distributed Mazzy Star’s 1990 debut, She Hangs Brightly. “I think they really do live in their own worlds. It’s a very typical musician thing in a way, in that they’re so obsessed with music and doing what they do, that it kind of removes them slightly from normal social mores.”

Looking back over a quarter of a century of Mazzy Star, I ask Sandoval what’s she most proud of.

“I’m proud of the music, and I’m proud of our friendship,” she replies after a typical hesitation. And when is she at her happiest? Is it when she’s writing songs? Or in the studio? Or after a record is completed? “I’m happy with all of the different aspects of it,” she replies instantly, her voice taking on an unexpected urgency. “But I’m also miserable with all of the aspects. They’re nice, they’re gratifying, but at the same time they can be difficult and emotional. Every phase, there’s happiness in it, there’s enjoyment in it, but there’s also torture.”

David Roback has been refining a melancholy strand of American Gothic – steering a course between third-album Velvet Underground and The Doors of “The End – since the late Seventies. He grew up in Brentwood, on the west side of Los Angeles. “There was constantly music on the radio,” he remembers. “The Beatles made a strong impression on me. The Doors. Love. Bands like that. I just thought they were speaking from a world I really wanted to be part of.”

Roback’s earliest collaborators included Steven – his younger brother by three years – and Susanna Hoffs, whose family lived across the street. “We all ended up at UC Berkeley at the same time,” explains Steven Roback. “Susanna and David were living together and they asked me to come and play with them. That’s the origin of a lot of things. It’s the origin of the Rain Parade in a way, and the origin of David’s focus on having a lead singer in a hypnotic, melodic context, the vision he had that ultimately ended up evolving into Clay Allison, Opal and Mazzy Star.”

After graduating, David Roback returned to Los Angeles, where he formed the Sidewalks with former school friend Matt Pucci, a guitarist and singer. They invited Steven Roback to join a few months later, on bass and vocals. The Sidewalks started out playing early Stones and Merseybeat covers before evolving, over a period of around six months, into the Rain Parade. “David was key in setting out the vision for the band,” admits his brother. “We all loved vintage instruments, the sounds of Richenbackers nd Gretschs. We knew that they all sounded cool on their own and in context, and we put all those instruments together to see what we could get.”

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“I think that there was some interesting music going on then, a lot of guitar interaction and electric organ,” says David Roback. “We were just experimenting with sounds and I was writing a lot of songs back then, singing with that band.”

The Rain Parade found themselves sharing both concert bills and artistic sensibilities (psychedelia, Nuggets, Big Star, the Velvet Underground) with a loose collection of bands on the fringes of the Los Angeles club scene during the early Eighties. “The Rain Parade were as Paisley as the Paisley Underground got,” remembers the Dream Syndicate’s Steve Wynn. “Of all the bands on the scene – the Dream Syndicate, the Salvation Army, Green On Red, even the Bangs who became the Bangles – all of us were coming from a more punk rock background. But the Rain Parade weren’t like that. They were happy just to be floating and gentle and trippy. Pink Floyd and the Byrds. Who didn’t love that?”

Roback stayed with the Rain Parade precisely long enough to record a single – 1982’s “What She’s Done To Your Mind?” – and an album, Emergency Third Rail Power Trip, the following year. Even before recording the album, Roback had already set in motion another musical project – Clay Allison, formed with his girlfriend and former Dream Syndicate vocalist, Kendra Smith.

“I remember the first Rain Parade tour, when we were in New York City, playing CBGBs with Green On Red,” pinpoints Steven Roback. “We had a couple of days off, and David did the first Clay Allison gig with Kendra at the Pyramid Club. It was David and Kendra, kind of acoustic, and Will [Glenn, Rain Parade’s keyboard player] was playing violin and I was playing piano.”

Clay Allison established the template for Roback’s subsequent work – a kind of dreamy psych-folk. After two EPs, Clay Allison quietly morphed into Opal, who recorded two EPs, Fell From The Sun and Northern Line, and an album, 1987’s Happy Nightmare Baby.

“Happy Nightmare Baby was a very electric record,” explains David Roback. “We were very orientated towards playing live at that point. What we’d been doing before that was very acoustic, and then we thought we’d make it very electric, so we went from being somewhat acoustic to very electric, like Happy Nightmare Baby.”

One admirer of both Roback and Smith’s work was a young music fan, Hope Sandoval, who Steve Wynn remembers “used to come to Dream Syndicate soundchecks, in like ’82, when I think she was like 14 or 15. Her mum would bring her. She couldn’t come to our shows because she was too young. We talked to her and she seemed nice, but I got the feeling that she was particularly mesmerised by Kendra. The beginning of the All About Eve saga!”


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“I’ve always loved music,” begins Hope Sandoval. “I grew up with older brothers and sisters who were into music, played The Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Aretha Franklin. I grew up in an area of East LA… I think it’s called Maravilla area. It’s Spanish. I had a project called Going Home with my good friend Sylvia Gomez, and when we met David and Kendra they knew that we had this little music thing we were doing, and they were interested in it. David asked us if we’d like to go into the studio and make a record. I thought David was shy. Yeah, and sort of mysterious. What do I think connected us? We liked each other’s music. That’s really what it was. We didn’t really communicate a lot other than just enjoying each other’s music. I was asked to do some live shows [with Opal] because Kendra didn’t want to be the front person, and I think it just got really difficult for her. It was during a tour that they were doing with the Jesus And Mary Chain, so I got a call from David asking me if I would fly out to New York and finish the tour. That’s what it was. That’s how I started working with his band.”


