Earthling Society
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Interviews
Forum Description: Original interviews with Prog artists (which are exclusive to Prog Archives)
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=70308
Printed Date: December 22 2024 at 21:46
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Earthling Society
Posted By: toroddfuglesteg
Subject: Earthling Society
Date Posted: August 14 2010 at 11:57
|
The Earthling Society was formed in January 2004 in Fleetwood, just north of Liverpool in England where singer songwriter/guitarist Fred Laird and David Fyall met up with drummer Jon Blacow. Disillusioned with the current music trends and sharing a love of 70's progressive rock, krautrock and 60's psychedelia the band built a primitive 8 track recording studio in a corner of a disused glass factory. Influenced by their heroes Funkadelic/Ash Ra Tempel/Can/Amon Duul II and Hawkwind they were ignoring any commercial intention and started recording what became their debut album purely as they had the ability to do so. The rest is history. I got in touch with Fred Laird for the Earthling Society story. ################################ Our Earthling Society biography covers the
Earthling Society history so I am not going to torture you with questions
about that. But why did you choose the Earthling Society name ? The name for the group came from our drummer
Jon. It is supposed to be a kind of community group that bases it's ideals on
vegetarian-ism, paganism, poetry and music. It was never meant to have limks
with spacerock. In fact when we formed the group we had no intention (and
still have'nt) of writing songs about space or aliens etc. To start with; please give me your (long or brief)
thoughts and lowdowns on.......
 Albion from 2005 Albion was never meant to see light of day as an
album. It was 3 musicians bored with the slog of trying to get somewhere in
the music industry with previous projects. We recorded those songs
solely for our enjoyment on 8 trk in a little glass warehouse, drinking
beer and smoking and just having a general mess around. I mean the
majority of the songs are so fragile that the whole album seems to fall
apart at the seams. We did some strange things such as removing the
drummers headphones halfway through 'outsideofintuime' so he couldnt hear the
backing track. The whole song becomes totally dissonant. It was just fun.
Julian Cope heard it and gave it album of the month on Head Heritage, then
Nasoni records wanted to release it and the band for real was born. It's
become a lo-fi cult classic of sorts. I love the album, it brings fond
memories.  Plastic Jesus And The Third Eye Blind from
2006 Not keen on this album to be honest. I has some
of our best songs on it (Kosmik Suite No.2 for example) but the innocence of
recording on 8 trk as a mess around failed big time. In
hindsight, a trip to a good studio was what this
album warranted. It would have changed a lot of things for us and it
would have been a killer album with a smarter production and a change of
keyboard sounds.
 Tears Of Andromeda - Black Sails Against The Sky
from 2007 We went 24 trk on this. We were
having problems in the band. Our keyboardist left and our bass player had
some personal issues and departed the scene for a while. The album is
just myself and drummer Jon. We went back to the Albion style of
automatic writing. It's a difficult album and has received mixed reviews.
It's so very dense, a kind of late night feel. We was knocked out
when Stuart Maconnie playlisted 'Lucifer Starlight' for his BBC6
Freakzone show. It's a very krautrock album. Reminds me of German oak or Amon
Duul at their murkiest. A lot of people just found it hard to swallow...I dont
care, I'm very proud of it.  Beauty And The Beast from 2008 This should have been a solo album. Not a
Earthling Society album at all really. Very British 60's psych-pop and a tad
overlong. It's got some good songs on it though, I think we were aiming
for a crossover market...It did'nt work!!  Sci-Fi Hi-Fi from 2009 Probably our most accomplished album. Again all
tongue in cheek...there's nothing Hi-Fi about it ha-ha. It's our bunker
mentality coming through, cold Northern paranoia. Don't trust studio's, don't
trust engineers etc. We'd just sound like any other band of the genre and that
is something we are not. It's a great album and it got some great
reviews...." a jarring sense of eerie isolation" as one reviewer put it. The
nail was firmly hit on the head with that on.
What is your latest update and your plans for
this and next year ? A new label if possible. We are in the process
of recording a new album with a co-lead female singer, a saxophonist and a
classical violinist. It's coming together brilliantly. Very dark acid folk
with Black Widow style of prog. the album is very occult driven with
rural stories of the Pendle witches, scarecrows, Halloween, the little people
etc. I think it's going to be our best...maybe our masterpiece!! How is your writing and creative processes ?
I basically write the songs. A very natural
process. All done on an acoustic guitar singing twaddle until a melody comes
along. The lyrics are formed around the melody and it's presented to the band
to bash around.
How would you describe your music and which
bands would you compare your music with ? Acid folk rock prog...certainly not spacerock.
Not too sure who we sound like to be honest. It's everything in a blender. A
bit of Comus, a sprinkle of Black Widow, a dash of Barclay James Harvest
seasoned with Graham Bond's Holy magick and dusted off with Syd Barrett
and Roky Erickson
How is the gigs situation today ? We just don't do enough to be honest. We want to
get out to Europe more. Italy, Holland and Germany inparticular. I'd like to
do a mini-Euro tour.
How is the distribution of your albums ? Fine I think Cadiz dist in the UK and Clearspot
in Europe. The last two albums are both available on Amazon etc What is the lyrical topics on your albums ? Well Sci-Fi Hi-Fi was about paranoia brought on
by the heavy use of drugs, a Messiah complex, schizophrenia and religious
cults. It was inspired by the Charles Manson book 'The shadow over
Santa Susana' Stephen Wright's 'Meditations in green' PKD's 'Valis' and
Royal Trux's 'Twin infintives' album on heavy rotation. The new album is about
the occult, follore, paganism, A very Autumnal feel to the album. Imagine
a Ray Bradbury novel like 'The October country' and Your nearly
there.
To wrap
up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this interview ? Thanks for your time. watch out for the new E-S
album in 2011..... Thank you to Fred for this interview Their PA profile is http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=4392 - and their homepage is http://www.earthlingsociety.co.uk/ -
|
Replies:
Posted By: Rivertree
Date Posted: August 14 2010 at 14:25
What!  Fred is disappointed about 'Beauty And The Beast'? I liked it very much ... and strongly recommend to listen once more  ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Rivertree" rel="nofollow">  |