Thank you for having time to answer some questions. First of all, introduce us the band Bangbakc. What does the band name refer to? 

Aaron:  And thank you for taking the time to ask us some questions! So before the band started, I used to use “bangback” as a term for when you haven’t had sex in a really long time, and then get lucky and just really go to town one night and wake up the next day with a sore back. The switching of the “ck” to “kc” was just kind of an inside joke and an homage to our friend Aliyah Boucher, who used to make these hilarious typos on facebook. Another friend of ours described her typing strategy as just sort of “laying her hands on the keyboard and just mashing out approximations of words and sentences.” This became a long running joke that still makes its way onto our facebook page quite often.

Dylan: Inside jokes get out of hand easily. This is a prime example of that. The only issue with this one is that folks sometimes try to overpronounce it. “Bang-bach” kind of creates an association with classical music that we aren’t going to attempt until we release the greatest hits album.

Brill: we r brangbaks and were he7re to tell you your on a sprace ship traped in a computerizer.

Would you mind telling us about your musical background, as well as education?

Aaron: I’ve been playing guitar since I was 12, when my dad brought me home a classical acoustic guitar from one of his visits to Mexico. Initially, I took some lessons but just kind of taught myself after that. I would say my real musical education came from my time playing bass in The Mercury Tree, because I would have to practice playing impossibly difficult parts just to keep up with Ben and Connor. Ben is also a very knowledgable musician and taught me most of the theory that I know now. (Ben plays some really awesome keys and synths on track 6)

Dylan: I got a baby drum kit when I was two or three, and a proper drum kit when I was eleven. My mom and dad had some crossover in their music taste, raising me on Rush, King Crimson, King’s X, healthy portions of classic rock. In high school I rebelled and started voraciously devouring the Hydrahead Records catalog, drawing a lot of influence from pretty intense music, such as Kayo Dot, Daughters, and Converge.

Brill: been playing the bass of sprace since before any of you were born.

You recently released your second album titled “Lot Lizards.” How was the creative process for it?

Aaron: This album was a very collaborative effort. We would either come up with scratch parts and then bring them to the band or just jam and record the jams, and make songs out of the parts we liked. The album’s story is about a premium cable TV show called “Lot Lizards” that begins to gain sentience, and then things get really weird and David Lynch-y.  And I think we came up with most of that concept after driving home from the SeaProg festival, having smoked a bit of grass beforehand, of course.

Dylan:  It was very different. “Echocomplexities” was a handful of songs that were at least mostly written by Aaron before I heard them, or even before Brill jumped on bass. “Lot Lizards” was absolutely a collaborative effort. Notably, I remember that the first track was such a monster during the writing process that we wrote out a song map, detailing the arrangements. There was also a lot more experimentation with production as well, like on “commercial break”. We initially planned for this band to be a dream pop outfit, to serve as a break from our prog bands. When the writing started for this album, that pretense was abandoned almost entirely.

Brill: im not sure how it happened im pretty sure i was there when we made these songs. Its hard keeping trakc of time on a space ship. I do remember driving home from seaprog and conceptualizing the albums early concept whilst aaron was joking about lot lizards.

“Lot Lizards” is a very eclectic release. What do you think I should describe Bangbakc as to my friends? The real question here is, what do you guys consider the music of Bangbakc to be?

Aaron:  For a while now we’ve been referring to ourselves as “heirloom stoner prog”, because we grow a lot of heirloom tomatoes at our house.  Lately I’ve been using “surrealistic stoner prog” or “kraut prog” but you can describe us however you’d like!

Brill: bangbakc is a music sounding band.

Dylan: It should probably be called impressionistic prog, if you want to call it something specific. If you focus on the individual elements, there are krautrock, surf, and stoner rock portions that are adjacent to one another, but its a lot to take in, and it is presented as kind of a collage. There’s enough variety there for it to be assessed on a song-by-song basis, but part of what makes it effective I think is the fact that it is all presented sequentially without a whole lot of breathing room amidst the twists and turns.

