Spider Rockets, a new band from New Jersey, USA, recently released their new album, Ever After (review can be found here).
First, how would you describe your sound, and what bands have influenced Spider Rockets’ sound?
Loud Rock that runs the gamut from caustic to the otherworldly — with vocals that can be haunting to witchy, bitchy to sweeping, and grating to seductive. I guess you can say Zep, Sabbath, and AC/DC are our roots. But, you’ll find influences from GnR, Metallica, Nirvana, Godsmack & System Of A Down. And, from time to time, Stevie Ray Vaughn and some Southern Rock, among other stuff.
Hard Rock with a female voice has, apart from a few exceptions, always been a bit of a peculiarity. How do you feel about the male-dominated genre?
I don’t dwell on the fact that there are many fewer females than males in Rock music —- what’s the point? I love making music and my music of choice happens to be loud Rock. So that’s what I do.
The direction of your album is somewhat dominated by your voice, but also the drums are very much in the foreground. Was that a conscious choice?
The vocals were kinda buried on our last LP — mixed in with the rest of the instruments. So this time, we did consciously choose to put vocals out front. It’s interesting that you think the drums are prominent, too …
How did you come to pick “Helter Skelter” by the Beatles to cover? Are you a big Beatles fan?
We started playing around with “Helter Skelter” at a practice a while back. To be honest, it was kind of a random choice. The song has such a cool, wacked energy, and we loved messing with it. One thing led to another and we recorded it and put it on our new CD, Ever After.
Your Myspace website was hacked into, it appears. On your Myspace page you seem to have a lot of friends (many of them seem quite strange). How do you feel about the information society we live in today and the purpose it serves for today’s youth?
We don’t find our myspace friends strange. We have a diverse group and that’s a very cool thing. About the “information society” question: without getting too deep — we think the Web can be a great tool for communication & information.
How do you feel about musicians mixing music and political attitudes?
I don’t have a problem with it — to each, their own.
You have been to Berlin, Germany, for PopKomm. How did that gig come about, and what did you gain from it? Was this your first trip to Europe?
We put our name is the hat for Popkomm and got picked. As it turns out, we were one of four North American bands chosen to perform, so we felt pretty honored. As an experience, it was a great start for us in Europe and we look forward to returning and doing more there.
What are the band’s touring plans?
We are starting regionally and expanding outward.
What else does the future hold for the band?
Touring, writing, and recording.
Is there any final message you’d like to convey to your fans and to Metal Express Radio readers around the globe?
We love creating and playing music. We are not everything to everyone, though, and are not interested in trying to make people like us through interviews like this. We have our own sound and some love it and some don’t. That’s the way things roll. It’s a big world out there with many sub-genres within genres of music — probably a lot of stuff that’s not what you are used to hearing. What’s pretty cool, though, is people that keep an open mind and listen.
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