Interview with Straytones
Tell us about your latest release: the main concept; what fans should expect; what were/are your goals with it:
We wanted it to be something more, then just a bunch of songs which sound well one after another, there’s a story that stands behind this release, and it’s kind of an incarnation of our collective imagination, if you will. We wanted to create a soundtrack for a cartoon video, which is influenced by 80s series, like He-Man. The plot in a nutshell: Dark Lord, surrounded by his army of shadows, smashes and thrashes everything on his way, in search of a mystic artifact which will take him to the Meta-Space to become even more powerful. So he gets to another realm where he suddenly finds the Bell-Man. The rest is up to your imagination 😉 We think that cartoons are cool, and when it pairs with good soundtrack – it is double cool!
Did you have a specific sound in mind when you formed the band, or did that grow and evolve as you played together?
We are Straytones, and our tones are straying, so we never wanted to enclose ourselves into some certain genre or songwriting approaches. All should be as natural as possible, within the band, and since we’re growing as musicians and listeners of music, it’s quite natural that we’re going through changes and evolve. It’s not that we’ll suddenly become a techno or mumble rap artists, but you get the idea.
How does your writing process normally work out?
More often, Artem (our guitarist) brings some riffs or melodies to the rehearsal room, and if the band likes it, then we’re trying to put them together, improve and make a good song. Some of the songs (at least main riffs) are a result of a stoned jam during the rehearsal. In this case, we’re always trying to play the same thing afterwards, when we’re 100% sober, to see if all the magic really was because of good melody, and not just because of a stoned diluted perception.
What are your ambitions and how far do you want to push your band?
Frankly speaking, it would be super awesome to be heard all around the globe. Not as a mainstream or the most popular band ever, no, that’s simply impossible. But we believe that such music, such vibe, can really touch people in a lot of different places, regardless of their language or age, like any other music, obviously.
What are your influences/musical references and the impact those same influences had in your sound?
Influences can change quite often, especially when it comes to three personalities in a band. Basically, we’re into raw garage-psych sounds from 60s till nowadays, we really like bands like Oh Sees, King Gizzard, Wand, Pond, Brian Jonestown Massacre, but as we mentioned earlier, we listen to a lot of different music from all eras, so everything may have its impact on our songs, here and there. We’ll try to stick to our own “stray” tone flow, and release our own unique voice, but we definitely can tell how our songs become more “mature” and complex, in terms of arrangements, melodies and ideas.
What’s next for you?
We’re going to be an opening band for Stoned Jesus this March in 5 cities of Poland, and we’re currently booking shows for autumn European tour. We hope to be lucky enough to hit few festival stages this summer too. Also, you can expect single release later this year, and most probably an LP too! So, stay tuned, we’re full of new songs which are waiting to be heard!