I love to play with all of these effects pedals and to create sounds. A lot of that stuff is from your country… the whole room flashes like a pinball game.

That’s why a great song, just missing one or two pieces, can lie dormant for a few years before we finally polish it off, complete with icing and a cherry on top.

Daisy House is generous music, and very old school at heart. Who knows? It might even be revolutionary.

You don’t have to go to music school to be a musician and so it’s the same thing. You don’t have to take writing classes to be a writer!

“You always get worried about going too far in one direction, because I don’t want people to think that I only write songs about sleeping around or cheating or being miserable. But those are the moments when I feel compelled to write and are also the moments that I feel compelled to listen to somebody else’s sad song about that shit.”

It’s also very refreshing for us to step out of the hazy gloom and into a different shade of light; it’s still a very melancholy sombre black bulb sort of light.

Negative Degree talks about their favorite Colorado punk bands, their worst night on tour and how it feels to work in the service industry in Colorado.

“My father still regrets the day when he gave me my first guitar.”

LOUDsoftLOUD discussion with a master of the form, Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai

“ I’m never happier than when I’m onstage – I just love playing music. I love the chance to exist in the moment. You reinvent it every night – you either do something great or you fall on your face, and you get another chance the next day to do it again.”

The London-based songwriter talks about his excellent new album Abandoned Apartments, his recent movie work, and his L.A. past.

Mark Arm and Steve Turner of Mudhoney talk about growing up grunge, the shitty tour with Blind Melon, and GG Allin’s dick.

I don’t think anybody in the band is interested in just unfreezing the old Red Herring. What made that band really exciting to be a part of was creating together; I get the feeling that we got back together again because we all believe that the best is yet to come. We just had to take a break for a couple of decades to go gather more skills and experiences to throw into the soup.

The audience is there simply to observe. It doesn’t matter whether they applaud every song or at the end or at all. It has nothing to do with the music. We are not on stage for them. We are there to make music in the presence of an Observer. This is all made clear if you have a fundamental understanding of Einsteinian Relativity.

Dave Davies’ lofty position in the pantheon of popular music would be secure even without the existence of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or the Kinks’ extensive body of work. His upcoming tour will feature songs from new album “I Will Be Me” alongside Kinks favorites. Davies discusses family foundations, sibling rivalry, and inspiration drawn from good times and hard times.

JACCO GARDNER: Everything that is beautiful is sad at the same time, just because it’s so beautiful. I think that’s what melancholy is. Even beautiful memories can make you feel really sad at the same time so it seems very natural to me to combine them.

We speak to the always-funny James Greer about his band DTCV’s stunning new album, Hilarious Heaven.

We want to suck you in and take over your body!

From 1987 to 2005, Silkworm made records for a small yet dedicated audience, and seemed like a good bet to continue into old age before senseless tragedy struck. With the alternative-nation era as its backdrop, Seth Pomeroy’s documentary ‘Couldn’t You Wait?’ chronicles the trio’s existence and legacy. Here, the Nashville-based director discusses filmmaking, music, and — naturally — his favorite band.

I really liked collaborating but it became really clear that I just needed to put out something on my own for sure and have as my vision. It can be more difficult and bittersweet because there’s no one to bounce ideas off of and no shared responsibility. There’s only you and there’s high risk and high rewards but it’s my name on it and it’s mine for better or for worse.

Singer, songwriter and Gothstar Chelsea Wolfe talks candidly about her new album, Black Metal and S&M.

Most of the melodies were made walking down the street, riding on the train, at random, and then recorded onto cell phones. You then have an idea that turns into a song skeleton and we build a shape around that. I believe that most of the best songs are written spontaneously.

When I began the process, I thought I’d have a 200 page manuscript by the end of that summer. Gary Klebe said, “No, this is going to be like a Shoes record. It’s going to take longer than you thought, but it’s going to be better than you thought.” He was right. Three years later, it’s a 500 page, wide-ranging consideration of the entire music industry over the last 40 years. Not what I envisioned at first, but much better.

