Project Description
Interview with
ISAIAH MITCHELL
from
EARTHLESS
Interviewer – Meg Price
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After four long years, San Diego psyche-rock band Earthless is back to grace our Aussie shores. With their trippy guitar solos and otherworldly live sets, the band will be debuting their 2018 album, Black Heaven.
In this interview lead Isaiah Mitchell discusses Aussie music influences, improvising on stage and how keen he is to get back to the down under.
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Hi, this is Meg from Amnplify, can you hear me okay?
Yeah Meg, I hear you, how are ya?
I’m good how are you?
I’m good I’ve been sick the past couple of days, but I’m getting better, but pardon me for being a little bit slow and drowsy sounding.
Oh okay, well I’m sorry to hear that.
Oh well, it happens right? That’s okay.
So you guys have been described in many different ways, some include “stoner psyche,” “hard rock” and even “the white stripes on acid,” how would you describe your band?
I can describe it as a space jam freakout band – yeah that sounds about right.
Hahahahaha I like that!
A fun time, but maybe not for everybody, it can be a little overwhelming. I don’t know, it could be described as a test.
Hahahaha, so you guys have come to Australia four times now, the last time in 2015. Why such a long wait?
I have no idea, I guess we were having some small issues trying to find promoters that would bring us down, there are all sorts of issues with that, unfortunately. We got a new manager so she was kind of helping to reach out to other promoters that would be more able to bring us down. She definitely helped with that. There’s no other reason except for that in all honesty.
Well, that’s good, at least you’re coming back down, are you excited to be back?
Definitely, oh yeah, I love Australia, I love coming down there, playing, so do the other guys as well. We’re big fans of the music that’s come from Australia. it’s an honor to go to such a faraway place, a beautiful place.
Any bands in particular that you like from here?
I mean there’s a lot of older stuff ‘Master’s Apprentice‘, ‘Rose Tattoo‘, ‘AC/DC‘, ‘Hoodoo Guru’s‘, I don’t know, there’s a lot of great bands, ‘Argon’ the list just keeps going.
Is there much of a difference between your Australian fans and your American fans?
Ummm, no I think everyone’s just a fan, these people are good people and I mean, I’m sure there are some sour apples out there but for the most part, everyone is good people, I think the fans are great, they’re everywhere. They really treat us well, they treat us really nice.
That’s good to hear. So what’s been the greatest crowd you’ve ever played too?
Let’s see London’s been good, Melbourne’s been good, Holland, hometown shows in San Diego are always pretty fun. But yeah, last time we played the corner that was a really great show. That was a memorable one.
Nice! So personally I don’t think I’ve been to a live show where there wasn’t a lead singer to scream along with, so what do your fans usually do to get involved with the music, do they sing along to the melody, or play the air guitar or just trip out?
Ahh, I think they probably just trip out and move in a way that shows that they like it, there’s not a lot of vocals and when there are vocals and when there are vocals there isn’t really anything to attach them to. Unless they’re a real die-hard fan or something. Yeah, people just kind of get lost in the music and just do whatever feels right. You usually have a pretty good time.
Do you ever just improvise on stage?
Lot’s of times yeah, probably a little bit less than we used to but yeah, we still do, out of the set, a pretty big chunk of it is improvised. Mostly instrumentally – actually only instrumentally, I don’t try and improvise any vocals or anything like that. So I mean every night’s a little different for us as well, it keeps it fresh and playing the same thing and not the same set every time which is cool.
So when was the first time you felt comfortable enough to improvise?
I think right out of the gate that’s just what we did, we didn’t really have any problem with it. Yeah, or really early on I think, really I think we’re just primarily improvising. Over time we got used to each other a bit more, just learning when to change and how to communicate and tell each other that we want to go to the next part now. Whereas before it was just going for it and seeing what happens so I think that’s a lot trickier to do than to try and orchestrate it cause you can definitely fall on your face and not sound very inspiring and not be inspired. I used to get out of my head a lot back then. To make it more interesting. But yeah, right out of the gate, that’s how we started, primarily just instrumental improve jam freak-out. And it worked! It totally worked!
So when writing music a lot of traditional bands start with the lyrics and go from there, so how do you guys usually write your music?
It comes up in different ways, Mike [Eginton] will come up with something and it evolves from that, I might come up with something and it evolves from that, we could just be in a practice space and we’ll just start messing around and something will come from that. I think writing every song we’ve approached it that way. And as far as lyrics go, if there’s a song that wants to have lyrics, I usually hear the vocal line and the words are the very last thing usually. That’s how they usually come. If I’ve got an idea, we do it, Mike has an idea, you know Mario [Rubalcaba], and then we all just get into it and just all write it together.
Nice, so how do you decide which songs need vocals?
It’s whatever song feels like it, we can tell pretty early on if it needs that other element in it. It’s just something that we can tell if it needs it or not.
