Glitter Wizard was formed by
Wendy Stonehenge in Santa Cruz about 8 years ago. Wendy moved to the bay area a
year or two later and visited an oracle. She took his blood and read his tarot,
it was foreseen that Doug Graves and Fancy Cymballs shall be recruited to play
synthesizer and drums respectively. Filling in the rest of the band were
Gayngel on guitar and Arthur Tea on Bass. Gayngel eventually sprouted his wings
and flew to the gay heavens. Lorfin Terrafor soon replaced him on guitar. This line-up
released the first Glitter Wizard 7 Inch (Black Lotus b/w Witches Limbo) and
the Solar Hits LP. Shortly after the release of the LP Arthur Tea left the band.
The oracle visited me in a dream; her head rose out of flaming church and spit
tongues of fire at me as I lay tied to the ground. She burned off the ropes,
setting me free. My only debt to her was to join Glitter Wizard as their new
bass player and thus Kandi Moon was born.
How
does the band go about writing songs?
For most of the early material Wendy wrote the songs out on bass and would bring them to the band. Wendy has a certain idea for how the song will go but the band members write all of their own parts. If we get too off base Wendy will guide us in a particular direction but we are never told specifically how or what to play. As long as it is within the chord progression of the song it is up to us. Recently, Lorfin Terrafor has been sharing the song writing duties with Wendy. Similarly he will bring songs/riffs written on guitar to the band and we will write our parts accordingly. The structure of the song is always up for debate and can be altered. Some parts may be added or deleted depending on the feel of the song. Things always sound different when you add three more instruments and vocals to it. I contributed the song “Sunlit Wolves” to Hunting Gatherers and helped write most of “Space”. It seems as we grow as a band the song writing process has become more collaborative and will continue in that manner.
Clearly,
the band has a great sense of humor.. How did Hunting gatherers title and artwork concept come to life?
As with many of the things
involved with the band, both of these were Wendy’s brainchildren. Whether he
consulted the oracle again I do not know. He could have also been very horny at
the time.
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| Borrowed from www.metalnews.de |
You
just completed a crazy European tour.. can you tell me some of the stories, the
highs and the lows….
This was quite an endeavor.
One that has given us much joy and much stress. A definite highlight was
playing Roadburn, probably one of the greatest festivals that I have had the
honor to be a part of in my musical career. We played last at Stage 01 on the
first day of the festival to a raucous crowd. The show was wild and it was hot
as hell in there. The feeling was electric in that room and I think we rose up
and delivered and excellent performance. We played an awesome show in Kassel,
Germany the day before with Swedish/Norwegian shredders Brutus and partied all
night. Those guys rule! Another highlight was playing with our American buddies
Carlton Melton in Liege, Belgium at La Zone and raged all night. That was a
great show, Carlton Melton are an amazing band and seem to get better all the
time. We hit a rather large bump in the road in Vicenza, Italy. The bump was in
the form of a SAAB hatchback and the van was totalled. We were stranded in
Vicenza for three days and had to cancel the Vicenza, Budapest and Croatia
shows. Luckily the promoter Eric and his friends helped us get all of our gear
to a safe place and arranged a hotel for us. Our driver Simon, had to take the
train to Lithuania to grab a new van and after a couple days of not knowing
whether or not we would be able to continue the tour we were on the road again.
We played a rager in Berlin at White Trash and picked up some cocaine so we
were partying all night. The recording of our set was ridiculously fast and the
sound guy chose not to put anything in the PA except for the keyboards and
vocals and nothing in the monitors. We sang like deaf kids and the instruments
sounded like shit but people seemed to like it, so fuck it. The next night in
Bayreuth, Germany was a really fun show this awesome promoter Peter put on at
this squat/skate park/venue. We played really well and a good amount of locals
came out and were ready to party. The night didn’t end so well for me
specifically. All tour I had refused to skateboard claiming that I would hurt
myself. After we had packed up I headed to the green room to do a final double
check for any left behind gear. I had to walk through the skate park to get
there and my hammered brain decided I was going to skate the park. Bad idea. I
ate massive shit skating this quarter pipe and was pretty sure I broke my ankle
or leg. Lorfin and the rest of the band seemed to believe that I had only
sprained my ankle. I have a high tolerance for pain and when you’re drunk and
the pain is excruciating that is a very bad sign. They carried me to my hotel
room and my girlfriend, Alejandra, nursed me through the night. The next day we
had a 9 hour journey to Copenhagen. Mind you we have a completely full van, so
I had to sit up normally with my feet on the ground for 7 hours, I got to put
my foot up for 2 hours while we were on the ferry, and then back to the car for
another hour. The only pain killers I had were some IB Profin. We pull up to
the venue and the band goes in to check in. Alejandra checks my ankle and it
has swollen to the size of my thigh. I can barely keep my eyes open at this
point because I was in so much pain. We head to the hospital, I was hoping to
get some pain pills or a splint and play the show. The doctor takes one look at
my leg and sends me up to get an x-ray. Turns out I broke my tibia in two
places and my fibula, both of which are clean fractures and the only thing
holding my foot to my leg was skin and muscle. He told me that I would not be
playing at Heavy Days in Doom Town that evening and that I would need surgery.