This eclectic music must have a wide range of influences and inspiration. Would you guys mind enlightening us as to some of the influences you haven’t mentioned already?

Brill: I dont know man ask salmon b jammin

Aaron: For me, I would say my biggest influence was David Bowie and Robert Fripp’s work in the late 70s and early 80s. But we also were inspired by this random vinyl record we found in the trash called “big rig hits”, which is just this hilarious trucker country album, which sort of flavored “Lot Lizards” as this sort of surrealistic western. We were also inspired by RIO-flavored bands like Magma, Thinking Plague and Hamster Theatre. Actually, we were lucky enough to have Dave Willey of Hamster Theatre/Thinking Plague guest on this album, which we are eternally thankful for. Every Time I Die had some influence on me personally, and I think it’s probably pretty obvious that we all adore The Mars Volta.

Dylan: The various incarnations of “Omar-jazz” definitely play a huge part in our respective musical backgrounds, and we have drawn a considerable amount of influence from seventies and eighties prog, as Aaron mentioned. I am a huge fan of Swans, Pere Ubu, Jeff Buckley, Codeine, and just about anything that the members of Slint and Cave In have had their hands on.

Can you think of some moments where musical homages have been included in Bangbakc’s tracks? 

Aaron: For me there are definitely a lot of shameless Bowie and Fripp homages.

Dylan: The Theme to Lot Lizards has some Twin Peaks flavor to it, and various vocal harmonies that we have employed over our two albums have been compared to Qui and Soundgarden. I’m not sure how much of that was intentional, but I suppose you are what you eat. Badmotorfinger is a good car album.

What’s the live experience with Bangbakc like? Any plans for a tour somewhere down the road? 

Aaron: Live, we are pretty intense, and play mostly house shows these days…almost a punk band that decided to play a prog band’s music. We recorded almost all of “Lot Lizards” live and then added layers, so some of that live intensity is palatable on the album. I personally am not a huge fan of touring, or really emotionally or mentally equipped for it, but we have certainly talked about doing some baby tours, given we are able to set up the right shows. They’d mostly be house/DIY/all ages shows, because we usually scare bar crowds and don’t like dealing with bar promoters and such.  But there will probably be a west coast tour in the works sooner than later. And we will certainly let everyone know when that happens.

Dylan:  I’d say that, for a prog band with very little metal influence, we are very loud. We’ve never toured as bangbakc, but we have had consecutive shows before, and we’ll likely continue to do that sort of thing until we are able to waltz across the country playing nothing but DIY venues or houses. We were tired of feeding the booking monster before forming this band, and we don’t like turning down.

Brill:  i want to tour all the time lets do it guys

What have you been listening to recently? Also, would you tell us what your all-time favorite albums are? 

Aaron: Lately I’ve been listening to a ton of Secret Machines and the Curtis brothers’ offshoot projects. I’ve also been rediscovering some of Omar Rodriguez’s lost solo records.  Also Tears for Fears and Kate Bush, and other related 80s new wave stuff. And always David Bowie, always. My all time favorites are probably Frances The Mute by The Volta, Red/Lark’s Tongue/Discipline by King Crimson, Station to Station by David Bowie, and probably 10 Silver Drops and the self-titled Secret Machines records.

Brill:  ive been listening to lot lizards alot trying to finish the mix for you good people. Also listening through mixes for my latest project which is a soundtrack for an independent film.

Dylan: We’ve been binging on glossy 80’s pop and Krautrock lately, and I’ve been spinning Death Grips constantly. I’ve also got Palimpest by our friends in The Human Machine on repeat. Some of my all time favorites include: ( ) by Sigur Ros, Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk by Jeff Buckley, Spiderland by Slint, Talk Like Blood by 31Knots, Charmer by Breather Resist, and the Mare EP by Mare.

