Interview: God Is an Astronaut

Across nearly a dozen studio albums during the past two decades, the Irish post rock band God Is an Astronaut have proven that playing instrumental music can be just as evocative and powerful as anything that features vocals. The trio – twin brothers Torsten Kinsella (guitarist) and Niels Kinsella (bassist), along with Lloyd Hanney (drummer) – have consistently created a mesmerizing mix of progressive and psychedelic rock that takes the listener on epic sonic journeys. They’ve continued this tradition with their latest album, Embers (set for release on September 6 via Napalm Records), for which they are playing numerous shows across Europe through the rest of this year. Calling from his home recording studio in County Wicklow, Ireland, Torsten tells The Big Takeover about the moving inspiration behind Embers, how he and his bandmates created the distinctive God Is an Astronaut sound, and why it resonate with fans.

What inspired you to create this latest album?

TORSTEN KINSELLA: This is an album we’ve written over the last two or three years. My father passed away unexpectedly on November 28, 2023, and it was very tough. I wrote another two songs straightaway after that about my father, “Falling Leaves” and “Odyssey.” I had a couple of the other ones already written prior to that, and my dad had the idea at the time that I should add sitars and different things to it, so I felt that I should honor his ideas, and so we put a lot of different ethnic Eastern instruments into the project. The whole album is dedicated in my dad’s memory.

Sounds like your dad was musical, too.

TORSTEN KINSELLA: Yes, he was. He played in the ‘60s in a psychedelic group called the Orange Machine, and he was a bass player. He played guitar. He taught [my brother Niels and me] how to play our instruments. I guess it’s in our blood. And on the Embers record, I decided to pay a bit of a tribute to the sound of his old band, so I got some of his old fuzz pedals, he had a Maestro fuzz pedal from the ‘60s, and I used that on the record, and I got ahold of a 1963 amp [like] they used, so I incorporated that in. I just felt it was a kind of acknowledgement to my father and his history, and bridged it to ours. The whole album is kind of a cathartic experience for me and my brother Niels, to honor my father in that way.

How did you originally come up with your band’s distinctive sound, especially the instrumental aspect of it?

TORSTEN KINSELLA: I think we evolved into it – like a process of elimination, almost. We started off in the ‘90s playing rock music, and nothing really went anywhere for us. And I was very obviously unhappy with singing. Every time I’d listen to it back I’d think to myself, “I’m not really enjoying this.” So we decided just to drop the vocals out, and we created an electronic project that was mainly instrumental. God Is an Astronaut was essentially born from that project, but we merged some of the rock stuff that we’d done prior to that project together to kind of create a hybrid sound. That really is what God Is an Astronaut was born from. Even on our first album, The End of the Beginning [2002], it’s all drum loops and some of those songs were written even prior to forming the group God Is an Astronaut, but we took the songs that we really liked forward into the God Is an Astronaut project. And Lloyd joined towards the tail end of that album. Well, the album had been finished, but when we were playing live, we needed a live drummer, rather than using programmed beats or drum machines. And from that process, morphed into its own kind of sound. We just make music that we want to hear, and that we feel represents us emotionally.

You’ve been quite prolific – how do you stay inspired as a songwriter?

TORSTEN KINSELLA: For me, music is almost like a language. Like an emotional language, an inner voice, that if I don’t try to get it out of my system, I get into terrible depression. So music, for me, is very important, just to even stay sane. So it just comes naturally to me. It’s like a language that just needs to be spoken. So a lot of music that I have is a response to what we go through in life, the different trials and tribulations. Life always has things in store. Sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it’s bad. For me, it’s my coping mechanism. Music always seems to be there when times are not good for me. I always rely on music to get me through the day. Apart from that, I’m always inspired to get up in the morning and to be really excited about music. I’ve never lost my love for it.

What do you think it is about your music that makes it connect so strongly with fans?

TORSTEN KINSELLA: I don’t really know. Over the years, people have come up to me, and they’d say to me, “Look, without your music, I don’t think I’d be here. Your music has really been very comforting to me in times of depression.” I’m always overwhelmed when people say that, because I obviously didn’t write it to do that to them; it was more of a cathartic experience for me. But I think maybe the reason that it does do that for them is because the music comes from a genuine feeling that had been poured into the music. They can detect that, and pull something for themselves. And that’s the magic of instrumental music. With lyrics, there’s not much interpretation there. With instrumental music, they can apply the emotion to their own lives. I think that’s probably the main reason a lot of people still listen to our music.