Sound of the Void - Grunge Music and DIY from France - The Lorenzo's Music Podcast (Transcript)
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Tom Ray: Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Lorenzo’s Music Podcast. I am Tom, and this is a show where I talk with musicians, people who make things for musicians, and a lot of the time with a spin on the open source Creative Commons and federated Realm. And today I am talking with a group of musicians and why don’t you tell the people who you are and what it is you do
Alice: We are Sound of the Void. We’re a grunge band. yeah, we’ve been playing together for, I don’t know, few years now. And, yeah, this is Charlie, this is Lulu, and this is. I’m Alice.
Tom Ray: Okay. And actually, that’s funny that you say grunge band, because I was just talking with somebody the other day, having lived through the grunge era, the. I was like, you know, there are all these resurgence of bands. There’s emo is coming back and there, people are saying that their stuff is alternative again. But I’m like, nobody’s saying that their stuff is grunge. Are there grunge bands? And somebody told me, like, yeah, no, there is. That is starting to come back. And now you’re one of the first bands that I’ve talked to who have openly said, yes, we are grunge. So how, first of all, how long has the band been together?
Alice: Five years. I said maybe six years.
Lulu: I’d say eight or nine.
Tom Ray: Yeah, okay.
Alice: We’ve had different drummers. Actually. Lulu and I have known each other for 10 years. We’ve lived, we’ve shared, a house for a few years. And yeah, we had different drummers. And now, Charlie’s living with us as well.
Tom Ray: Is that a requirement for the band? Is that you guys have to live together?
Charlie: It’s like the group is Google Gaba.
Tom Ray: It’s just so you can, you can. Nobody, can claim that they, they can’t afford to be in a band, because, you know, us musicians, we don’t make much money. Or actually, maybe you do. I don’t know.
Charlie: Look, look, we have so many amps behind us. It’s a success, right?
Tom Ray: Yeah. And also, before I forget, to tell the people where you’re located. I know where you’re located because I contacted you. But where are you guys located?
Alice: Where.
Tom Ray: Where is the band? in the. The world.
Alice: We are.
Charlie: We’re in center of France, like an hour and a half or so from Paris.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Charlie: yeah, it’s kind of central. Kind of central. Not too far from the capital in the countryside and in the Countryside. We have chickens.
Tom Ray: Oh, you do?
Alice: We’re in the middle of the countryside in a small village with like 300 inhabitants in it. So it’s like a very small village. And, ten years ago we bought a house together. We. We are a bunch of friends. Like, there’s 10 of us. And we bought this old farm and we, started crafting, a studio in one of the. Because one of the barns was empty. And we did the studio and then we started put together a band and. Yeah.
Lulu: Yeah.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Charlie: This is.
Tom Ray: So I’m having deja vu here. There is another band who also is. And we’re going to talk more about this subject in a little bit. But they’re also releasing their music under Creative Commons and free to download sort of thing. But, Louis Ling and the Bombs, who are also located in France. Yeah, they.
Alice: I think we know them.
Charlie: I think we do.
Tom Ray: I think, yeah, they’re. They’re located in. I, want to say they are in Paris. But they also did a similar thing. Josh, the singer, like, got some land and literally built a studio from scratch. Like, just built it out in the woods or I don’t know where. The way it sounded. It sounded like he went out with like a hammer in the woods and just started building a studio the way he described it. But it sounds. It’s just very similar. And when you were talking about chickens and all, I’m like, wait, I’ve had this conversation. Conversation before.
Alice: You know, it still has been now.
Tom Ray: Okay, and so how did you all. You moved in together, you started making a studio. But were you musicians before that was the intention to be musicians? Like, how did you guys get started going, this is let’s make a band, basically.
Lulu: It’s hard to say. But, I think we started because we were living in the same house and, Alice had another band called she Wolf. and we have way too much free time.
