Our newest feature here at Scene Point Blank is our semi-daily quickie Q&A: One Question Interviews. Follow us at facebook or twitter and we'll post one interview every Monday-Thursday. Well, sometimes we miss a day, but it will be four each week regardless.
After our social media followers get the first word, we'll later post a wrap-up here at the site and archive 'em here. This week check out Q&As with Larry & His Flask, Aeon Zen, Ice Dragon and Vultress.
Jeshua Marshall (Larry and His Flask)
SPB: What is the weirdest venue/setting you’ve ever played a show at?
Jeshua: Several years ago we were asked to play the opening ceremonies for a local UFC cage match. We played inside the cage! The amps were falling over because of the bouncy platform. All the while we were locked inside the ultimate fighting wire cage.
Rich Hinks (Aeon Zen)
SPB: What makes a band "progressive"?
Rich: Progressive music, to me, is more of a mindset than a determined style. More often than not it means being able experiment and to allow the music to go wherever it naturally wants to. It's like its own organism. Of course there are certain staples that can help categorise something as progressive, if you were so inclined: odd time signatures and virtuosic playing being two that spring to mind. I try and look at these as a means to an end though rather than as defining characteristics.
As pretentious as it may sound (hey, we are talking about progressive music here!), truly progressive music is about being open-minded, and musically speaking is a way of combining the best parts of all genres. Either that or it's a bunch of show-offs thinking that they're being clever! [Laughs]
Ron Rochondo (Ice Dragon)
SPB: How much recording time is spent purposefully making your music sound artfully dirty, and how much of it is pure happenstance?
Ron: I love this question, mainly because I think a lot of people think that we are just lazy about recording or don't know how to do it well and that is not the case at all. Do we have really expensive fancy gear? No. So a lot of it comes from using a 4-track and shitty mics and amps. But, you can get a really boring and "good" sounding record with a 4-track and shitty mics. And we don't need to be using the 4-track, we have a nice DAW as well. We choose to make our recordings sound artfully dirty because we hate the slicked up homogenized nonsense that most bands strive for. I sit down in my basement sometimes for an entire weekend trying to get a song to sound perfectly shitty. Haha. I like to think there's an art to that: getting the right balance of shitty blown out awfulness and listenability. That being said.... A lot of it does come from the fact that we record ourselves, in a basement, and we drink a lot. So there's the occasional "Oh shit I didn't have the guitar mic on that entire time man."
Chucho (Vultress)
SPB: What is your assessment of the current status of progressive rock as a genre?
Chucho: I would say that progressive music is somewhat blossoming right now. More and more I'm seeing bands incorporating new ideas and pulling from both past and present, especially on the metal side. I think that what we're seeing is a rise of progressive sentiment in the public consciousness. I think people are thirsting for more challenging music.
