Black Majik Acid interview

It is my pleasure to bring this interview with Black Majik Acid,
to you, my dear readers and download monkeys.

Having been blown away by their self released album, I
had to find out more about their music.

"Grimy riffs that have crawled out from a grave worm into your ears

while the world weary vocals have an equal measure of dread and

despair to them. Distorted solos that conjure up the smell of

overworked amps are strewn across the tracks with power but

also with a great blues/psych feel to them." 

Read the rest of my review Here

1. Can you tell us a bit about the band.

The band idea formed in late 2011, spawned from a previous stoner metal project that fizzled out called Ungoliant. It was a similar band idea, and the first 10 or so Majik Acid songs were originally created by me as song ideas for the previous band.

Right now Majik Acid is currently in a line up transition. The first line up consisted of former Ungoliant drummer, a female bass player, and I. The drummer, having financial hardships that made it too difficult for him to maintain commitment, and the bass player's unwillingness to go through teaching a new drummer the songs has caused some set back. There is currently a great drummer and bassist eagerly awaiting to gear up and play shows. That’s where it stands today.

2. It is obvious that you love Sabbath and Electric Wizard ...... as do I. To me, the feeling of genuine love for the doom genre come across - you seem to have the vibe of “this is the music we listen to - this is the music we play” - fuck ya if you don’t like it!

Thank you. I've come to realize that that is the attitude needed to accomplish the desired outcome. Lots of people are looking to brand someone else as a 'poser' these days, so yeah, I've definitely adopted the; “this is the music we listen to - this is the music we play” - fuck you if you don’t like it!" attitude. Unfortunately, that is necessary among some circles.

My older brother turned me on to Sabbath 20 or so years ago. The first song i learned on guitar was Iron Man and Paranoid.
I love the idea of expanding on early Sabbath concepts. Music is my first true love, and my heart has always been set on the darker noise. Electric Wizard is a good template to work from, and because I lack the guitar virtuosity skills of Iomi, I look to the Wizard for a more simplistic approach, tending to focus more on the fat Wizard-like riff based song structuring.  Sabbath started it all for me though.

3. I thought the production on the album was really good, powerful & aggressive with a “very live” raw sound - are you pleased with it?

Overall yes. 'Chaos Sphere', as it was a little sloppy and I want to re-record that. The recordings were meant to be demos, for the purpose of shopping to replace the old drummer and bassist. A little buzz started with these recordings that was pretty unexpected.

Recording the demos was a gruelling process, considering the lack of recording equipment. I played all the instruments myself. The mix of drums and guitar is the guitar track recorded on a small handheld, played through an old 100 watt P/A, with me playing drums live to it while videoing it with a Flipshare camera. The audio picked up by that small shitty camera mic is the guitar and drum you're hearing. The bass and vocal tracks were done using a small handheld recorder, also, and the mixing of it all was done using Windows Movie Maker.

The shitty laptop used to produce it had no capacity to upload recording software, so I just worked with what was available, to get this shit recorded, so as to get a rhythm section.

4. How has the general reaction been to the release? It seems to me that while blogs/zines cover underground music, getting any response from the outside world seems nigh impossible.

Yeah, the reaction was more than expected actually. Within a few days of release, 'Hand of Doom radio' in Australia bought the digital album, wrote up a kind review, featured it as 'Riffage of the Day', and added it to their roster of radio play stoner jams.

A few blogs including yours graciously wrote reviews as well.

 I never expected to sell the tracks when setting up the Bandcamp, and paid no attention to the price setting feature. Then days later, people here and there are paying $7 for the album!!! It was pretty crazy…Much of the positive reaction received has been from outside the country, which makes sense.

The local music community here is pretty clique, and I think American consumers are generally pretentious snobbish assholes when It comes to consumption. If something hasn’t been commercialized, and sold out to the masses, then it's worthless to them.

 Even on a smaller scale, local music communities claim to be better than mainstream in principle, but in fact, they are usually guilty of the same thing, with stuck up cliques, elitists, and all the bullshit politics that come with that sort of thing. It sucks cause' this attitude chokes out good local music and creates a façade of what is supposedly 'good' or 'cool'. Anyway- I never expected to go beyond that threshold. It’s an unreasonable self-expectation, and I would end up quitting before I even started. Really- its people like you that make this shit real.. You guys that support for no reason other than you like what you hear-despite clique popular opinion. That's true artistry. It's hard to articulate an appreciation for that, and I thank you.

5. Is there an active scene for your sort of music - I always think of any band coming from California having a much lighter feel than doom.

Haha…I'm not sure. I think that with the great Stoner/Psych/Doom bands coming out, it is becoming somewhat of a trend so yeah, there is. I'm not super impressed with the cookie cutter crap that I hear with the genre (Nor am I - Tony), and I think there is a lot of that coming out as well. Opportunists see it as a way to gain money and prestige it seems. That’s cool if they are good, but when they sound like everything else, it gets annoying. I don't pay much attention to 'the scene', where as I mentioned before, all the politics and hypocrisy being so disheartening and uninspiring, it's difficult to find support there, so yes, and no I guess.

6. How does this translate to putting on your own gigs or are there plenty of places to play?

Ha.. Yeah, that's all politics too. Majik Acid has played twice, before the band line up fell apart. It seems difficult getting an appropriate show booked as the sound that BMA is going for is different than what people sometimes consider the genre to be. As you mentioned earlier in your review of us, some bands claim a particular genre like doom or stoner, and when they play live they look and sound like Nickel Back. On the other side of that spectrum are the elitists who book shows and the band line ups are formed with political bias based on what's popular with hipsters and other elitists. It’s a hard road for sure.

7. Do you find places like Bandcamp are able to get your music out to a much wider audience than just gigs and friends?

Oh yeah. The little buzz being generated is reaching the UK, Greece, Australia, and beyond, though not locally. This bitter sweet anomaly affirms two things; the somewhat apparent success in the direction Black Majik Acid is going, and the apparent failure of local music communities in acknowledging and supporting their 'scene'.

8. What is next for Black Majik Acid?

An EP split release is in the works and should be out very soon. I was actually working on a good part of it yesterday. Song ideas true to the Black Majik Acid sound you've heard continue to flow for now. There are probably 30 solid song ideas in the works. The next batch of Acid jams are mostly mapped out, and the hope is to finish one per week until they are done. About 6-7 songs. The same Windows Movie Maker process will be used- so expect the same lo-fi rawness as before. Hopefully this release will be consistent with the first. There are no plans of changing up the sound at all. The new members will be dialled in soon, and shows will definitely be played. If all goes well, we'll be touring abroad and hit your home town with a solid dose!!! Thank you so much for entertaining my rants, and I look forward to future interactions, as well as more great bands and band reviews on the Black Insect Laughter blog! You guys rock!!!!

Thanks for replying to my drivel,

Tony

Facebook