Hey guys Mr.Innkeeper here!
So if you guys read the full report of Sonic Blast ’17 you know that I did a live interview with the members of Vinnum Sabbathi, four young and very talented guys from Mexico City, Mexico.
Here it goes!
Have a listen while readin’ 😉
Mr.Inkeeper: So first question guys, you’ve started the tour early June of this year across Europe for the first time, how it’s going so far? And how do you feel finishing it here in this amazing line-up at SonicBlast?
Juan (guitar) : Aw man…(laughs) It has been amazing, it’s our first time playing in Europe and also the first time we’ve been overseas.
Everything is very impressive for us, a lot multicultural stuff happening around, and has been a dream, not only to be able to play here, but just to BE here! And see all the bands it’s a dream for us all!
Mr.Inkeeper: And this line-up man…
Roman (effects) : It’s the best!!!
Juan: No words to describe it!
Gerardo (drums) : And the fact that we are finishing the tour here at Sonic Blast, I mean, it was already impressive and exciting the fact that we are playing in Europe, but the fact of playing with the bands that we listen, that we’ve been listening for like 8 years or so, like being teens and say : “Hey man check this band out, they are called Colour Haze“, and now we’re playing at the same event is like a dream came true, we’re very grateful to everyone who helped us!
Mr.Inkeeper: Second question guys, who are your main inspirations and which bands do you look up to?
Roman: Uuuuu that’s a hard one!
Juan: For me obviously, the theme of the space age, the technology advances that are taking place right now are my main interests, and bands…I listen a lot to Monomyth, Ufomammutt, the new album from Elder, but this is from me we all have different approaches.
Gerardo: My main inspiration really just playing music, and I really wish that I can do this for the rest of my life, because it is what I really love, that’s my main inspiration, I think right now my main influences are All Them Witches and Truckfighters, I’m also a die-hard fan of Fu Manchu since I was a teenager.
Roman: Well it depends, I’m a music nerd so this is a really huge question…I really enjoy hard rock from the 70’s, prog, space rock, doom, sludge everything…
Juan: This guy is an encyclopedia (laughs)
Roman: Yeah but I’ve been into this kind of music since I was 19 years old, and I started to show these bands to Juan and one of the first bands was Electric Wizard so we take the Vinnum Sabbathi name from one of the songs, yesterday I’ve met Mark Greening from Electric Wizard and it was like a dream to me.
Mr.Inkeeper: And you Samuel?
Samuel (bass) : Hum, I really like desert rock, Kyuss is one my favorite bands.
Gerardo: Samuel introduced us to My Sleeping Karma, he is a big fan.
Mr.Inkeeper: Yeah I’m a big fan also, their latest album “Koshna” with the elephant on the cover is really amazing!
And you guys are the forefront of space doom right now (laughs)… IMO you are! You and Spaceslug are the two bands that I listen daily if I’m in the mood for some space doom!
Gerardo: Can we ask some questions when we finish this? (laughs)
Mr.Inkeeper: Yeah of course, of course!! (laughs) Onto to the next one! Instrumental bands always have an interesting “curse” (in a good way) you don’t have to write for the vocals, no need of worrying with vocal range, tone and theme of the lyrics, but on the other hand you must be able to deliver an idea, a message only through sound and composition, so how is done your writing process?
Juan: Hum, most of it starts with me or someone else working on a riff or a structure and discuss when we are able to practice, because Gerardo lives in the UK, so when we can join and practice we start to develop those ideas and start to add details to it and then we think on the samples that transmit the idea that we want for that song.
Mr.Inkeeper: So you all live in Mexico except Gerardo who lives in the UK right?
Gerardo: Yeah I live in the UK but I’m also from Mexico, I’ve been living in the U.K because I’m studying there!
Mr.Inkeeper: That’s one of the points that I would like to touch later! So 4th question, when you wrote “Gravity works” what was the message that you wanted to send?
Juan: I had the idea when we were recording the “Fuzzonaut” split and even before that, the main idea was to be the soundtrack of all the specter of space, back then I was reading “The Collapsing Universe” by Asimov and was an huge inspiration, the absence of gravity, the sense of “Weightlessness” of having no gravity at all to the theory that all of the universe is a massive black hole, so the main story of the album is that, the most apocalyptic scenario of gravity fighting with the universe.
Mr.Inkeeper: Anyone want to add something else?