Charlie: So
Lulu: we had idea to create another band. And I had Another friend, ah. At the time who joined us at the drum. And we started like this. And the studio was already, built for the she Wolf Band. And we continued to set. Set it up.
Tom Ray: Okay. And it is. Well, it’s one of those things too, where it’s like there’s people living together, there’s a bunch of instruments around. At some point other people are going to start messing with the instruments. I mean, they’re sitting there. You can’t just go, I’m. I’m not going to touch those. When someone’s around, you’re like, I’m going to play those drums.
Alice: Exactly. And I think we’ve always been musicians. I was a musician before I met Lulu. And when I met him, he was, he was more of a.
Lulu: I, was in, digital signal processing.
Tom Ray: Oh.
Lulu: I had a company. we made a plugin, so it was called Homeforce.
Alice: And
Lulu: so, I am. I was already in the, audio field, so I was also a musician.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Alice: Yeah. And so I went, yeah, let’s start a band. Like you don’t have a band currently that you used to have bands when you were in your 20s, but I can see that you’re not in a band right now. So let’s go get your friend Greg, he’s a drummer, and start a band. And I was in a band already. And Charlie has been a musician forever. Like, I don’t know. He was born with instrument.
Charlie: Was not even born.
Tom Ray: It’s made for a very uncomfortable pregnancy. That’s, you know, inside. Yeah.
Alice: Charlie’s mom.
Tom Ray: And then. Okay, so then how did the transition from the band that you were in, you said, was she Wolf? It was called.
Alice: Mhm.
Tom Ray: Okay, how did that then, how did that eventually lead to what is now Sound of the Void?
Alice: Oh, the two bands coexisted. So she Wolf was me with two other women.
Alice: In that band. And the two other girls, by the way. They lived down the village as well. Not in the same house, but in the same village.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Alice: And then with Lulo, I started Son of the of the Void, which was meant to be maybe a bit more of a side project. Because she Wolf was touring and everything. And Sound of the Void was more designed to be like a good old friend band, you know, you don’t expect to make money out of. And with all the magic that goes with it. Like it was very, Kitty. I don’t know, teenage vibe to it. Like we live together and then we play music and we’re a local band.
Tom Ray: I’m picturing that’s exactly how it went. Sitting around going, doo, doo doo doo doo doo doo. So and then when, that started happening, how did, What was the process of writing songs? Were you looking to make grunge music the way that you had said? You know, the music that you produce now, or did it evolve into that? Like, what was the musical, what’s the way to put it?
Lulu: What?
Tom Ray: Melding these people together, it just came out grunge. Or you’re like, let’s play grunge music. Or is that just basically like. That’s the style that everybody was playing anyway, Anyway. Like, how did the music style come along?
Alice: I think I was. For me, I was always into grunge.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Alice: I was born in 1987 and I discovered Nirvana and Hull from a young age, maybe 12, 13. And I was. That was always my favorite music of all times. I think the lyrics are brilliant. The raw feeling to it, the, the. The way that you don’t need to be a performer, you don’t need to be technically skilled to play grunge, but you need to have guts and to carry emotions. And also grunge was female friendly. I think there were a lot of female role models. Courtney Love, Pete Harvey. Yeah, so I always was into it. I think Lolo is a kid from the 90s as well.
Lulu: Yes, yes. I am a bit older, but My teenager, Was full of grunge. And I was also very influenced by Sonicheos. So is there a bit of noise component in the, In this band?
Charlie: Quite a lot.
Alice: And you, Charlie, you really love.
Charlie: Yeah, I was I was raised in a very musical environment. My dad was a very, very skilled musician, skilled guitarist. And I think out of spite I kind of tried to annoy him a lot. And I was listening to very raw music, including grunge and noise music. And as a matter of fact, I just really enjoyed it and enjoyed playing it. So. Yeah, it kind of, it’s kind of of defining. I was not here in in the. The early days of the Sound of the Void, but.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Charlie: Touches me the same way. I mean, it’s a. It’s my, it’s my thing.