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If the creative union of Roback and Sandoval was borne out of pragmatic necessity – to finish the Jesus And Mary Chain tour – it began to take on a more solid shape in early 1988.

“I’d gone into the studio with David’s band, Opal,” explains Sandoval. “I wasn’t writing, I was just singing the songs that he had written and it wasn’t really working out for me. I don’t think for him, either. And I suggested that maybe we write together.”

“We were performing a lot of Opal material and one day we just thought, let’s just start something completely new and different, and that was Mazzy Star,” continues Roback. “We started to write a lot of songs together, that’s really what got us – we really got into that.”

“I asked David to send me some of his guitar ideas,” says Sandoval. “He sent me maybe five or seven beautiful rhythm guitar ideas. Did I have lyrics for them? No, I didn’t. Usually what I do is I write my vocal melody over guitar parts and then I come up with lyrics.”

The songs became Mazzy Star’s debut album, 1990’s She Hangs Brightly.

“The majority of that record was recorded in San Francisco at a place called Hyd Street Studios,” reveals Roback. “We were recording up there and a little bit in Los Angeles as well, we were back and forth between the two cities, between Berkeley and Los Angeles. We really were just experimenting with different pieces of recording, as we still do mostly. Live music in the studio.”

The album was released by Rough Trade – who had previously handled the UK distribution for Happy Nightmare Baby.

“I remember the first time I met them in person,” says Geoff Travis. “In Los Angeles at the Roosevelt Hotel. It’s got a remarkably lifelike statue of Charlie Chaplin in the entrance, and a pool designed by David Hockney. I met David and Hope together, they were sitting beside the side of the pool. Hope was very quiet. Probably slightly more in thrall to David at that point, than later when she exerted her own individuality. She’s a really good soul, Hope. She’s very queenly, in a way. I think of her as the Queen of East LA: softly spoken, but definite and intelligent and bright, lovely. David is a bit more of an elder statesman when it comes to music, but with immaculate musical taste. Again, he’s quite quiet, speaks quite quietly, but very much alive, great sense of humour. But quite an odd individual, really, David.”

For all its strengths, She Hangs Brightly is best summed up by its opening track, the quietly enfolding “Haleh”: a definitive Mazzy Star composition characterised by gently rolling rhythms, guitar reverb and Sandoval’s husky vocals. The album had been on sale for a year when Rough Trade went into receivership.

“We sat down with David and Hope and we made a deal with Capitol to move them from Rough Trade to Capitol to help avoid the bankruptcy,” explains Travis.

To support the album, Mazzy Star toured America in 1990 supporting the Cocteau Twins. “They were quite different,” remembers former Cocteaus bassist, Simon Raymonde. “David was quite serious, quite thoughtful, didn’t say an awful lot. I quite liked him. Hope was super shy. There was often a bit of tension between them. Sometimes she’d just storm of stage. I didn’t get the impression that she particularly enjoyed the live thing. It was never dull, that’s for sure.”

The period following She Hangs Brightly was one of transition for Mazzy Star. In 1993, they added to their line-up Jill Emery, former bassist with Hole, who remained with them until 1996. “I went to their rehearsal studio,” she says. “Everyone was so reserved. It was quite a shock, coming from Hole, with an aggressive Courtney Love. Strangely, their quietness matched Hole’s abrasiveness, just on a different level.”

1993 also saw the band settle in London around the time they released their second album, So Tonight That I Might See. Continuing the soft-focus, slow motion jams of its predecessor, the album featuring the band’s only hit single – a dusty, lilting ballad, “Fade Into You”.

“To their credit, Capitol worked ‘Fade Into You’ for about nine months in radio, which I’ve very rarely seen in America,” says Geoff Travis. “They sold a million copies of So Tonight That I Might See, which when you think about it today seems an extraordinary number.”

If it can be considered a barometer of the song’s success in the mainstream, “Fade Into You” has appeared in no less than five separate episodes of the CSI franchises. There are countless other appearances in films and TV shows – most recently, it’s been covered by J Mascis – but perhaps the song’s most incongruous appearance is in Paul Verhoven’s sci-fi shoot-em-up, Starship Troopers.

“It’s not our film, you know,” says Roback with a dry laugh. “Incredibly violent. Quite a contradiction in a way. But it was interesting. People play your music in a bar. It’s not uncommon to hear your music in any context, or anybody’s music for that matter you could be walking down the street or you could, you know, be at a funeral, and somebody’s driving by playing the Beach Boys.”

Characteristically, the question of how they’d follow-up a hit single and million-selling album never particularly seemed to concern Roback or Sandoval.

“We’re not so concerned about the outside world,” explains Roback. “It’s a very internal process that we’re involved in. The outside world is really not on our minds, in so far as the music is concerned. We’re really doing it in our own world for ourselves. We’re engaged in the stories of each individual song. It is its own world unto itself.”

“I was always working with David,” says Hope Sandoval, as she looks back on the years between Mazzy Star’s third album, Among My Swan, and Seasons Of Your Day. “I think we thought maybe we’d release something, but we weren’t really so preoccupied with it. We were working on other things.”

Certainly, Sandoval has kept the highest profile since Among My Swan, contributing vocals to songs by the Jesus And Mary Chain, the Chemical Brothers, Death In Vegas, Massive Attack and Bert Jansch, and running a successful second band – Hope Sandoval And The Warm Inventions, with My Bloody Valentine drummer, Colm Ó Cíosóig. “I’m lucky, I’m very, very lucky,” she says. “I work with some of the most amazing artists.”