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Yeah, and so you were saying before you do a lot of improvising in the studio and making up in the studio, do you do that with the lyrics as well?
I mean I will just come up with words, they probably won’t have much meaning to them, they kind of just roll off the tongue, like if I hear a melody a certain way and I hear that I want the vocals to annunciate the melody line, I’ll make words to achieve that. If something ends with an ‘Ahh’ instead of an ‘ooh‘ or something, it’s just whatever I kind of want the vibe or the feel to be, not so much the meaning of the lyrics mostly just the feel. The vibe of the vocals is what I’m trying to say, not so much the words or the message but the way it rolls out. The sound more than the meaning is important to me. I don’t know about all cases but in a lot of cases.
That’s really interesting.
I mean, I don’t know if people find meaning in the lyrics? Maybe it does mean something, I don’t know. But I don’t really think it means to much.
It must take a lot of energy to make the kind of complex and intense music that you guys do so what do you guys do to relax after a big day at the office?
When I’m not on tour and at I home, I live at home on my ranch in Northern California, I usually don’t go anywhere unless I have to, that’s kind of how I chill out until I go on tour again. I think everyone is just kind of a homebody. We do other things to just recharge the batteries; play with other people, go for hikes, play with kids, stuff like that.
Nice, so what’s your personal favorite song that you’ve written?
I really like ‘Uluru Rock‘ it was created in Australia as well.
Yeah! I was going to ask about that one. Did you go to Uluru?
No, I haven’t had the chance unfortunately, one day though, it’s very high up on the list of things I’d like to do.
Yeah, well maybe this year!
Yeah I mean I don’t know about this trip because the flights are already booked but hopefully, we’ll come back sometime in the very near future so yeah, I’ll have to make more of an effort.
Yeah, it’s definitely worth it.
Oh, you’ve been?
Yeah, it was awesome!
Oh, that’s good.
Just amazing!
Seems like a pretty crazy monolithic – no mountains, no hill, just a lot of nothing.
Yeah, so who was your musical inspiration growing up and who is it now? Has it changed at all?
Mmmm, not too much. Growing up you think that everything is a party, if I don’t listen to something as much as I did in high school, you know, whatever, it still kind of shapes who I am. And I think every ones the same way. No such thing as a guilty conscience so I don’t know, everything from ‘Led Zeppelin‘, ‘Neil Young‘, I love ‘Paul Kelly‘, I don’t care what anyone says Paul Kelly’s awesome.
Oh absolutely
I grew up loving the [Red Hot] Chilli Peppers
Of course!
Jimmy Hendrix, Pink Floyd, yeah, the list grows pretty big. It’s the same stuff I grew up with.
The classics.
Yeah, the classics, I mean that’s what’s off of the top of my head right now, ahh ‘Fleetwood Mac‘, ‘Bad Company‘, ‘Cactus‘, ‘Big Moon‘, a lot of Australian bands like I said before. Yeah, stuff that was definitely a pivotal interjection that kind of shaped my musical taste.
Yeah, so I think the last question now, which Aussie show are you most excited to play?
Ohhhh, I mean I’m looking forward to all of them, but getting to see friends in Melbourne and Brisbane I’m looking forward to that and those shows. But I’m looking forward to all of them, it should be really fun. It should be a fun trip, it’s been too long.
Yeah, it definitely has!
Yeah, we had a good run where we were coming every year or so. Long over due. But I’m looking forward to everywhere!
That’s good to hear! I’ll let you go now so you can rest up and get better, thanks for your time!
Thank you very much and I’ll see you very soon!
Yes, I look forward to it!
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EARTHLESS
AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND 2019
Thurs 21 Feb Melbourne – Max Watts (with Seedy Jeezus)
Fri 22 Feb Wellington – Valhalla (with Ounce, Transistor)
Sat 23 Feb Tauranga – Totara Street (with Ounce, Transistor)
Sun 24 Feb Auckland – Galatos (with Ounce)
Tues 26 Feb Wollongong – Uni Bar (with Velvet Elevator, Grinding Eyes)
Thurs 28 Feb Canberra – Basement (with Space Carbonara)
Fri 1 March Sydney – Crow Bar (with Grinding Eyes, Space Carbonara, Frozen Planet…. 1969)
Sat 2 March Narrabeen – Narrabeen RSL (with Grinding Eyes, Turtle Skull)
Sun 3 March Newcastle – Small Ballroom (with Space Carbonara)
Wed 6 March Gold Coast – Miami Tavern (with The Black Armada)
Thurs 7 March – Brisbane – Crow Bar (with Zong)
Fri 8 March – Geelong – Barwon Club (with Buried Feather, Pseudo Mind Hive)
Sat 9 March – Melbourne – The Tote (with ROT TV, Psychobabel)
Sun 10 March – Perth – The Rosemount Hotel (with Datura4)
Get your tickets here!
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