Alice: It’s your home too. It’s your thing.
Charlie: I felt like home first time I
Alice: played and I think we mixed. So Lulu is very skilled in designing music, sounds, textures and he crafts pedals, effects. He codes them and then crafts them. So we use that superpower of his. Ah. So we mixed And he’s. He. He’s a composer as well. And I’m a composer as well. And you’re a composer as well. We’re all very creative. So I think we mixed Lolo’s guitar riffs that he had and his sounds with my vocal melodies that I came up with. And So instead of having songs with only like verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, which is what I do in my band, like Lulu is very much more progressive and a Lot of instrumental parts in the songs and Yeah, you can feel his touch and my touch and Charlie’s touch as well. Charlie’s singing a lot of harmonies as well because he’s got this in. In him. Those grunge harmonies. Very natural for us to sing together. Harmony. It’s nice.
Tom Ray: Yeah. And when you guys are working on a song, and this is just curiosity for me, because the way I do it is. I mean, of course, someone comes up with an idea or they’re. They’re the two ways someone comes up with an idea, brings it to the band, or the band is jamming on something in the. And goes, oh, that’s neat. And then you build off of it, you know. But what I like to do is. And because you guys said, I mean, you have your studio down there and all that kind of stuff, when I do it, I will record the idea, show it to people, we’ll jam on it. And then if we like something, like, we build the song as we go along. And I’m curious if anybody else does this. Like, basically the recording is something that is a work in progress, as we are still working on the song. And we’ll lay down everything, delete stuff, build directly from the da or from the daw. And, what do you guys do when you’re working on a song? How do you guys go about a song? Do you just record it live and then eventually go. Or not record it live, play it live and learn it live and then eventually go record it? Or. What’s your process?
Lulu: It’s a bit mixed because.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Lulu: Often I come with, some riffs or some ideas, and, we, arrange it together. and, we record the song and sometimes we modify it. But it’s, It’s difficult to, There’s probably not, A single process. It depends on the song. sometimes we get the ideas by jamming.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Alice: But, Yeah, I think it’s more like you said, we do as it goes. In my other band, I would compose everything and then come to the bend and say, okay, here’s the song.
Tom Ray: I’ve never been able to do that. I never think I’ll be able to finish the thought. I’m like. I’m sure everybody else has a better idea than me, so I make sure that I never come with a full thing. Okay. But you. But so. So it is a mixture of stuff. Okay. I’m always curious about that because it just. It’s one of those mysteries even to people who just know about bands, where it’s like, you don’t know how the song ends up there. Like. Like, I know my wife is always very surprised when she’s like. So she’ll see us jam on something on a live stream and she’ll be like. And you just thought of that? And I’m like, yeah, I just started moving my fingers and it sounded cool. And then we. Everybody went like, oh, I get what you did there. And she’s like, everybody picked up on it. I’m like, yeah. And then I thought about it and I’m like, yeah, I guess it doesn’t really make sense, does it? Like, how. How is everybody understanding what the other one is doing when you’re making this stuff up? Anyway, I’m sorry, I’m having like a Weird.
Alice: So weird. I don’t even know. How would you compose the songs? Like, if I had to remember, I wouldn’t be able. I can think of. Is that. Yeah. And then you go. And then. Yeah, okay. Okay, let’s see. It’s. I remember. It’s weird.
Tom Ray: The process is hard to explain, but at the same time, like, you know, like when I was explaining it to you and you’re like, yeah, I guess we kind of do the same thing. And it’s like. I know. It’s just hard to put into words because you don’t really think about it.
Lulu: I don’t know.
Tom Ray: I didn’t really need to focus on it, but it was just. It’s just something that popped into my head anyway. So. Speaking of that. Okay, now, talking about the songwriting process. Your latest release, Underpass, tell me a little bit about the making of that album and the songs for that.