What kind of advice would you impart to other musicians? Do you have any words of wisdom or inspiration for other artists trying to make their mark? 

Aaron: I don’t know how qualified I am to give out advice, but generally I would say just be fearlessly yourself. Take as many chances as you can, and explore your different musical personalities. Don’t be afraid to try something new because it “doesn’t fit your band.”  Never make the same album twice.

Brill: Advice to other musicians : balance your drug use with a decent amount of exercise and other drugs.

Dylan: Don’t compromise your artistic vision for anything, or anyone. If you want to make a mark, make sure you’re making the mark that you want to make. Just because some people want to listen to McDonald’s music doesn’t mean you need to make it.

Thank you again for agreeing to do this interview. I think I’m out of questions, so feel free to add anything you like.

Aaron: Thank you for listening to our record! We hope you enjoyed listening to it and by all means, feel free to share it with friends in as many ways as you can. If you dig the record but are unable to buy a copy for financial reasons, send us a message and we’ll shoot you a download code. We know the struggle!

Dylan: Writing about spraceships and creating a mythology is far more creatively fulfilling than singing about ex girlfriends or politics.

“Lot Lizards” is available now from Bandcamp. Like Bangbakc on Facebook.

Serbian instrumental prog rock band Daar just released their debut album “One-Way Expedition,” a very eclectic release that has to offer so much. As they put it, DAAR uses “all available musical tools to tell different stories with different atmospheres and emotional territories.”

The band was very kind to introduce us to their work.

Thank you for having time to answer some questions. First of all, introduce us the band Daar. What does the band name refer to?

Hello music lovers! First of all we want to thank you for showing interest for our work and let us introduce to your readers (hopefully our future listeners).

In today’s world people often take for granted everything that we have nowadays and that let us live quality and happy life. We often act like we have right to take everything that we want, as much as we want, regardless consequences that might have to other people and environment. In this atmosphere we lose sense of gratitude. We often forgot that almost everything we have is a gift. Gift from God, gift from nature, ancestors, other people…

DAR means gift on Serbian language, so using that name we try to be more aware of that fact and at the same time become more opened to surrounding world which than becomes our source of inspiration. By adding another “A” and becoming DAAR, we wanted to give this name a unique stamp and make it sound more musical.

Would you mind telling us about your musical background, as well as education?

DAAR has been created as some sort of reunion of old friends musicians. We all cooperated on some projects in the past. Nebojsa (drums) and Oliver (lead guitar) have been members of one of the first progressive bands in Serbia called “Talisman”. Band was active in 90’s, but situation in ex-Yugoslavia during that period (war and economic crises) prevented us from bringing our work to wider audience.

After that period we all went separate ways. We all thought that book is closed… but after early death of our bass player Tomovic Aleksandar, we wanted to spend some time together and honor his life by playing some of our songs again. But chemical reaction started again and we found ourselves in creative state again… after that, Sasa Kostic (bass) joined the band together with his brother Ivan (guitar). DAAR has been completed.

Except Sasa Kostic, none of us has formal musical education. We all started to play instruments purely from enthusiasm as a teenagers. So at that time it was already too late for formal education. However, being in love with music, we spent a lot of time learning from all possible sources.

We had to find the way by ourselves.

You recently released your debut album “One-Way Expedition.” How was the creative process for it?

As I mentioned, once we gathered again, everything started like some chemical reaction. In some way, we were observers of what was happening. 🙂 And when you feel that wave of creativity, you don’t have other option but to stand on the board and surf. Interesting thing is that only after some pieces are already created, we seat back and analyze the whole thing. Then, it turns out that there was already deep meaning in music we created even before it came to our conscious mind. We all really have some secret life deep inside.

“One-Way Expedition” is a very eclectic release. What do you think I should describe Daar as to my friends? The real question here is, what do you guys consider the music of Daar to be?