Roback, meanwhile, produced tracks for Beth Orton in the late Nineties and relocated to Norway, where he became involved with Norwegian artists and musicians including Mari Boine, Helga Sten and Guri Dahl, making experimental music for films and installations. He also acted – as himself – in Olivier Assayas’ film, Clean, for which he wrote four songs sung in the film by actress Maggie Cheung. Meanwhile, he and Sandoval continued working on Mazzy Star material. “She would come to Norway, or we would work in London, or we’d work in California,” he explains. “We really weren’t working on Seasons Of Your Day as it exists now, we were just recording various things.”

Sandoval is quick to echo Roback: “We didn’t record songs for Seasons Of Your Day, we titled the collection of songs after one of the songs.”

“In the studio, I’m usually playing guitar or keyboards,” continues Roback. “We like to get a live version we like. That’s what really appeals to us. Someone asked me recently if we were perfectionists, and I think perfection in music is really a dull thing, the imperfections of music are what give it character. Live, things happen in the moment.”

Among the musicians credited on Seasons Of Your Day are longstanding collaborators drummer Keith Mitchell and keyboard player Suki Ewers – both Opal veterans – and the band’s old friend, Bert Jansch. Reinforcing how long Roback and Sandoval have been working on these songs, Rain Parade keyboard player Will Glenn is also credited on the album: he died in 2001. Steven McCarthy believes his credit on the album stems from a session he played with the band in the early Nineties. “They asked me to bring my steel guitar down,” he remembers. “So for maybe an afternoon, I did some demos. David gave me a cassette tape with that and then said, ‘Will you come and do some more recording with us later, we’re going into a real studio.’ I went and the only thing I can remember him saying to me was, ‘Can you do it like you did on the demo.’ I do recall David seeming like he didn’t know who I was, which was kind of confusing to me because we had played quite a bit. I wasn’t quite sure what he was doing. It’s one of those things.”

Hope Sandoval, meanwhile, is already looking beyond Seasons Of Your Day. “We’re planning to start touring around November in the US and we’ll come out to Europe and do a few shows,” she explains. “I’m excited about it. I’m looking forward to getting together with everybody and playing some of the old songs, and having dinner and wine, catching up with everybody.”

And her aversion of singing live?
“It hasn’t changed. It’s difficult, but it’s there.”

And are there more unreleased songs?
“Oh, yeah. There’s loads of songs,” she confirms.

Will we ever hear them?
“I don’t know,” she says after a pause. “Probably. Once our families inherit everything after we’re dead and gone, I’m sure people will hear everything…”



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Re: Interviews 2013+

Postby Emma » Wed Sep 25, 2013 3:27 pm

I came across this new interview Mazzy Star out of the fjord from where they appear more open and talkative :)


Mazzy Star, Out of the Fjord
By Paula Mejia - Interview Magazine - September 2013


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It's tough to find any mention of Mazzy Star without the words "reticent" or "reclusive" lingering somewhere nearby. The duo, comprised of longtime collaborators Hope Sandoval and David Roback, speaks softly, perhaps mostly in whispers. Sandoval and Roback seem genuinely unaware—or unconcerned—with the role their riveting guitar swells have played in the development of contemporary guitar rock and folk as demonstrated by everyone from Widowspeak to Beach House. Sandoval and Roback began recording in the early '90s. Their quiet musings, reverb-threaded country ballads pieced together from the remnants of the Paisley Underground, were enhanced by Sandoval's quivering vocals, both meditative and melancholy.

Seventeen years of silence later, Sandoval and Roback, now 47 and 55, respectively, have returned with the bristly Seasons of Your Day, recorded in London, Los Angeles, and Norway. Along with the late Scottish virtuoso Bert Jansch, My Bloody Valentine's Colm Ó Cíosói and collaborators Keith Mitchell and Suki Ewers can all be heard on the record. The two speak of the recording process as though no time has passed; it could easily be 1990, and She Hangs Brightly has just dropped. There's a prevailing sense that time doesn't function on quite a linear plane for Mazzy Star, or a traceable one, for that matter—the two simply let the songs sweep them up completely, swerving into the shadows of L.A. after dusk before coursing past Norwegian fjords in a single verse.

PAULA MEJIA: I was struck by a phrase on your press release, which describes Seasons of Your Day as "Music for lovers, music for broken hearts." With that in mind, what headspace were you in when writing, and how did the seeds of this record come together?

DAVID ROBACK: Each song is an individual thing, so I don't know if there was one particular story for the whole record.

HOPE SANDOVAL: We usually get together and work when we're in the same country, so basically that's what we did these past few years. In and out of different cities, we would come up with our ideas, exchange ideas, and go either into David's studio or my studio, or a portable studio that we both have and lay down a few tracks. We get together with some of the musicians that we work with and some other musicians that we hadn't work with, and that's basically it.

MEJIA: I read you recorded in Norway. Was the majority of the record done there?

ROBACK: Most of the record was recorded in either Los Angeles or Norway, although some of it was recorded in London, actually. I'm in Norway right now. We're here quite a bit of the time.

MEJIA: Do you notice a difference between these disparate environments when you go back and listen to the record?

SANDOVAL: I've never really thought about it. I leave that up to other people. [laughs] It's just some guitar, some singing. Things here and there.

MEJIA: That makes sense. I used to live in Denmark, so I'm always interested in how public space and art intertwine in Scandinavia. It brims from every corner.

ROBACK: Where did you live in Denmark?