Lulu: The songs are, The songs are from our beginning. It’s a collection of almost all our tracks. okay, so we. We play it live. we have two more tracks. but at the moment, it’s the collection of what we have. so these songs, were created in very different moment. Some, Like eight years ago and Some, Two or three years ago.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Lulu: And We. We had some recordings previously.
Lulu: Some smaller set of sound of tracks. But We haven’t released, them only just one track.
Lulu: We improved each time we record, how we played and Alter different parts of. And I think that that’s how we. We record in them.
Tom Ray: Okay, and now. So you’re saying that there’s going to be like. You’re continuing to add to the album by saying that there’s two more songs to be released, is it. It’s an album in progress. Is that what you’re telling me?
Lulu: No, no, no.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Lulu: The album is terminated. But more. More songs. And, we’re going to add more. I hope. We’re going to, enter another creative path.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Lulu: So, to bring more, things.
Alice: Yeah. To our discography. Right.
Tom Ray: Yeah. And now putting this together. Did you. Since they recorded over time, do you guys record, in the studio? I’m assuming where you’re sitting right now is your. Is your studio in your house? Do you guys record there?
Alice: Yeah.
Tom Ray: Okay. Yeah. I love that.
Lulu: Yeah.
Tom Ray: Get out of the way. Let me see the gear.
Charlie: The drums have so many stories to tell.
Alice: So.
Tom Ray: Yeah. No, that’s a nice setup. I like that.
Alice: Unfortunately, can’t see the mixing table and everything because the computer. We’re using it to have this interview with you right now.
Charlie: Okay.
Tom Ray: What do you use for, your recording software?
Lulu: we used Cubase for quite some times, but now we are on Reaper. And, And we use various plugins, tools. and, Yes, that’s it.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Alice: All right.
Tom Ray: No, because it’s. I mean, you do a great job. I really do like the recording. And to hear that you said it was recorded, some of the songs were from different years and stuff. Fantastic. There’s. There’s, consistency. it is very. You know, it sounds like it was all recorded at once. It doesn’t sound like it was recorded over time. And I enjoy that. And you also release. Now, my band, we release under Creative Commons. We do attribution, share alike, the cc, by sa. You release under public domain. Tell me about that. Tell me about that decision.
Lulu: yeah, because, my idea is that the music, once you have released it, it’s, a common good. It’s, something for everybody that, Everybody can, play it, remix it or, rearrange it or whatever. so it’s,
Lulu: That’s how, I view the, music. But, maybe, the other members, Charlie and Alice, maybe they have different, views for their own music. But in the Sound of the Void, this is, what we do.
Tom Ray: I get it. I get it. Yep. Because, my band, we release under Creative Commons. But let me put it this way. I said, hey, guys, we’re going to release our music under Creative Commons. I told them, like, this is important to me. This is kind of where I think music artistically is. And I was strong about it. And they’re like, is it going to affect us any? And I go, no. And they went, okay, so I’m the advocate for it. They support me, but they’re not necessarily knowledgeable about what Creative Commons is. They will ask me about it all the time. And we do get a lot of opportunities. Opportunities because of that. It’s amazing. The. It’s amazing how people will go, but they’ll just use your music for stuff. And it’s like, yeah, people are using our music for stuff. Like, we get our, music’s in, like, a bunch of weird mobile app games. And I get messages to this day, like, for the past 10, 15 years, people just like, going, hey, I heard your song in, Rope Hero or some other, you know, mobile game. And I’m like, okay, I don’t even know what game that is, but our music’s in it. That’s great. But stuff, like that. And that’s a lot of that also is because they found it on Free Music Archive or Jamendo. But anyway, sorry, For sharing that.
Alice: We agree with you. Like, yeah. And it’s important to talk about it as artists as well. There’s so many topics, like. But yeah, it’s nice to have a political view.
Tom Ray: Yeah.
Alice: At least a philosophical view. Yeah.
