Austin Sound

This weekend, the Black Angels will present Psych Fest 2 at the Radio Room (formerly Bourbon Rocks on Sixth St.). Though only the Fest’s second incarnation, it has already blossomed into a three day event with over 30 bands, including headliners A Place to Bury Strangers, Sky Sunlight Saxon of the Seeds, and locals the Golden Dawn performing their 1968 psych classic, Power Plant. And of course, the Black Angels and scores of other fantastic Austin bands will be joining in on the fun. We talked to Angel’s guitarist Christian Bland earlier this week as he made preparations at the Radio Room, asking him about the past year’s experience teaming up with Roky Erickson (with whom they’ll be playing at the Austin Music Awards), the current psych scene, and the band’s plans for the Fest in the future. Psych Fest starts this Friday, March 13.

Interview: The Black Angels

Austin Sound: We’re really excited about this weekend
Christian Bland: Yeah, man. It’s going to be great. I’m actually up at this place right now checking it out for the first time.
AS: Well, I actually wanted to ask since it’s going to be the first kind of public show at the Radio Room, what’s the setup look like?
CB: All this week it’s construction, so we won’t know actually until Friday!
AS: Is it going to be outside or inside?
CB: It’s going to be outside. It was Bourbon Rocks last year during SXSW and they had events going on. So right now it pretty much looks exactly how it did last year.

AS: Before we get into talking about the Fest a little bit, it’s been a hell of a year for you guys. Obviously the album, but also pairing up with Roky [Erickson]. How did that come about?
CB: The way that it kind of started was last year during SXSW we played for his Ice Cream Social. That kind of planted the seed, and we were talking to his manager that it would be cool if we could back him sometime. We love the 13th Floor Elevators, obviously. And when we were out touring on the west coast with the Warlocks in July, we got a call from Roky’s manager asking if we wanted to back him for a tour down the west coast in October. So right when we got home from our tour with the Warlocks, we started practicing with Roky for probably about a couple of months, and then we ready to go! It was interesting, because since we were getting to play with him, we wanted to play more 13th Floor Elevators songs, so we actually had to kind of re-teach him some of those songs. He hadn’t played them in like 30 years. But we learned the first five songs off the first 13th Floor Elevators album. It was amazing. Alex played the electric jug.

AS: Do you generally play it pretty straight with Elevators’ sound, or did y’all have the opportunity to add your own flourishes.
CB: I think we actually did both. We tried to keep it true to what the 13th Floor Elevators sounded like, but we infused the Black Angels sound into it also.

AS: Do you know if Roky was familiar with y’all’s stuff?
CB: Beforehand, I don’t think he was actually. He called us the Blacks for a while, the Black Crows. It finally sunk in about half way through the tour that we were the Black Angels. [laughs]

AS: Nice! What’s the deal, too, with the album of his stuff that y’all are putting out?
CB: Well, there’s actually no plans for releasing this stuff yet. Darren [Roky’s manager] gave us 60 Roky rarities, songs that he’s recorded all through the years, from before 13th Floor Elevators, to during, to after while he was at the mental institute. We picked 10 of our favorite from the 60, and we went and recorded with Erik Wofford, who recorded both of our albums. The original idea was to have Roky come in and sing over them, but I’m not sure how that is going to work out. We tried to do it on one song called “Bo Diddley the Headhunter,” and it was kind of challenge. It almost took a full day for him to remember, because a lot of these songs are just so rare that he doesn’t even remember them.

AS: What was that like for y’all, at that moment of getting that treasure trough from one of your idols?
CB: Yeah, it was amazing! It was awesome to hear all of these songs. One of them, we slowed the tape down – it was called “Thank God for Civilazation” – and we were listening to it with Erik and it was a little bit out of tune. [Roky] had just picked up the guitar and wrote the song. So we had to slow it down just a little bit to pitch it to a key that we could play in, and we actually played over his track that he recorded in the Sixties, the drums, guitar, and all that over it. So it was this combining of the old with the new, and it just really sounds great. But yeah, it’s going to be quite a project I think, and I’m not sure exactly what we’re going to do with these songs. Five of them were full band, and then five of them were more acoustic. So it could be like two EPs, one a full band electric EP, and the other an acoustic.

AS: To talk about the Fest a bit, why did y’all decide to extend it to three days this year?
CB: It just kind of happened naturally. I had so much interest from bands wanting to play this. A lot of the bands that are playing are friends that we’ve played shows with all around the US, and they were interested in coming. So yeah, it’s about 30 bands and all of them are good friends of ours, so it just happened really naturally.

AS: There are a lot of really different variations on psychedelic stuff going on in Austin right now, so who are some of y’all’s favorites, or local bands that y’all think are really interesting right now.
CB: Well, I guess some of my favorites, I like Shapes Have Fangs a lot. They’ll be playing the fest and they’ll be Sky Saxon of the Seeds’ backing band. My favorite Texas band for a while has been the Strange Boys. I really like those guys. We used to play with them almost three or four years ago when they lived up in Dallas. They’re so young! I remember they used to come to our shows and bring their tape recorders and record us playing and I was like, “Man, I’d probably be doing that same thing,” so there was a bond from the get go. Some other cool Texas bands are Indian Jewelry, whose also playing on the bill. And Psychic Ills, they were originally from Austin, two of the members went to University of Texas but then they moved off to New York City. That was a band I was trying to get on this bill so badly, and it looked like they were going to come, but then they couldn’t.

AS: Yeah, you talk psychedelic music these days, and there so many bands that are tapping into that and taking it in so many different directions.
CB: Yeah! Well, psychedelic is so open, it’s about creativity and experimentation.

AS: How did the idea to have the Golden Dawn do Power Plant come about?
CB: Well, I was trying to book bands to play this thing, and I just wondered what the Golden Dawn were up to. So I randomly sent them a message through myspace, and lo and behold, that very same day, I get an email back from George Kinney, saying that though all the members of the Golden Dawn aren’t still alive, that he could find people to play with and they would love to play Power Plant. It was just a total shot in the dark to see what would come from it, and it came to fruition. I’m really excited. They’re one of my favorite bands that came out of the late Sixties here in Austin.

AS: It really just brings the whole potential of the Psych Fest to life.
CB: And that’s really what I was just trying to do, bring the old together with the new!

AS: As an offshoot of that, if you had the opportunity, who would you love to see do an album for the next Psych Fest.
CB: Oh man. I tell you what, I think I’d like to continue in the tradition of the International Artists label and try to get Red Krayola to play next year. And ideally, I would like to get the Black Angels and Roky to be able to play. That was a goal from the start, to have him headline on of the nights, but unfortunately it didn’t work out because he has a lot of stuff during SXSW. But next year, Psych Fest might not be the weekend before SXSW, we might have it perhaps in April. This year, it’s already starting to take off into it’s own thing, a lot of the bands are just flying in for Pysch Fest and then leaving. The original idea was that bands would come the weekend before SXSW, and we would kind of jumpstart them and get them a little cash for the week. But now a lot of these bands are leaving before SXSW even starts. So it’s slowly becoming it’s own thing, which is pretty cool.

AS: Well any thought of maybe taking a version of the Fest out on tour or anything?
CB: Oh man, that would be amazing! I would love that. I think it could happen! But no, not yet, it’s still in its infant stages. But I have confidence that it’s going to grow into something really cool. I don’t think there’s any better place for this festival to come out of than Austin.