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An Interview With |
Conducted by Kim Alexander
per e-mail June, 1998
| Last Sigh:
First of all, I'd like to ask you about the Invisible Tour.
Was this your first big tour to be involved with? How did it go for you until you hit New
York, that is, did you have any specific venue you liked the most? What was the most
enjoyable time you had? How did you feel touring with so many bands off Invisible? Dave Wright: It was a lot of fun
but at the same time very grueling! in order to be able to pay for the buses the tour had
to do gigs EVERY DAY - so after playing improv jams every night for so many weeks... you
get burnt out and bitter! I must say that I'm completely in love with the entire FM
Einheit gang(mufty, zaky, saskia, gru,
sean), Lee (bagman), Spybey/Elaine (DVOA),
Jim & Phil(Phylr) and the Pigface
gang...and I miss them all dearly. |
 Read Last Sigh's Review of Not Breathing's debut-CD Sangre Azul |
But at the same time since there
were 5 bands we kinda got shafted - and that's to be expected. I love playing the west
coast - always do. I love the Fenix in Seattle - I'd have to say that's my favorite club
to play! Last Sigh: How long have you been into creating music? Do you have any college education? If so, where and what degrees? Do you have any formal training in music? Dave Wright: I've been making music since I was about 14(I'm 23 now) - but it wasn't until I was about 18 that it actually got interesting. I've taken a few college courses - mainly art classes (art history/printmaking) and veggie cooking classes. no degree yet though. no - no formal training in music what so ever. Last Sigh: Are you
originally from Arizona or were you raised elsewhere? Last Sigh: Has the experience of being stricken with a life threatening illness changed your outlook on life at all? Do you think this situation will change your sound of music you create in the future? Dave Wright: Most definitely - coming that close to death(and actually dying for a minute) rocked my entire world and the people around me. I'm now ready to do anything that I may have put off before to do later... Getting bacterial meningitis wiped out the hearing in my right ear (it's still healing...but... ) so the creation of music is now an entirely different ordeal. Since I'm half deaf I've become VERY anal and when working on music now we take much more time to make sure it sounds good. I cant do improv the way I used to. |
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Last Sigh: How long did it take you to produce The Starry Wisdom? What, if anything, inspired you to do this release? Dave Wright: The tracks from Starry Wisdom were recorded over a 4 year period. We have DATS and DATS and DATS of tracks - up to maybe 12 hours of material. Starry Wisdom was a collection of these tracks that I thought went well together and needed to be released. The inspiration? Well that's a secret... Last Sigh: If you could be in the studio with one band for a month to create music with, what band would that be and why? Dave Wright: Well... I believe that if I was to answer this question it would never happen. Haha that's faith for you. Last Sigh: Are you more comfortable playing live or working in the studio or both? What gear do you use when you play live? Dave Wright: Now that I'm half deaf I'm MUCH more comfortable recording in the studio. But I love playing live and doing improv jams live. We use the same gear in the studio that we do live. As for gear - I use a Roland MC-50 for ALL my sequencing. I've never used a computer for this - even though a lot of people think we do. I use a crappy Emax II sampler and I have a shit load of synths - that might be too long to list here. Also an entire arsenal of acoustic instruments. Last Sigh: Do you have any philosophy associated with your music? Are you interested in any other philosophies about life, past or future scenarios? Dave Wright: Life is what you make of it. Realities can be changed on your own terms. In a very distant subconscious way I believe strongly in magick and making your own realities world. The only thing that makes Humans Human is the ability to be creative and to create. So why do anything else? I also believe that if your life isn't an exciting soap opera - why go on living? As far as I can tell you only live once. Last Sigh: On The Starry Wisdom, disk b = abyss, track 3 "The Sog March" -- this is such an intriguing composition. Would you like to give us a little insight about this track? Dave Wright: "The Sog March" was recorded by me in a very strange time of my life - I was doing a lot of psychedelics and was really into H. P. Lovecraft, frogs and other things that live in the mud. In a way I guess it's meant to transform the listeners mind into that of a evil sea beastie... a sort of transforming mantra. Last Sigh: You are currently living in Arizona. Does being down there influence your music? If so, how? Are you a star gazer? Dave Wright: Definitely - people always ask 'why are you so mellow or why our music is so mellow. It's because we live in the desert. Nothing exciting happens here and we are surrounded by wide open spaces, giant clear blue skies and the best stars in the world (heh). Also the lack of rain here makes us appreciate the rain dearly... Last Sigh: How do you feel about people encoding other musicians music to MP3 format and giving it out to others on the internet for free? Dave Wright: I dunno! I guess it's cool by me - but at the same time it wouldn't be the quality I'd like it - and I'm sure record labels HATE the idea. I'd like to think if someone got an MP3 they might like it and go buy the album/s...but the more I meet people on the internet who are MP3 fiends - I know that's not the case. Last Sigh: What are your plans for Not Breathing in the future? Any side projects going on at all? Would you be interested in doing a track for Last Sigh if we were do publish a compilation? Dave Wright: We are
currently working on a track for the Ant-Zen/Hymen label
that's going to be on a compilation. Also we will start working on a collaboration with
the band P*A*L out of Germany to be released as 10" on Ant-Zen.
Also working on new Not Breathing tracks for a CD on Invisible
in 98. Sure I'm down with doing a track for you folks.
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