MEJIA: Copenhagen.

ROBACK: Copenhagen's a really cool city. I go there from time to time, I really like it there.

MEJIA: It's gorgeous. I didn't make it to Norway, though, which I hear is incredible. Were you recording in Oslo?

ROBACK: Yeah, the studio is basically in Oslo.

MEJIA: Seasons of Your Day was recorded on your own label, Rhymes of an Hour. Without the influence of a major label, how did you work to set parameters for yourself? Was the process different this time around in any way?

ROBACK: I think the process is really the same. We were never particularly involved with any record label, with the exception of one point when we were working with Rough Trade Records. It was a small label, we both felt quite comfortable there. I think that's what we like. We like to do our music and allow it to evolve on its own.

MEJIA: Taking it back a bit, why did you pick up a guitar as opposed to another instrument?

SANDOVAL: That's a David question. [laughs]

ROBACK: We write on piano and organ as well, and guitar is something—I don't know why. There are a lot of things one can do with a guitar. There are no rules, there's no formula.

MEJIA: Was there a particular guitar-centered group or artist that made you realize that potential? I guess I am wondering what your "this is it" moment was with guitar music.

ROBACK: You mean live, or on record?

MEJIA: Yeah, let's say live.

ROBACK: Oh, there are so many things. So many great guitar players. Tom Verlaine is amazing, I saw him live. I really loved his style. Syd Barrett, too.

SANDOVAL: The best live shows I've ever been to where Green on Red live shows. Amazing live band. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were really great. I saw them live in the '90s; they were really, really good. The music is great, and the musicians are amazing.

MEJIA: Your live performances are very reverent. Do you seek out that same experience when you see a band live?

SANDOVAL: I think it's both musicianship and the reverence. When I go to a live show, I want to be moved. That's why you do it. And it's not very often that a band will move you live. Playing live can be a really, really difficult thing.

MEJIA: I heard your story about meeting Johnny Cash on Jools Holland years ago, which is how many people were exposed to your music. And he said, "Take the right path in life"?

SANDOVAL: He didn't say "in life." He just said, "Take the right path."

MEJIA: Okay. Still, that's a very sage thing to impart on a young musician. Do you think about that moment today?

SANDOVAL: I do think about it. I think we all think about that, we want to take the right path. Most people don't. When you're young and in a rock-'n'-roll band, it can get pretty wild. I'm sure that's why he said it to me. "It's the beginning, she's in a rock band." All these weird things are going to start happening.

MEJIA: Has that changed the way you perceive your role in a rock band?

SANDOVAL: I just thought, I totally understood why he was saying that to me. I'm sure somebody said that to him when he first started out.

MEJIA: So essentially, you have to pass on that knowledge to another young band.

SANDOVAL: Yeah.

MEJIA: You've gained a certain notoriety for being reticent and elusive. Has anything struck you today that's happening musically?

ROBACK: What's occurring in 2013? From your perspective.

MEJIA: Well... with the furthered accessibility of analog instruments, and the ability to self-release records, there's an oversaturation of music in general, which becomes difficult to sift through. But in spite of that, I think 2013 has been a landmark year for records. There are fantastic psychedelic records, very strong guitar music.

ROBACK: Yeah. There's some really good music out there, I've seen some great bands in London.

MEJIA: What are some of the bands you've seen in London?

ROBACK: Well, I know this guy named Aidan Connell. He's in this band called Melody Nelson. He's quite an amazing guitar player, I saw him recently at the Saint Pancras church. But there are interesting things happening in all genres right now, I think. I don't think there are any particular trends that are cohesive.

MEJIA: Do you think music can grow further in a positive direction, especially with the advent of technology?

ROBACK: Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a lot of interesting artists who are exploring themselves. That's what's really captivating.

MEJIA: Is it strange to hear other bands cite you as a prominent influence? I'm thinking of Widowspeak, a band out of Brooklyn, in particular.

SANDOVAL: I don't know them. Somebody else mentioned them to me recently. I think... people are inspired by our music, and that's cool. We all borrow each other's music.

MEJIA: Have you been listening to anything striking lately?

SANDOVAL: I can't remember what I've listened to. [laughs] I haven't listened to music in about five days.

MEJIA: Wow. Is that by choice?

SANDOVAL: Yeah... I just haven't really put music on.

ROBACK: I drove down to the Oslo fjord yesterday, and I was listening to Françoise Hardy. It was quite amazing.

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Re: Interviews 2013+

Postby Emma » Wed Sep 25, 2013 9:04 pm

The September issue of the Australian magazine Rhythms profiles Mazzy Star with an interview here.

ON RECORD
LIGHT YEARS...
MOBIUS STRIP? INVISIBLE ENTITY? SEVENTEEN YEARS BETWEEN ALBUMS, MAZZY STAR ARE AS DISARMINGLY ENIGMATIC AS EVER.


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For the non-geometrically minded in the Rhythms readership a Mobius Strip is a surface with only one side and only one boundary component. It's like a strip of paper that you twist and then join at the ends, so that it has no beginning, no end and has the property of being non-orientable. They are also sometimes called "magic circles". The reason I mention this is because Mazzy Star's Dave Roback uses the comparison to explain his band's body of work. He doesn't choose to elaborate, but I think I know what he means.

It's been 17 years since Mazzy Star released a new album. It's clear that singer Hope Sandoval and guitarist Roback haven't spent much of that time developing their enthusiasm for interviews.

They've always been regarded as a prickly pair in interviews - Sandoval due extreme shyness and Roback appearing to go out on strike in sympathy with his bandmate.