If you try to analyze impacts that world has on you, from widest possible perspective, you can recognize that they are completely different in nature. If you try to give appropriate response to that as an artist, you need to master some isomorphic skills. Regarding that, we like to experience completely unrelated styles of music and other arts. So that approach influences our creative process as well.

This eclectic music must have a wide range of influences and inspiration. Would you guys mind enlightening us as to some of the influences you haven’t mentioned already?

DAAR is basically guitar centric band. So, our generation has its first baby cry in cradle of late 20th century guitar heroes, while legends like Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen etc. already played with their toys.

So, that was our first milk as guitar players. Later on we tried to build our unique voice and style, we discovered other musical styles, like classical music, jazz etc. We were listening and learning from all type of musicians but we still like to play with quite a bit of distortion 🙂

Can you think of some moments where musical homages have been included in Daar’s tracks?

First song on this album, Portal, has a lot of changes, quickly touching different musical grounds (Heavy Metal, Flamenco, Latino, some Jazzy moments and few more if you listen carefully). Just like traveling through some wormhole, with warp speed and fast passing by different worlds. This song might be considered homages to various music styles.

Also closing song “One-Way Expedition” in the second part touches the ground of classical music. Basic reason is that at that moment whole album transcends into more spiritual sphere. We tried to achieve that by removing intense drumming and introducing some classical instruments (strings, flute, glockenspiel and harp) which make song becoming more fluid and esoteric.

What’s the live experience with Daar like? Any plans for a tour somewhere down the road?

It’s been a while since we stand in front of an audience. Now, when album is released we are eager to see how it will sound live. Basically, material is really playable… so we think that it has a lot of potential for live performance.

For now we can plan concerts in Serbia but we hope that there will be opportunities to present our music to people all over the world in the near future.

What have you been listening to recently? Also, would you tell us what your all-time favorite albums are?

The best thing with music is that there are always some new artists with fresh and unique ideas.

When it comes to guitar it’s amazing how it constantly evolves. One of the new artists that we are listening these days is David Maxim Micic. He recently released two new EPs: Ego and Eco. And there are always some interesting musicians involved in his projects. We like his music a lot.

Jakub Zitecky is also another young guitarist and composer that makes his way with unique approach and extraordinary playing skills.

Mokhatar Samba – extraordinary Afro drummer. List is long…

And it’s always nice to taste completely different atmosphere by listening to classics like Debussy or Philip Glass or whatever YouTube random engine brings to you 🙂
Some of the best albums of all time for us could be:

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway – Genesis
Head Hunters – Herbie Hancock
Passion and Warfare – Steve Vai
Angel dust – Faith no more
Animals as leaders – Animals as leaders
And many more…

What kind of advice would you impart to other musicians? Do you have any words of wisdom or inspiration for other artists trying to make their mark?

Music is same as life. If you are mentally healthy person you want to live your life. 🙂 You can experience every aspect of it and enjoy all the moments no matter if there is someone to share it with you or not. You can enjoy being alone or being with few friends or bunch of people.

Same thing with music. If you love to play or compose, and you can’t resist that urge, you are already an artist. Are you successful? Doesn’t matter, one adjective more or less… 🙂

It’s always nice to know that other people enjoy your work… but if it’s only one person, it’s OK. It’s not just one person, it is one whole world. The main thing is that you do whatever feels natural to you, because, only that way, you can use your instrument to really connect with other people, rather than just play it (which is also cool).

Thank you again for agreeing to do this interview. I think I’m out of questions, so feel free to add anything you like.

Thank you for letting us give a quick introspective into our creative process. What is of more importance is that you presented our work to people that like progressive approach to music. We all try to move boundaries of playing and composing a little bit further. This is collective task of all musicians involved in this approach. If we give our contribution to that task, that would be a great achievement. If there is someone out there that will enjoy our music or maybe get inspired for his/her own creativity we would consider our mission successful. Anyway, we already had a great time creating this album and we want more. 🙂

“One-Way Expedition” is availably from Bandcamp for measly €5.