In this interview spotlight, I chat with Bourgeois Mystics about their latest project, motivations, challenges and more.
Full Q&A along with links and the music video for Jaan Pehechan Ho below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
dystopian art funk, basement monkey-bat jazz…we cover a lot of ground musically, but someone told us we sound like Zappa meets OutKast and we like that
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to stay the course?
Tonto: I grew up in a musical family, so there were always guitars and percussion lying around the house, and I would tinker here and there. My parents never pressured me to play though, which was probably for the better. However, I decided to take the guitar serious in middle school and found myself playing for many hours each day. I’ve been just as passionate ever since.
The reason I’m still motivated to stay the course with music is because it allows me to be creative and make something out of thin air, which can be very exciting. Additionally, it’s always fun to watch yourself get better at something and laugh at how much you used to suck. Also, when I was twelve, I was told that girls like musicians..so I’m still waiting to see if that’s true. So far, I’m VERY skeptical.
Squiggly: Music has always pulsed through my tentacles and been the primary way I express myself as an artist. On family road trips and reunions, we’d pass the time by singing songs together. I started piano lessons at an early age and quit soon after. Over the next two decades I would alternately develop my musical style on my own and take lessons again when I felt my playing had become stagnant and promptly quit when I felt my creativity being stifled.
It can be quite trying financially to stick with the dream sustaining my life as a musician, but the satisfaction I get from being a weirdo onstage and the overwhelming support from fans keeps me pushing on.
How is your new release different than previous ones? Did you set out to accomplish anything specific?
Our new single, “Jaan Pehechan Ho”, is the first track we’ve recorded/produced/mixed entirely in house. While a cover, we’ve “bourge-fied” it to include so many of the elements that makes our music unique. We sped it up quite a bit from the original and gave it a surf rock feel, sprinkling in some jazz and metal interludes. It is our most energetic recording to date, and the best representation of what we sound like live, which was our main goal sonically.
This is also our first music video! We teamed up with the explosively creative Diego Lozano to create a whirlwind of absurdity and freakiness.
Do you face any challenges as an indie musician in a digital age? On the flip side, how has technology helped you (if it has)?
I feel like most indie artists agree that being a financially successful musician in the digital age is not just incredibly challenging, but nearing the impossible. However, we’ve also been able to record and self-produce our music at Tonto’s home studio and have been able to turn out some pretty incredible tracks (most yet to be released).
Where can we follow you online and hear more music?
Anything else before we sign off?
Eat your vegetables. We’re watching you.
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