Botanist
SPB: In the recent years you have included musicians in order to perform live as Botanist. I wonder if that change has also affected your songwriting in any way? Do you compose now having a more clear idea that these songs will be played live?
Botanist: The backlog of material written and recorded as a 1-man outfit is still being cleared out. Most of that stuff is EPs, but of course there is the skipped-over, unreleased Botanist V. Much of the EP material should be released over the course of the next year or two and some other stuff will be held secret. There is no definite plan as to when V will be released.
Since one of the aims of Botanist is to re-invent itself within the strict guidelines laid out for the project, material written and performed by all members of the live outfit are also in the works. The material we are working on now will be of EP length and should be ready for potential release this year.
There is so much Botanist material that we compose and record, and pick what we think will be best live out of that. Some records work better live than others. VI is unquestionably the project's biggest commercial success to date, but we play as many songs live from I as we do VI because those songs kick ass live. Playing much material from III is a challenge, obviously, because of the tracks' individual running times, so we have to pick extra carefully, and sometimes we don't have time to play any material from III at all.
The next planned Botanist full-length (VII) will be its most thematic and conceptual yet, and will not be written with playing live in mind whatsoever. Maybe look to the one after that for some ripping live cuts. See you on tour!
