Interview with Old Time Gospel Hour
Rezine: Who plays in Old Time Gospel Hour?
OTGH: Old Time Gospel Hour currently consists of three members. Sandro on the drums, Markus on the guitar and me being the bass player and vocalist of the band.
While we may share a mutual interest in a wide variety of art and musical styles – Our influences stretching from Avantgarde-Jazz veterans like Thelonious Monk to Punk and Metal artists like Slint or Emperor – though there is definitely a deeper association that can be heard throughout our music: with Sandro, who is deeply rooted on a punk, hardcore and metal foundation, Markus who is a jazz guitar player and me coming out of a classical music background.
Rezine: How did it all start?
OTGH: All of us kind of grew up in the same boring Austrian province, where the only means of escaping that lethargy was locking ourselves in our basements to play unbearably cacophonic music. We all used to play in different loud bands when we were younger and kind of knew eachother from various local shows in the area.
Years ago Markus and I were already talking about forming a band where we could play the weird stuff that didn´t fit in our other projects but it somehow never worked out, especially since I moved to Vienna shortly afterwards.
Years later, when Sandro and me where hanging out one sunny summer afternoon at the Donau we were joking about forming a heavy and dark, yet weird project, the idea for the band was suddenly there and since the best jokes are those that have at least a little seriousness within them, we finally ended up in a rehearsal room together. When I heard that Markus was moving to Vienna, I immediately contacted him. Shortly afterwards we had our first session and the band, as it is now, was born.
Rezine: What influences the lyrics of your songs?
OTGH: Lyrics don´t necessarily have to be concrete. The idea behind the lyrics of Old Time Gospel Hour is that they should resemble a feeling without defining the latter. Generally, the lyrics are, of course, influenced by everything we read – authors like David Foster Wallace, Thomas Pynchon and even H.P. Lovecraft being amongst our favourites. But when writing lyrics, walking too far into intellectual territory is not always the right approach. I believe that, especially when it comes to a political agenda within music, the reprocessing of internal conditions can sometimes be a more effective way of expression than directly referring to external issues.
I am especially standing in awe of people like Robert Smith whose lyrics, on “Pornography” for instance, are very abstract, yet deeply metaphorical and never fail to give you a strong feeling of what is going on. This is what I´m trying to achieve with Old Time Gospel Hour.
Rezine: What is Old Time Gospel Hour for you?
OTGH is our means of escape and catharsis. I definitely mean this in the way that bands like Rites of Spring would have meant it. While everyone in the band has a job – Sandro working as an IT Technician, Markus being a social worker and me studying philosophy while also part-time working in a social facility – the carelessness of life in Middle-Europe confronts you with the guilt of living on the sunny side of this planet. Old Time Gospel Hour is our church, our means of expressing and channelling this guilt into something that feels emancipatory, liberating and progressive to us.
Rezine: Does it take you a long time to come up with songs?
OTGH: Our songs generally come together as products of improvisation. We all like the idea that there is a certain authenticity to improvised music that firmly composed music lacks. We try to capture some of this authenticity by piecing our songs together from endless late night jam sessions. This way of writing music requires, of course, listening to recorded sessions and arranging them in a coherent manner afterwards. Generally, this approach to songwriting is not necessarily faster than, for instance, if everyone brought their finished songs to the next rehearsal but it leaves you, as a band, with the satisfaction that all member have equally contributed to the music.
Rezine: Tell us about the latest release... Was there a theme?
OTGH: Our latest release consists of the first four songs that we wrote together. The songs themselves have been written about a year ago and represent a starting point for the sonic explorations that are about to happen in the future. Musically and lyrically the songs are definitely rougher around the edge than the stuff that we are doing at the moment, especially since the whole release was a d.i.y. recording and we recorded the whole thing only in a few takes. Thematically there is definitely a red line though: The songs are held together by themes of urban alienation, the guilt of living in a post-modern, turbo-capitalistic society and the inability to fully enjoy and the double-sided guilt of getting to eat the bigger piece of the cake.
The Demo will, at least for now, not be released physically since we then would have probably taken more time to record everything properly. However, since we wrote most of these songs about a year ago, there will definitely be an upcoming release in the near future that will pursue the direction that our music takes even further.
Rezine: What's coming up Old Time Gospel Hour?
OTGH: We are at the moment busy collecting new material for a potential first album that might be recorded sometime during 2017. The new material is probably going to sound more melodic, while, of course, at the same time being even heavier than everything we´ve done so far.
There will be, however, as a vanguard for this potential LP, another EP which we will probably release somewhere in early 2017. Hopefully this EP will turn out good enough for us to release it properly. (Potential labels are always welcome!)
Rezine: Do you have other projects?
OTGH: All of us have been playing in different projects before: Sandro was the drummer for IAMTHEMANONTHEMOON, a great Austrian Screamo outfit; Markus was the guitar player of the Hardcore Band Eyes Seem Shut that have been touring Middle-Europe for a time. He currently plays in some Jazz formations; I play the bass for the Progressive-Rock Band Mount Mingus, which is currently in a hiatus due to family reasons, while now and then playing the upright bass for anyone who is asking me.