Tom Ray: And it’s a political view. A view that’s not political, polarizing. It’s not one where you’re going, somebody suddenly get. Get mad at you. It’s not a left or right. It’s a. Here’s what I stand for. And everybody’s like, oh, that’s interesting. You know, it’s a conversation more than most political views, where it’s a argument for one side.
Alice: Sure.
Tom Ray: And also, if people don’t want to release their music under Creative Commons or public domain, like in your case, that’s perfectly fine. I’m not against that, people. It’s art. Art is different. People can choose what to do with art. it is creative expression. So look at me. What, am I running for office here?
Tom Ray: And then, so speaking of that, where do you post your music? I know I found you on, the Fediverse and I found your songs on your website. Of course. But where else do you promote the band? Where else do you, How do you get the word out there about the band on the Internet?
Charlie: we have an Instagram which hasn’t been updated for a while, actually. We should do it. We have.
Tom Ray: Yeah, that happens.
Charlie: and we are on various platforms, like, you can find us on Qobuz, on, Spotify, I think Teaser as well.
Lulu: Yes. All the main streaming Platforms, we have
Tom Ray: distribute.
Lulu: I don’t know how it’s called.
Charlie: Distribution.
Tom Ray: Yeah, Distribution.
Charlie: Yeah.
Tom Ray: I was just going to ask about the video next. So you do have a video that is very enjoyable but also very cool. So tell me about the making of that video.
Alice: It was with our, former drummer, mc, and we just went in the village and we went to town as well and just shot it. Each one of us was holding the camera while the others were playing. And there was no external ef Filmmaker look. It’s really interesting, this project, because I think we do everything that we, fantasy of doing as artists. I mean, in my other brand, I’m trying. I’m trying hard to make it right. So go look for gigs, promote every day, post content every day, do all the stuff. Yeah. And with Son of the Void because. And thanks to Laurence, political. I mean, I share the political views. I completely share them. But in my everyday life, because I want to be a rock star, I compromise every single day. I compromise with my views. But little, because you wouldn’t compromise. Then it, brings in me the. It brings the rebel in me even more. Yeah. So we do everything. Do it yourself. And it’s so. It’s so pure. It’s so pure at heart and innocent and nice to do that. So. And it’s real punk, by the way.
Tom Ray: It’s really punk. Yeah.
Alice: It’s like we’re not trying to make it, we’re just trying to make sense, I guess.
Tom Ray: Yeah.
Charlie: And this is it. This is the point of the whole place. We have the whole house, the whole project we have. I personally just arrived in the house. It’s been like a year and a half or so. And it’s been a year and a half or so that I’m in the band and the new drummer and I can tell that everything about this is like what Alice just said. It’s all about purity, sharing, and do whatever you want to do with. With the means you have and the energy you have. No pressure, just creative literacy and, Slow.
Alice: Slow process, as I say.
Tom Ray: Yeah, well, I mean, that’s music in general.
Lulu: Yeah.
Alice: Let’s say we wrote eight songs in 10 years. Well. And so what? it’s okay. It’s really like slow culture slow. It’s really nice. And by the way, that’s funny because, like, Laurent, he didn’t even want to be on YouTube. He was like Vimeo or nothing. And he goes to debate. I was like, please, can we.
Tom Ray: Yeah, no, I get that argument. But at the same time, it’s it’s one of those things where. And this is just my opinion on it or my view on it and I could be wrong. But with things like that, just like where you post your music and everything, I get going, don’t use this service or don’t use this video thing. But also it’s. Well, other people don’t know this. You can discover people who want to learn about it or un, or don’t know about the views of what the platforms do. And they’re not, they don’t know these other platforms. They don’t know you’re only on this. They go, well I’m going to watch a video on YouTube and or I want to learn about this thing on YouTube or I want to hear this music on YouTube because they don’t know any better. They don’t know. They don’t research all the different platforms and what their views are and what they do. They’re like, oh, if I want to see a video it’s on YouTube. And that’s why that’s really hard for me to make a decision like that because then I feel like I’m ostracizing an audience or I’m just overthinking it. I don’t know basically what I’m getting at. Yeah, it’s, it’s one of those things where it’s like, oh, I don’t want to put my stuff here. But that’s like with Spotify we still put our music on Spotify because that’s where people think music is. Like they don’t know of other platforms. So anyway, I’m going off on a rant again.