(Laughs)
Gerardo: No, Juan is the true mastermind of all, all of the samples and all of the ideas, I really enjoyed them and I love to play this songs! Something that Juan didn’t mention is that we used some real samples from NASA, and the other ones were made by some friends, because we didn’t find the perfect sample that fits some of the songs.
Mr.Inkeeper: And they are all really well done, they have that sense of being in the 60’s listening to the tapes to become an astronaut, I also read some comments regarding these samples and some people find them annoying and drift the attention from the experience.
Juan: Yeah we’ve read that! (Pointing at the recorder!) (laughs)
Gerardo: But it’s like everything, every time you play something new or something old there will be people that will like and there will be people that doesn’t, so as long we enjoy it and we see that people are enjoying as much as us, perfect!
Mr.Inkeeper: And that’s the most important dude, doing what you love! One of the things that you mentioned the last time we’ve talked, is that one of you is taking a course on Mechanical Engineering right? (Juan lifts the finger) So this, of course, also has an impact on the overall theme of the album?
Juan: Yeah when I think in Engineering and our sound, I think about the technological advances, the space race, all happened really fast and that’s amazing and huge! So, of course, it is a big inspiration for me and for the ideas of the album!
Mr.Inkeeper: Back in 2015 you made a split with Bar de Monjas and two years later you are both playing in SonicBlast, what are your thoughts on that?
Juan: Yeaaaaah about that…
Gerardo: We have some history, I used to play in Bar de Monjas and we used to tour together because we were good friends. Actually, I started to play in Vinnum Sabbathi because Sam and Juan used to have a band called BloodWitch. I met them at one show and they invited me to play in this new project called Vinnum Sabbathi, so Vinnum and Bar de Monjas became friends, we recorded the split, we toured together and it was an amazing time. But with time we grow up and had some differences with me and the guys from Bar de Monjas so we split and has been almost 2 years that we don’t see each other.
Mr.Inkeeper: Uh that’s unfortunate…Hope you guys amend everything, for the sake of good ol’ times. So for the final question, an album out, an European tour done, what’s next?
Juan: Next is…trying to go home…(laughs)
Gerardo: We’re trying to gather the spaceship’s broken parts…
Juan: Man we all quit our jobs to be here, so first thing is to get back to work, we’ve paid for all of this tour, so we got to start all over again and start to record more things, but yeah the main thing is to get back and wake up…
Gerardo: Yeah wake up from this dream that we’ve been living for 3 months…
Juan: If it all goes well, get back start to write new stuff, get a job, maybe recording some splits with another bands, we met the guys from Weedruid in Berlin, super cool dudes, so maybe we are going to record a split with whenever we can!
Mr.Inkeeper: So you are all going back to the U.K and then decide what to do or…
Gerardo: Yeah they are coming to UK with me, and then travel to Mexico, I’ll stay to finish my studies, we will meet again in December!
Roman: It’s amazing to be here, the promoters, the venue, the people, we can’t believe that this is happening, and I want to thank everyone so much for the support, we never believed to reach this with so little, our reality is very different in Mexico you know? So to be able to do this… We’ve done amazing stuff at the shows, we’ve rented a very small car because we didn’t have a lot of money to spend in a van, so Gerardo played and drove every time, and that’s how we’ve been touring for the past 3 months, I just want to say thanks once again and we love you all!
Gerardo: Just be able to do this things and see these bands… Aw man we used to play a cover of Acid King, and in Bristol we were attending their show and they played that song we were like…AAAAAAAAAA…
Juan: I want to also thank the guys that helped us preparing the shows, for all the tasty food, a roof over our heads many nights, it’s been awesome man, I’m really looking forward for the next time!
Mr.Inkeeper: Awesome guys! We got to wrap this up, you still want to do the questions that you mentioned earlier?
Gerardo: Ah yeah! So you said that you listen to Vinnum Sabbathi almost daily, now that you’ve seen us live, what do you feel right now?(laughs)
Mr.Inkeeper: Aw man (laughs), I was curious to see if you could pull it off with samples, if they were audible enough specially when you create such of a wall of sound behind you, so I was right there at the front of the stage taking pics of you and I was like:”Fuuuuuuuuuuu**** this overwhelming and massive!!!” (laughs) And yeah the samples, were amazingly clean and audible, everything that was expecting you’ve topped it! (laughs)
Once again it’s been a pleasure to do this, I want to thank Gerardo, Roman, Sam and Juan for their effort and enthusiasm of doing this interview, really cool guys, they were truly living in a dream and you could sense it!
Hope you fuzzers enjoy the interview!
Cheers, Mr.Inkeeper!
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