That's their prerogative, of course, but their music speaks for them - it speaks softly, and intimately and seemingly through a perceived, but not necessarily actual, narcotic haze - but it speaks in a riveting, enchanting way.

Their new album, Seasons Of Your Day, is their fourth, following 1990's She Hangs Brightly, 1993's So Tonight That I Might See and 1996's Among My Swan, most of them almost hallucinogenic in their mood and sensibility. The only real 'hit' was "Fade Into You", a song that still retains its allure today. In the interim, Sandoval has released two albums under the name Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions, Bavarian Fruit Bread (2001) and Through The Devil Softly (2009) which were collaborations with Colm O Ciosoig of My Bloody Valentine. An Australian tour a couple of years ago saw Sandoval no more comfortable on stage than she ever was, but still a remarkable vocal presence.

Despite their lack of public profile, Mazzy Star hadn't disbanded though this album shouldn't be considered either a reunion or a limited edition project.

"The thing is, Andrew, Hope and I have always played music together, we always have and our band is really important to us", offers Roback. It's more than what you might think of as a project. It's our lives, really."

We haven't released anything" adds Sandoval. "It's just for ourselves, I guess."

"And for our friends and our bands" continues Roback. "We keep doing music because we like to do it and now we are releasing a new record, and people will ask us what's been happening. All I can say is we have been doing music the whole time. Il you came around to our house and studio you would have a private concert because we play live; that's what we like to do."

The new album is a wonderful record. The album is unmistakably Mazzy Star, but it also seems to have slightly more layers and accessibility that some of their previous work. That's not to say it's a pop record - it's anything but - but it is infused with more textures than may have been expected. Roback's guitar playing is languid and tasteful and complemented by some organ and gentle percussion, while Sandoval's gossamer vocals are completely enticing as always. It may well be their finest work yet.

"There are some acoustic blues songs on this record and there is some lap steel and other instruments so maybe that's part of what we have been working with," considers Roback. "I don't know if there are less layers though, I never really counted the layers. We like to record live. We do it all at the same time and in the studio we like to perform live and go with that kind of feeling."

In their public absence there have been a number of bands emerge that have a clear debt to the quiet style of Mazzy Star - bands like Beach House and maybe Fleet Foxes having cited them as an influence.

"We've heard about these bands, but I couldn't really name any. But yeah, I'm flattered by the idea," offers Sandoval.

For now, Mazzy Star is likely to have some on-going profile, despite Roback's comment, "We want Mazzy Star to be an invisible entity." They will commence performing concerts in October this year, with some prospect of Australia being on the agenda.

"We would absolutely love to," says Roback. "When Hope was there with Warm Inventions she thought it was amazing, so I'm really looking forward to bringing the whole Mazzy Star band down there with Hope.

Seasons Of Your Day is available on Rhymes Of An Hour Records.

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Re: Interviews 2013+

Postby Emma » Sat Sep 28, 2013 7:33 pm

Hope Sandoval talks about her musical influences in Dazed and Confused.
And she loves Elliott Smith, YEAH! :D


Hope Sandoval's influences
Mazzy Star’s enigmatic frontwoman Hope Sandoval on three timeless influences
Text: Will Butler - Photography John Engle


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Taken from the October issue of Dazed & Confused:

Epic gaps between albums don’t phase Mazzy Star. As with their friends in My Bloody Valentine, the passing years are simply extended gestation. Released this month, Seasons of Your Day is the fourth album from the Santa Monica-formed dream-pop heroes and their first in 17 years. Yet all that time, frontwoman Hope Sandoval never stopped making music, even with the band’s guitarist, David Roback, living in Oslo. She formed Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions with My Bloody Valentine’s Colm O Cíosóig, and made a slew of guest appearances for artists ranging from the Chemical Brothers to Massive Attack. Sandoval is famously cagey about personal issues – it’s clear her love lies in the music. Today she splits her time between Ireland, Norway, London and California, seeking locales where she can keep the music a priority. From Dublin, she discusses influences and remembers her first band.

UK Folk Legend BERT JANSCH

“He was an amazing guitarist and an amazing person. I worked with him on the first record I did with Colm and it was sort of a fantasy of ours. We flew him out to Norway, we recorded in David (Roback)’s studio, and Bert had never done anything like that. He was never a guest on somebody else’s record. He always did his own thing. He came in and everybody was nervous. The engineer, everybody, we were all huge fans. He started tuning and it was just mindblowing. When Bert would excuse himself to go to the bathroom or go get water we’d all just sort of laugh with each other, like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening!’, and then put our straight faces back on when he came into the room. We were very lucky. Grateful that we had some good songs that he liked.

Tragic Troubadour ELLIOTT SMITH

I was just thinking about Elliott Smith the other day. I only recently got into his music. I love it so much. I don’t even know the names of the records. But I remember the cover of one because my brother used to live in Silver Lake, and when I saw the cover I knew where it was. There’s this song he covered called ‘Figure 8’ that I grew up listening to – it’s from a children’s show (Schoolhouse Rock!). The cartoon is a little girl making a figure 8 ice skating. So for some reason when I think about him, I think about the figure 8. I remember growing up with that song and thinking, ‘That is the most beautiful song.’ It’s a really sad little cartoon. His music is so beautiful, though. It’s a shame that we didn’t get to hear the rest of it. Cheers to him and what he’s given us musically.