Alice: It’s very interesting. Yeah, if you want to reach out, you want to find your audience, you want to share your music and at the same time you don’t want to work with the devil. But as small artists, I wouldn’t blame us because we don’t.
Tom Ray: Yeah.
Alice: If we are, I don’t know if we struggle plus we decide not to be on the platforms, we’re going to just struggle even more and just disappear. Yeah, the industry should change, not us. it’s not, it shouldn’t be us to have moral deliverance would, should be the industry.
Lulu: That would be.
Tom Ray: That is why I like the self posting platforms and the different Like we have our music on Fair Camp right now. We posted. We have our own Fair Camp site which is like an open source, self hosted band camp alternative. But the thing is is it’s not necessarily. It’s, it’s not Searchable. It’s not like Bandcamp, where it’s a site and you can go search for music. It looks like Bandcamp. You host it yourself, you own it, and nobody can take it away from you. But it’s on your website. You know, it’s, it’s the give and take of it. It’s not the platform. And there, yeah, there’s things like that. I’ve, I’ve met many people on the show because of that, and that’s the reason I started this show, is to search the different avenues and people who are trying to advocate for different things. And it all just started out kind of like with the choice that you made on music, where I made the same choice you released under public domain. And I was like, I want to release my music under Creative Commons. I did it as a answer to the whole Napster thing, which is not even an issue anymore. Everything’s streaming. Downloading isn’t something that people are worried about anymore. So anyway, now another thing I wanted to ask about too, and you mentioned this earlier, you have. And on your site there are links to it, different pedal effects and different musical effects that you make that you use. The personal things. I’m hoping you’re going to grab one of them right there. I see you reaching over
Charlie: that thing. Is the thing.
Tom Ray: Okay. Yeah, tell me about that. I’m very intrigued by this, this homemade, effects stuff.
Charlie: The mother.
Alice: A whole pedal voice.
Tom Ray: I love this. It’s. It’s like I’m watching a conference. You guys are going, okay, now here’s the newest model. There you go.
Alice: Okay.
Tom Ray: Wow. Okay, so explain that. What am I looking at here? I mean, I kind of know what I’m looking at.
Lulu: I have, senior. I can, I can program with, various effects and actually it’s digital. it’s everything digital. there is a Raspberry PI inside.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Lulu: For controlling, everything, processing the sound. And so it’s
Tom Ray: I love the paint job on it. That’s my favorite thing. It looks like something from like, it’s like some, some children’s show, but it’s actually very complex and unique. Okay.
Charlie: But that thing is a, it’s a, it’s a sound factory.
Tom Ray: Yeah.
Charlie: I’m amazed. I’m amazed. I’m also a guitarist and I use, I don’t use a lot of effects because I get lost pretty quickly in it. And that thing amazes me because he says very modestly that there are several effects and There is a Raspberry PI. But this guy here spent thousands of hours, going through different iterations of that same machine because it’s the second, third one. second one. But each and every effect, contained in, the, effect banks. He programmed it all from scratch. Each single one.
Alice: Yes.
Charlie: And, he built it with his hands, which is something. Seriously, I’m amazed I say it again. This is incredible. And that thing is the core sound, of Sound of the Void. Everything that’s here. In the album comes all the guitars, all the textures, they come from, that books. Yeah.