JULIA HOLTER: It’s usually pretty intuitive but it’s hard to know at one point when my brain is doing what. I change things depending on the song sometimes..there are certain things you have to do quickly like getting ideas out. You have to catch in real time what your brain is trying to get out and it’s hard to know how much of that is your thoughts and how much is actually something you are consciously figuring out

Six years back, San Francisco’s LSD and the Search for God released a five-song EP of top-shelf shoegaze, then went quiet. Now, with a series of new singles on the horizon, singer-guitarist Andy Liszt called to discuss LSD’s past and future trips.

Zac Carper of FIDLAR talks to The Big Takeover about their new self-titled LP, getting high, and a world minus Chris Brown.

The ex-Stranglers front-man discusses his new album Totem & Taboo, God, Arthur Lee, Jan Svankmajer, Manuel de Falla, Henry Moore and more.

I’m not into shoegaze music so much, it’s kinda boring. I want to hear a song. I think shoegaze was a great thing at one time, but now it’s all about delay and what pedals you have. I love crazy sounds and feedback, but there has to be a song.

After an 8-year hiatus, the influential “ex-singer of Miracle Legion” has overcome tragedy, revisited his roots, and redefined himself on new LP.

We have a nice, brief chat with Vinny Peculiar and Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs about their debut album, their new project, and the specter of the past.

For the first time in 16 years, the Stranglers are returning to tour North America, where today they are releasing “Giants,” their 17th studio album. J.J. Burnel: “There are ups and downs. At the moment, we are in a very big up.”

We have a chat with Matt Baber and Joff Winks of British-based Sanguine Hum, wherein we discuss the band’s recording process, their latest album, and the continuum of their friendship and musical collaborations.

Our future plans are to crush the pop world, make it bend to our will, and install Tatiana as the new un-spoilable, folk-rock, high priestess of pop.

When people receive you quite well and like what you do, you can’t help but be influenced by that, and feel like you want to make something people will like. But we tried to do what we do, and make songs that we like, and not think about it too much.

Sunny indie-pop composer Allen Clapp’s latest album with his band The Orange Peels will shock longtime fans. We talk with Clapp about this darker direction and about taking risks with an established sound.

Cosy Moments, out today, ends the space-rockers’ uncharacteristic six-year hiatus. Singer-guitarist Chris Martin explains.

The fact that someone has taken something you have written, recorded and then taken their own time not only to listen to it, but write and tell other people means more than anything I could possibly put into words.

I can’t just sit around strumming a guitar for fun anymore. I can only last a few minutes. So having all these poems sitting around has helped me to finish songs more quickly, and the words are somewhat more intentional and vivid, because they were meant to be able to stand on their own.

‘90s dream-pop favorites return this month with Ultramarine, their first LP in 14 years.

Catching up with the 4AD folk-pop outfit on the eve of their sophomore album’s release.

In the late 80’s, the scene in New York City had more going on than just slam dancing and hell raising. The city was also a legitimate melting pot of kids of all races, all classes and all religions.

When we started off playing punk rock, when I was a young man, the world was filled with warmongering, sexism, racism, greed – and it seems to me all these same things are still here. And they need fighting, they need people to rally against issues like that.

HVG has a weird intensity that makes it not regular pop, but also has a melodicism that is inviting. We kind of glower at you and serenade you at the same time.

Long-running and prolific band The Mommyheads’ latest effort is a radical, shocking departure from their long-familiar sound. Adam Elk talks about their stunning new album and what led them to making a prog-pop record.

It still amazes us when a support band turns up with a plectrum and a tuner and expect us to provide a full backline. We tend to tell them to get back on the tube and sort themselves out!

My Mom had it in her mind that (Nardwuar) was interviewing me and someone was going to be playing the tape, so she had to keep really quiet in the background… She and my son were, like, whispering and staying really quiet, and then Nardwuar goes, “TELL ME ABOUT THE NIGHT WHEN YOU WERE GOING TO PHOTOGRAPH IGGY AND HE PULLED HIS C**K OUT!” And I just went bright red.

The best music ingrains itself into your being and helps get us through our lives, marking milestones and watershed moments in our lives.

All the cool modern shoegaze bands I know are punk rock people at heart, they show up on the stage to GO OFF, not to piddle with their reverb pedal and pretend to be cool.