The Screaming Fly – 'Trip to Venus': 'Psychedelia creates transcendence.'

The psychedelic rock band, on the occasion of their album 'Trip to Venus', reveal themselves to us, in an exclusive interview with Fuzzy Hound.

We welcome The Screaming Fly to Fuzzy Hound! Your album, titled 'Trip to Venus', has been out for quite some time now. What are your feelings about the album? Your thoughts? Are you happy with this release? Did it achieve its purpose?

We're very happy and very proud of "Trip To Venus". We don't think it could have been better. At the same time, a lot of people liked it, both here and abroad, and many people had very kind words to say about the record. Generally, things went further than we ever imagined. Yes, we think it achieved its purpose.

Tell us a bit about this work and what sparked it. When did you compose the tracks and by what criteria did you choose them for the album?

These are tracks and pieces we've been working on since about 2013, a very creative period for the band with lots of rehearsals, endless jams and recordings on four-track tape recorders in our basement. We recorded other stuff too, but what made it onto the record was simply what we thought was best (and whatever fit!).

Although you've had a long run as a band, you don't have a corresponding number of studio albums. Why does it take you so long between compositions? Don't you feel the need to get your music out there?

We're more of a live band (although paradoxically, we don't play that often). It doesn't take us long between compositions, we do write songs, it's just that we don't easily get into the recording process. We let ourselves get lost in jams and rehearsals and neglect (unfortunately, quite often) the recordings. We're probably a bit lazy too.

You represent the psychedelic rock scene. Tell us more about that. What feelings does this particular genre bring up for you?

Generally, we consider  Screaming Fly  an r'n'r band with various different facets over time. Psychedelia, we think, has to do, directly or indirectly, with the greater part of rock music. For us it means managing, through music, to create an environment of transcendence, timeless and placeless, that grounds you in the now in an ecstatic way. When that happens it's a particularly powerful experience. It probably all started with the religious rituals of ancient peoples.

Were you influenced by the wider music scene in Greece? What's your opinion on the contemporary music scene in Greece? Have any artists stood out to you?

Of course, we were and still are influenced. We've been in the scene for a long time and we're friends with a lot of the bands in it. That scene has grown up, overcome its insecurities and is really spreading out across the whole world. Bazooka, BLML, Last Drive,  1000Mods, Σείριος Σαββαϊδης, Holy Strangers, Mechanimal, 3 way plane, Metaman, Κραακ, Nightstalker. A lot of people from the electronic scene, and a lot of people in general. Even from the hipster crowd musicians have emerged who flirt with the mainstream with dignity, like Monsieur Minimal.

Tell me a bit about your influences. Which artists or bands do you feel have shaped your path? Have Last Drive influenced The Screaming Fly's compositions?

Blues and rock 'n' roll from the first era, garage and psych, a ton of bands from the 60s onward,  Velvet Underground, Stooges, MC5, Hawkwind, Black Sabbath, Cramps, Gun Club, Wipers, Kyuss, Ty Segall, Spacemen 3, Mudhoney, Dead Moon, John Coltrane. The list is endless. 

Drive's influence is huge and multifaceted. We've all been fans since their early days. We assume that influence has carried over into our own compositions.

In terms of themes, have you chosen specific stories for your songs? What are the deeper meanings of the album?

Nothing too specific, no. A concept emerged on the record that we hadn't particularly planned. ANIMAL ANIMAL is a story about freedom, and DIMENSION X is a story about a journey influenced by sci-fi writers and mainly Philip K Dick, as well as by an old black-and-white American mystery series, " Ζώνη του Λυκόφωτος”  (The Twilight Zone). EVOL EVOL is a story from the dark side of love and romance, while FALL  is a song about those who, within their little bubble, think they know it all until they get slapped in the face and realize there's a whole lot more out there. FEVER FEVER  we're not really sure exactly what it's about, and ASTRO is simply ASTRO.

Do you follow a specific method when composing? What's your recipe for the perfect track?

No specific method. Sometimes something comes out during rehearsals and we work on it afterwards, other times someone already has something worked out and brings it to the band. Generally, if we play something that in the end makes us go "what just happened there?", we hold onto it (written down somewhere if possible) and work on it.

The pandemic situation affected a lot of artists. How did you handle the situation? Did it set you back in terms of songwriting?

A very strange phase… We think we handled it calmly. Luckily we all live close by and have our own space for rehearsals, so we kept playing. It set us back, but it also pushed us forward, as all life experiences should. We still don't really know what exactly is going on with this whole story. It's a very futuristic situation, unfortunately, on the ominous side. Either way, the world was in the dark even before this pandemic. Songwriting-wise, it didn't set us back. We're playing a lot of new stuff, very interesting, but still unfinished.

Nowadays things have clearly improved. Is there any live performance on the schedule? Also, do you have a follow-up to the album in the works? What are your plans for the future?

As we speak, end of August, we don't have anything set in stone. We want to finish up some tracks, do some live shows, and after that we'll look at the record. 

Guys, thank you so much for being here, and we wish you every success in everything you do! Feel free to close out our chat however you like!

And thank you very much too. Health, Love, Solidarity, Freedom. And we're looking forward eagerly to the time when true people and light will defeat the darkness on this planet.