California Dreamer SYLVIA GOMEZ

With the song ‘California’ from the new album we were thinking about my old bandmate Sylvia Gomez from Going Home (who formed in 1986 and recorded a Roback-produced album which remains unreleased). She lives in LA and I am godmother to her two kids. We’re very close and talk all the time, but I still miss her. She’s a brilliant songwriter, an amazing guitarist and a big influence on me. She’s not really that into releasing music; I think she may be interested in releasing a Going Home record, but for the most part it’s not her thing. She just likes to get together and play. I spend a lot of time in London and I miss California. Of course, when I’m in California I miss London.”

Seasons of Your Day is out on September 24 on Rhymes of an Hour Records
More: Music Lightbox October Issue 2013 Mazzy Star Hope Sandoval

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NME interv. Sept. 28, 2013

Postby Hermesacat » Thu Oct 03, 2013 12:00 am

Emma: You have some excellent interview finds here. Some I wasn't aware of till I came here. Thanks for posting.

I have just one to add, from NME, Sept. 28, 2013. Like the Uncut one, I paid for a digital copy. Too bad it's not nearly as good as the Uncut one. I've upped it as screen capture pics in 4 parts here:
http://s903.photobucket.com/user/Bobjb2002/library/
Pt. 1 shows the whole article as a 2-page spread, & should have sufficed, but even with zooming in the printing's a bit hard to read. So, I captured it in sections too after zooming in first which makes the printing clearer. I've also upped the 4 parts as a zip file here if anyone wants to DL it that way:
http://www.filefactory.com/file/3hmekbsxbnsl

That one you posted from Interview mag, the one with "fjord" in the title, is very good, as you said.
The Dazed & Confused one I like too. Elliot Smith, huh? To me,he's a new artist I'm enjoying checking out via youtube's upload of his Figure 8 album Hope mentions, as I write this.

I was pleased to read David cite Tom Verlaine (of the band Television) as a fave guitarist as he's one of my faves too. I was also pleased to learn Tom's on record as citing Mazzy Star as a band he likes. It's kind of gratifying to learn two of ones very fave bands/artists, by odd (?) coincidence, happen to like each other's music, though their music's not exactly similar. Maybe it's a "same wavelength" thing!
..........................................................................................
[Later update, Feb., 2015: here's the text from the 2013 NME article]

MAZZY STAR INTERVIEW / ARTICLE, NME, Sept. 28, 2013
[This NME article included a section called "The Quiet Revolution" on current bands influenced by Mazzy Star which is reproduced here at the end]:

In Mazzy Star's 12-year absence, a generation of hazy dream-pop pretenders have emerged. As the infamously
enigmatic duo return with a new LP, Cian Traynor finds them unaware of their influence and reticent as ever

