THE OSCILLATION: OFFICIAL AUSTIN PSYCH FEST 2014 INTERVIEW

Revolt of the Apes’ interview with The Oscillation – given the dubious honor of Revolt of the Apes’ “Band of the Week” this past year – is up now at the official Austin Psych Fest 2014 website. Read the entire interview there, and look for the complete text to show up here in the very near future. Here’s an excerpt:

What energy or inspiration do you feel you draw from other musicians? How do you feel that energy is transferred to the recordings of The Oscillation? Can you cite any specific experience in which a collaborative musical effort influenced your approach to music you made in the future?

I guess you end up taking something from everything you listen to whether consciously or unconsciously. There’s so many bands or artists that I look up to and speaking for myself you just hear all these amazing other records or players and take as much as you can from it and try to consolidate it all somehow. I would never expect to be on the same level as most of the artists I love but that’s the big part of making music, having something to aspire to even if you never achieve it. I think you can feel when someone is channeling sound or emotions that resonate with you and once that happens it’s inevitable that it will influence you. I was always learning different instruments but I didn’t really know how to cohere it until I’d built up some kind of palate of influences to draw from. I was learning saxophone for a while at school and I was pretty bad at it but I persevered for a few years. My teacher was really into jazz and was trying to get me into improvisation. Sometimes a whole lesson would just be him playing piano on some repeated chord progression and encourage me to play over it. Even though at the time I didn’t really click with it, I’m sure that it must have filtered through when it came to composition later on and how to interact playing live with other musicians. In a way that was quite a big deal in retrospect, being pushed to improvise and come up with my own ideas. He must have had a lot of patience or had earplugs in, ha ha …

Revolt of the Apes is pleased, stoked and chuffed to support Austin Psych Fest 2014 through a series of interviews with many of the artists involved, answering the kind of ridiculous questions you’ve come to know and – maybe – love. Many more coming soon.