The band had to play the set without me, but thankfully Dr. Space sat in on
modular synth and Doug playing some of my bass parts on synth. Wendy also
played bass on “Summertime”. I just listened to the recording yesterday and am
damn proud of the dudes, they pulled it together and played a badass set at a
doom festival with no bassist! All in all I spent 7 days in the hospital and
needed 4 hours of surgery with 13 screws to piece my leg back together. I have
been heavily medicated since then and am currently healing at Dr. Space’s place
in Copenhagen. The positive thing is that Denmark has socialized healthcare,
even for dumb foreigners like me, my operation and stay in the hospital were
completely free. I’m a dumb lucky son of a bitch.
How
many new songs did you play on the tour and what are they called?
I
think we played four new songs, “Death of Atlantis”, “UFO LSD”, “Fungal
Visions”, “Circle of Kings” and a cover of Rainbow’s “A Light in the Black”
that was new to us and quickly became one of my favourite songs to play.
I love this new one Death of Atlantis… it seems to be
much more complex and almost like prog rock, comments?
This
song truly unleashes our love for bands like Uriah Heap and is a good example
of the direction the band is headed. We have a couple new songs on deck
including “Smokey God” that take you on an epic journey, rarely repeating
itself throughout. I think we are progressing as a band and accordingly our
song writing and song structure are progressing. I am excited for the new
record and am looking forward to what we will come up with next.
Tell
me about your other band that you have with Lorfin, the guitar player from
Glitter Wizard?
Lorfin and I play in another
band Buffalo Tooth under the assumed names of Sean Grange and Greg Downing.
Lorfin plays drums, I play guitar and sing and our bassist Eric Kang fills out
the three piece assault. I would describe our sound as everything badass with all
the fat cut off. We have released two 7 Inches, our sold out S/T debut and a
split with SF prog\shoegaze shredders Creepers out on Under the Gun Records.
Better snag that one quick, because it is almost sold out as well. Our debut
full length, Gardeners of the Devil’s
Lettuce, will be out on Captcha Records by the end of the summer.
What other bands do the
other guys play in as well….
Every member of Glitter
Wizard has played in tons of bands, Doug Graves has by far the longest roster
of any member. As far as current projects go I think Buffalo Tooth is the only
one still active. Doug and Fancee are in the process of starting new projects.
Recently Fancee played in an outfit called Iron Witch and Wendy played in a
band called Fruit Stripe Band, but I believe both are not active anymore. Wendy
and Doug also play in a Hawkwind cover band called Ad Hawk and Doug has played
in a Devo cover band called Mongoloid for years, both bands are amazing cover
bands.
It seems that the people in
Europe are much more into the Glitter Wizard than the US, what do you think??
It seems that Glitter Wizard
gets more love in Europe, we definitely sell a lot more merch, get paid more
and people seem to be a little obsessed at times. We had two guys in Gdynia,
Poland that drove two hours just to see us! That’s insane, no one would even
drive 45 minutes in the states to go see us, not even our friend’s haha. We
also had opportunities to play several festivals on this tour, something that
has never been offered us in the states. I think Glitter Wizard likes playing
Europe more anyway, maybe the states can just fuck off. Too many entitled
pricks. When we played Roadburn, the next day we went to get paid and Walter
(Mr. Roadburn) heard that we were there and came down to personally thank us
for playing, told us how much he loved our record and that he would love to
have us back. Holy shit!!! That is amazing!!! He doesn’t need to say anything
to us, he runs fucking Roadburn but he did because he actually cares. Touring
Europe made us feel like we were actually doing something important whereas
playing in the states you end up feeling like a piece of shit slacker cause
that is what everyone is telling you that you are.
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| Greg at Roadburn...borrowed from the site..... www.roadburn.com |
You guys only have toured on
the west coast of the USA or only in California (and now Europe)…
We have toured the full west
coast and the furthest we ventured east was to play Reno at a shithole called
Jub Jub’s Thirst Parlour a place I will never go to or play at again. We might
do a more extensive tour of the U.S. it all just depends on how things work out
with booking and what not. The Space Booking Agency says that they are
interested in setting up a tour for us so we will see how it works out. Until
then I need to heal my broken leg so it won’t be for some time.
Do you think you guys will
start recording the next record later this year?
That is the plan, we just need
to write about two to three more songs. Lorfin and Wendy say they have a couple
on the back burner so hopefully we can begin recording in the fall or winter.
Will you try to get back to Europe next year?
Without a doubt, this was
the best tour we have ever been on and I can imagine the next European tour
will be even better. Ricky from Sound of Cobra/Swamp booking is an awesome dude
and we would love to work with him again. Europe also knows how to party and
really appreciates music, I can’t wait to come back.
The link below is the tour diary the band wrote if you want to read more.. This is a great band it was so cool to play with them as well. Please support the band!
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