"It's very difficult," says Mazzy Star singer Hope Sandoval. "In the same way that nobody wants to be looked
at when they're doing something intimate and private. We just can't get into it if it feels like there's 500
or 3,000 people or 10,000 people not only looking at you but taking photos while you're doing it." This may
seem like a curious perspective for a 47-year old who has been singing to crowds for over half her life, but
Mazzy Star's live shows have never been conventional.
Long before the likes of Savages and Yeah Yeah Yeahs began banning phones at concerts, the American band's
shows demanded an intimacy that could veer into quiet unease. Songs of hypnotically hazy dream-pop would
smoulder through a darkened stillness. Singer Hope Sandoval kept her eyes closed and her face hidden. Chattering
crowds could be shushed, sometimes chastised for not listening. Unruly sound engineers would be put in their
place and, if the atmosphere didn't settle, stages could be stormed off. Last year, when the band played their
first shows since 2000, that dynamic seemed more fragile than ever. Mazzy Star's stature had grown in their
absence and a series of sultry soundalikes had helped draw a new generation of fans. But at festivals like
Coachella and Primavera, those fans held their cameras aloft, illuminating one of the most guarded figures
in music with a succession of flashes. So guarded, in fact, that new album "Seasons of Your Day" is their
first in 17 years. Not because the band ever broke up, but because they withdrew from public view to make
music on their own terms. "That's the thing with me and Hope," says guitarist David Roback on what makes his
partnership with Sandoval special. "We don't really need to talk about what we do. We just do it."
To say they don't really talk about it is quite the understatement. Relatively few Mazzy Star interviews
have surfaced over the years, though the narrative remains invariably similar: they shield themselves with
clipped sentences and truculent silence, feigning inhibition but implying contempt, leaving their background
story to seem as enigmatic as the music.
The pair first met in Los Angeles during the mid-1980s, when a teenage Sandoval began showing up at
gigs by the Paisley Underground, a strand of psychedelic post-punk groups Roback was involved with. Growing up
in a rough part of east Los Angeles, Sandoval would bunk off school and work on music with her friend,
Sylvia Gomez, under the name Going Home. Roback offered to produce them on the strength of a demo but when
Kendra Smith, his songwriting partner in neo-psych group Opal, quit one night in 1987, Sandoval was called
in to replace her.
Renaming themselves Mazzy Star, they released debut album "She Hangs Brightly," a brooding mishmash of
genres, on Rough Trade in 1990. When the label's American division began to crumble, Mazzy Star were dealt
to Capitol in a bid to avoid bankruptcy. But with their next album, 1993's "So Tonight That I Might See,"
unexpected success led to unwanted attention.
Hit single "Fade Into You" crystallised the band's languid melodies and wistful guitar work, becoming
a staple of romantic mix tapes, and make-out sessions. That breakthrough excited Capitol but the band
felt like a commodity, wary of pressure and interference. Asked ow this experience shaped the band's values,
Roback grows testy. We want to do what we want to do! We don't want someone coming around and telling us
what they think we should be doing, you know? You know?"
What we do know is that after retreating to make 1996's "Among My Swan," Mazzy Star demanded to be released
from their contract and coasted into hiatus. Roback relocated to Norway and Sandoval teamed up with
My Bloody Valentine drummer Colm O'Ciosoig, to release two albums as Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions.
Though they've been writing and recording together sporadically since 1997, Sandoval and Roback say
they were unaware of any influence their albums may have sparked, oblivious to the slew of introspective
and ethereal-sounding bands that struggled to seep out of their shadow. "We're sort of...sheltered in our
own little bubble," says Sandoval. "We...don't really know...what...outsiders are thinking."
Just getting a straight answer from Sandoval and Roback felt like a minor feat. The long silences that
follow each question seem intended to fluster interviewers into stumbling towards the next subject.
Today, however, our three-way Skype call drifts into a series of stalemates, each party waiting for
someone to give in first. When it's Roback's turn, he'll wind down the clock by pedantically picking apart
queries as if searching for an escape clause. Sandoval's answers, meanwhile, trickle out with a terse
economy, sometimes deliberately misinterpreting the question, sometimes fizzling into a bratty giggle.
Somehow, the bouts of silence seem to grow louder and longer, stretching on until background noises
provide a welcome distraction. Footsteps can be heard creeping away, presmaubly to a bathroom break.
There's some intermittent rustling and scraping, a child making a bemused enquiry and someone skimming
distractedly through radio channels. When one question prompts tapping on a keyboard, followed by a pause,
and another burst of typing, it's easy to imagine Sandoval and Roback conferring about how well the interview
is going.
Roback repeatedly claims that their communication is intuitive - "We can just tell by the look in each
other's eyes" - and that to translate that into words feels unnecessary. While that may render interviews
pointless, it's as apt description of their music as they're likely to give. The effortless interplay
between Sandoval's hushed vocals and Roback's guitar on the new album's opener, "In The Kingdom," weaves
in and out like a dialogue. Midway through "Seasons of Your Day," the intoxicating "Common Burn" proves
that rather than trying to revisit former glories, Mazzy Star are simply sharing what they've been holding
back.
But as a release on their own label, Rhymes of an Hour, surely they can spare themselves from interviews
if they so choose. So why the caginess?
"It's difficult," Sandoval begins, not for the first time. "Sometimes they feel like job interviews.
You don't really know the person, you're asked these questions and..." She trails off, sighing. "I think
they're difficult for journalists too. Sometimes they're just as anxious about it as we are, dreading it
as much as we do." She lets out another mischievous laugh and Roback, with deadpan aplomb, asks me to
confirm or deny this. It's been brutal, I assure him, and I can't even tell who the experience has pained
more.
Then the line goes quiet once more, the stillness filled with the sound of a plane overhead. Finally,
Roback says he understands the interest in knowing how it all works - he's often curious about the way
people do things too - and admits that interviews can be incredibly enlightening. But it's not the way
Mazzy Star do things.
"I just don't think we really feel any need to explain it to anybody," he syas. "Or, for that matter,
to ourselves or each other."

THE QUIET REVOLUTION:
Five acts working under the Mazzy Star spell:
BEACH HOUSE:
The Baltimore duo found comparisons so inescapable that on the eve of their third album, "Teen Dream,"
guitarist Alex Scally admitted: "I thnk the main thing that Victoria is super-psyched about shaking
is the Mazzy Star thing."

WIDOWSPEAK:
The minor chords and melancholy of their self-titled debut, not to mention the similarities between
Molly Hamilton's and Hope Sandoval's singing styles, saw Widowspeak hailed as the next Mazzy.

THE WHITE STRIPES:
They credited "In The Cold, Cold, Night" from "Elephant" as being partly inspired by Mazzy Star,
and covered "Five String Serenade" - the Arthur Lee song Mazzy popularised on 1993's "So Tonight THat
I Might See." Jack White also says they're his son Henry's favourite band.

TAMARYN:
Blending breathy vocals and dark, shoegaze atmospherics into a languid intimacy, this duo have developed
a fresh take on Mazzy Star's shadowy longing over two well-crafted albums.

DUM DUM GIRLS:
The Dum Dums' second album, "Only In Dreams," drew comparisons with Mazzy Star not just for the murky
ballads but for lifting heavily from "Fade Into You" on lead single "Coming Down."
Last edited by Hermesacat on Sat Feb 07, 2015 6:36 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Interviews 2013+

Postby alas » Mon Oct 21, 2013 3:57 am

Just in case some of you haven't visited the official Hope Sandoval website, there are new pictures of Hope and David. http://www.hopesandoval.com/new/index.shtml

There's a nice one of her sitting by a lake.

By the lake, Hope wearing brown hat -- picture will enlarge if you click on it: http://gd.se/noje/musik/1.6324683-mazzy ... ullt-album

Image

By the lake, wind blowing through Hope's hair (picture will enlarge): http://arbetarbladet.se/noje/1.6298733- ... fter-17-ar

Image
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Re: Interviews 2013+

Postby alas » Mon Oct 28, 2013 4:26 am

Another pic of Hope:

Image

It reminds me of a depression-era photo due to its starkness.
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Re: Interviews 2013+

Postby Zarik » Sat Nov 02, 2013 8:09 am

I can't believe Hope likes Elliott Smith. He is my favorite musician/artist of all time, with Hope somewhere in the top 3. Weird chain of events, I got into Nirvana first, which led me to Mazzy Star (Kurt's journals). I found Elliott independent of the Mazzy Star connection.
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Re: Interviews 2013+

Postby Hermesacat » Tue Dec 02, 2014 2:47 am

2013, AUG. 2, PARLHOT L'INTERVIEW ROCK!, MAZZY STAR INTERVIEW
[Later update: I've since removed the Imperfect Google Translate English-to French-& back to English version of this interview that originally was found in this post. There seems little reason to retain it as I've since created a verbatim transcript from the original English language audio recording [findable in the following post here, which is on page 2 of this thread].