Tom Ray: And I was intrigued by that. It is. It is a great sound. And the other thing too, to add on to what you were saying, there are links on your site to the actual, like, schematics and setups and pictures, development pictures of the different pedals and effects. So, yeah, you even documented it very well. There’s. There’s the whole process and the circuitry. And I was. It’s very impressive. I’m. I. I can’t do it, but I’m looking at it going. I think I know what’s going on. But it sounds great. I really do like the guitar sounds on that. Especially, the one, like, even in the video that you guys have posted. The. The topmost video. The. The DIY one. The. You, can just really tell from the guitar on that one. It’s. It’s just a good. It’s deep, but also it’s very crisp. Is that a good way to put it? I don’t know. Something like that. But I, really do. That’s very impressive. I like that. And so do you make these for other people or you’re just making it for yourself? Like, do you produce them at all for others?
Lulu: I make some pillows for, people when they ask me January for friends. But this is not my, This is not a job. This is a hobby. So I do one, pedal or, two, in a year. And I also, repair things. the arms pedals. But see, this is not a job.
Tom Ray: Right. Yeah.
Alice: And now he got orders because he has his own name. So he did a pedal for. For my band, my current band. So she Wolf is dead, but I started a new band called Jelly Dive. And he does a pedal inspired from the DS1, you know, okay, yeah, Nirvana and. But he corrected the little, defaults, like the imperfections of the DS1, like, I don’t know, the air. And he. He just did like, an upgraded version. And. And everybody loves it. Everybody in My band is like, but let me check this. Oh, whoa. Oh, nice. What is it? And I like slow on the so. And now we get orders from all our musician community.
Lulu: Nice.
Alice: But his company that he, started like, what, 20 years with his friends 25 years ago, back in the days. They were the only ones who. Who would do that. And he did some effects for Trent Reznor. And he wouldn’t tell you because he’s very emotional.
Tom Ray: Nice.
Charlie: Years in the. In the plugin bst, field where our own little.
Alice: But. But now everybody’s doing it so sped up with this.
Tom Ray: Right? Yeah, exactly. Now, another question too. How often do you guys play out? What is your live. your. I want to say live lives. No, your live. How often do you play out? I don’t know why I’m trying to make this question different. How often do you guys play out?
Charlie: thing is, as I said, I arrived in the band a year and a half ago, but before that, the band was in kind of a hold hiatus, when I arrived. I think you guys didn’t really imagine, the band coming together again and. And starting again. And, I was not a drummer last year.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Charlie: Well, I always played drums, but, I love drums. But I never worked, like, I never practiced enough. I never, like, took it seriously.
Tom Ray: But you were a secret drummer.
Charlie: Yeah. But, we. I’ve known Alice and, the house and Lulu for five, six years now. And when. When the album came out, I was not around. And I, remember when I listened to it the first time, I was like, I wish I could be in the fucking band. I wish, like, I want to be in it, and I will be in it at some point. I didn’t know back then I would come here. Okay, So I know it’s a long answer for a question that was like five minutes ago already.
Tom Ray: It’s okay. That’s what I do all the time.
Charlie: we actually played our first gig together, last month, on our own home festival. Because we organized a festival here in, our farm.
Tom Ray: Oh, okay.
Charlie: It’s like, ah, a free entry festival. free. How do you say that in English? people can give whatever they want.
Alice: Give what you can.
Charlie: So everything’s like that. And we don’t make profit out of it. Like, all the money we get is free for the artists that come and stuff like that. It’s amazing. This place is amazing. Anyhow, so it took us a year or so to, practice enough and to get to know each other musically and we ended up playing in July. as for now, we don’t have. Except this week. We don’t have any other gig.
Tom Ray: Well, you have one live stream gig. I know that you have the NHAM live stream that’s coming up.
Alice: Yeah. Yeah.
Tom Ray: What’s that?
Alice: We don’t play that much because we don’t look for gigs. We, we wait for them to come our, way.
Tom Ray: Because looking for shows is awful. I hate looking for shows.
