The Black Lips look ahead & back and find out: For a good collective experience, it simply needs something … “Acrobatics”.
For the second time, the microfestival of the Galician Lager beer brand Estrella Galicia comes to Berlin’s BI Nuu for an event. After a successful festival start in March this year, with the Mercury Prize winners English Teacher, it was now the infamous Black Lips that take the stage. We meet Cole Alexander, Jared Zwille, Jeff Clarke, Rosow and Oakley Munson before their show for an extensive conversation.
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Formerly vs. today: these are the Black Lips
Founded in 1999, the garage rock band from Atlanta made itself a fixed name in the indie rock scene with albums such as Good Bad not Evil (2007). Even today, after over twenty years and ten studio albums, they continue to play their music in front of sold -out concert halls. The Black Lips are generally not only known for their non-polished sound, but also for their eccentric live shows. There it was often peed into the crowd, drum sets and guitars set fire or also taken chickens on the stage-but the band seems to have grown up.
“It was a phase when we were younger and fresher,” explains band founder and front man Cole Alexander. “Something like that hasn’t happened for a long time. Apart from that, we never pissed into anyone’s face,” he laughs. Whereupon the press referred to at the time, and what the band is associated with today is probably an acrobatic act in which Alexander urinated himself in his mouth and then spat on the fans. “You have to have been there,” said Oakley Munson, the drummer of the group and smiles. “Live shows need rituals, otherwise the collective feeling would not come across all experience. In the church there are prayers and incense, with us it was fireworks and, yes … acrobatics,” adds Saxophonist Zumow.
There is a pleasant atmosphere in the backstage area of the BI Nuu: eating, being joked, stories are told and taught. Like close friends or even siblings, they sit on the green leather sofas and tell about the current tour, crazy gigs and weird experiences with event locations. “Once we were accommodated in a caravan that must have stood in the heat all day. It smelled as if someone had spread mayonnaise and fermented eggs in it – it was disgusting,” reports Jeff Clarke, the guitarist of Black Lips for many years.
Perfect (from) mixed: the new album Season of the Peach
Since its foundation, the band has changed its crew a few times, filed on its sound, stormed the charts, left them again and climbed them again. Today the Black Lips have a considerable discography. Her eleventh studio album Season of the Peach will be released on September 19. “We are totally excited to soon share the record with the public,” says Munson. “The last LP was a typical studio production. We couldn’t play a lot on the album as we had recorded it. With the new project, we have more the chance to play as we did in the studio.”
The group spent several months in Munson’s home studio in the Catskills to work on new music. “Usually you book a studio for a maximum of two weeks and you rush through the recording,” says Rosow. With the new record, however, the five musicians were able to take more time. “We lived together like on a farm. Cole dug holes for a fence that we built, Zumi planted garlic and ducks and chickens were constantly running around,” the Black Lips remembered. After all the years and change in the band line -up, they seem to have found a formation that has been harmonizing for more than ten years.
Garage rock meets New Wave Pop
Her new LP combines the different musical elements that the Black Lips have successfully acquired in their two decades. Musically, the band has actually stayed in the garage rock since its beginnings, but was always inspired by other genres and refined their style with commercial details without losing their own character. The upcoming release is like a kind of smorgasbord of the musical band history: Garage rock meets New Wave Pop there, and Rauer Country merges with euphoric Western soundtrack.
With Season of the Peach, the Black Lips created a work that captures both the wild spirit of their early years and the mature sound of their current cast. And you could also experience that live: at the sold -out Son Estrella Galicia Festival on September 9th, the rock band heated up the audience quite nicely. Together with the Berlin-based band Jaguar No Me and the Catalan Trio Diamante Negro, the microfestival celebrated a successful event evening.
Son Estrella Galicia Festival: More dates
On November 27th, the Kreuzberg Gretchen with the singer σtella will go to the next indoor festival round. Over this link there are still tickets for the show. A fourth appointment is also clear: On December 13, the Lambrini Girls will play in BI Nuu. Further support artists will be announced.