[UPDATE DEC.13: I've since completed transcribing the audio file of the original interview conducted in English
after the interviewer, Sylvain Fesson, kindly supplied a copy of his audio file. The new transcript is found, not in this post, but in the post that comes after this one in this same thread [GO TO PAGE 2 IN THIS THREAD]. I'll leave this imperfect Google Translate version here mostly so people can read an English version of Sylvain's 6-paragragh introduction.
Sylvain has also generously given the go ahead to share the audio of his whole interview via the fan site here.
Anyone interested can download the MP3 audio (+ text) here:
http://www.filefactory.com/file/5lx39g9 ... ylvain.zip
[later edit: I've also upped the interview to youtube, here: http://youtu.be/TJaFHGAEFiE ]

Sylvain is also a lyricist/vocalist in a music project. He says he works
together with a young musician from Belgium, Arthur Devreux. You can hear six of their songs at
Deezer, here:
http://www.deezer.com/album/10028556
I like his songs, especially the last five of the six at Soundcloud, the "mellow" ones entitled
Le coeur du monde, La chance de vivre, La vie m'allait bien, Aux étoiles, & Violaine.
Of course, I wish I could understand the French language better. His stuff's worth checking out!
Also, here's his "About Me" page at his site:
http://parlhot.com/about/
Later update: Sylvain has his own youtube channel now with videos of his music, here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9l2UL ... dL9O99BQyQ
...............................................................................................................
In researching vintage Mazzy Star interviews, I came across a 2013 one new to me, here:
http://parlhot.com/a-lirelivre/entretie ... asons-day/
It's a French language one (which is alright for our French webmaster Emma, at least). But Google Translate
is less than ideal & comes up with some very odd sounding English sentences when translating from
the French. The original at the link above has several photos.
....................................................

[Here's Google Translates' English version of Sylvain's introduction he wrote in French for the interview]:

Mazzy Star

August 2, 2013

seasons of your day

August 2, 2013. 15h. 35 ° C. "..." Gros silence. Big, big silence between Norway, Ireland and Saint Ouen where I tried to interview from my room, Skype, Hope Sandoval and David Roback, mute legendary duo Mazzy Star for their return discography with September 24 Seasons of Your Day after 17 years of silence. I feel like Philippe Petit in New York in 1974 : to walk without security on a cable stretched over 400 meters between two towers. I do not lead off. Big moment of solitude.

Such moments are legion during this hour Skype interview. Well-fil-de-fériste passages that will make me fear the worst ("Hello, you've heard my question you hear me?") As when the singer of Sigur Ros had finally play dead and forcing me to hang up like an idiot after 5 minutes because it was too tough questions to my taste. But there, facing silences and hot shots culminating in some cases more than 20 seconds, I get to keep Mazzy Star - I forgive - with me.

I forgive them because they are not meant to be good customers of the interview, it is not their role, they are primarily there to be good musicians, they are. The Seasons of Your Day does not have to face pale She Hangs Brightly (90) So Tonight That I Might See (93) and Among My Swan (96). No, I do not complain for my eventual frustration is the game. "If you know you will find open an oyster pearl, otherwise you will fall on a mold. "Gainsbourg said about France Gall (in Rock & Folk, 1968).

Roback and Sandoval and not just insiders musicians to the virtues of the mystery, which "is not one of the possibilities of the real" but "what is necessary for there to be real" (René Magritte), it is especially including two former Mazzy Star, such extime herbarium into music the never ending story. They open it slightly less against the journalist to meet what must remain private to continue to be. They do not activate the video of their Skype. They see me, not me. Silent black screen: hot, hot time.

At times, accusing more than 35 ° C feels like temperature is no longer perched on a wire 300 meters above the ground as I feel but 600 kilometers from Earth, lost in space, like the character of Sandra Bullock in Gravity . Abandoned three of the hands of a fallible technology, we then wander seconds in this dismissal orbited between Saint Ouen, Oslo and Dublin and nothing, nothing but the eternal silence of these infinite spaces. And the idea, dear to Paul Virilio, in the face of progress . "Houston, do you copy? Do you even lift

But as sung Daho, after three quarters of an hour from holding, tack, so we will not "stuck the bubble in the bubble" , we will eventually "exchange of equals" , She laughed at my outspokenness, he recently asked me what music heard on Paris I would advise them to listen ( Basile Di Manski , Alice Guerlot-Kourouklis course). But maybe these late sympathy were only indirect means to hasten the final word in an interview that he was beginning to find ... a bit long!
-(Sylvain Fesson)
..............................................
PLEASE SEE THE NEXT FOLLOWING POST IN THIS THREAD (on page 2 of the thread) FOR THE COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT OF THIS INTERVIEW CREATED FROM THE ORIGINAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE AUDIO RECORDING
Last edited by Hermesacat on Wed Jun 17, 2015 12:17 pm, edited 14 times in total.
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