Alice: So. But if we could find a booker, I think it would be nice. Yeah, you could like put a good live session out there on the Internet and like start looking for a booker. That would make sense because we, we all know how it is. Like when one person in the band start. Spend days and days looking for gigs, sending emails and then they get frustrated and doing all the booking and the other one then do nothing. I don’t want. I want this stay, a safe place forever.
Tom Ray: I can relate. Yeah. And then on top of that, you have to promote the show. You have to find bands to play with. Yeah, it’s.
Charlie: Well, that’s when we organize our own festival.
Tom Ray: I wish I had that opportunity. I don’t have a farm, so. Which is ironic because I live in the middle of farmland. It’s just I’m in the city that’s in the middle of the heartland of the US that has farms. So I don’t.
Charlie: You’re a nice guy. I’m pretty sure you know someone that knows someone and
Tom Ray: maybe I do. I don’t know.
Charlie: In the end, I would appreciate personally that we, we play more gigs. But I don’t want to stress out the, the whole balance of this. Like. And also in my opinion, maybe you guys won’t agree, but I think this, the gigs we’re playing these days are kind of from the end of one era of the band. And I’m seeing that thing that we’re gonna probably start composing new tracks sometime soon and and open a new, a new era.
Tom Ray: That’s good. Well then let me ask you one more thing on top of that. So, before we finish up today, what do you plan on doing in the future? What people. What can people expect from Sound of the Void? in the future
Charlie: we’ll go platinum.
Tom Ray: There you go. Nobody’s ever given me that answer before. I like that
Alice: we continue doing music videos and surprise, people and be funny and be teenagers even though we, we’re 35, 40 and maybe 50 and maybe, I don’t know, go on tour like, because Grunge is going to come back, as they say. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll be. We’ll go niche and we go do a Japan tour. Very unexpected. Who knows? That would be so much fun. And you record new songs. So what did you mean new era? Like a new.
Charlie: Yeah.
Alice: Kind of musical.
Charlie: It’s the. The first album is like eight years in the making. And now, we’re gonna make a new one. So we have 10 years ahead of us. That’s it. We just don’t want to, jeopardize the whole. This whole ambience between us. And we just want to surprise people and surprise ourselves as well. So as she said, we just want to make funny music. Funny music videos and, just. We don’t want to take the. The road that’s been set up. We just want to do the things the way we want to do things.
Alice: Yeah. And give a vibe of like, happy three friends playing music together. And let’s get our Herman is. Because we have Charlie now and he sings like crazy and it’s. That is.
Tom Ray: That’s always a handy thing. Yeah.
Charlie: A drummer. That thing that sings.
Tom Ray: Yeah. So I’m trying to think of drummers that sing now, and all of a sudden I can’t. But anyway, yeah, I get what you’re saying. And then, if people wanted to hear more about you and your music, where could they go do that?
Lulu: mainly on the website. It’s, the source of everything, I think, we have. If people want to follow, the news. We have rss, feed so they can plug, to it. But also on the other media platforms.
Alice: Yeah. And write us. Write us email. We will answer. Reach out.
Tom Ray: And that’s over at soundsofthevoid.net correct?
Charlie: Yes. On it.
Lulu: Yeah.
Alice: Yes.
Tom Ray: Okay. Would soundsofthevoid.com taken. I’m actually surprised whenever I see somebody with a. With a dot net website. Was the soundofthevoid.com taken?
Lulu: no, it’s, just,
Tom Ray: You just wanted.
Charlie: Net.
Lulu: You have also, dot com.
Tom Ray: Oh, okay.
Lulu: Do we have it? Yeah.
Tom Ray: Okay. Yeah. Because when I found it, I’m like dot net. And I’m like, oh, that’s surprising. It’s like, personally, I want to go off and buy my band’s website, on the biz. Do people use biz anymore? You remember when that was a thing and that was like. Basically that meant your site was just a big spam website. I don’t know. Anyway, but I want to thank you guys so much for talking with me today. This has been great.
Charlie: Been a pleasure. Yeah. Thank you for having us.