In this interview spotlight, we chat with Smoke Season about their favorite holiday, their new project, the digital music era and much more.
Full Q&A as well as links to their website and streams can be found below.
Let’s dive a little deeper into Smoke Season, the artist and music. What attracted you to the indie-electronic genre?
We have equal love for electronic beats and bluesy Americana. What you hear in our music in the blend of both those influences. We never set out to make indie-electronic music, it just sort of started getting classified as such.
How long have you been creating and sharing your music with the public?
We’ve both been creating music on our own for our whole lives. Together, it’s been since 2013.
Who or what influences your playing and/or writing? Also, what motivates you to keep going?
We’re influenced by the Wild West, whiskey and anything that makes our heart beat faster.
What motivates us is that we’re just two people who need music like we need oxygen.
What drew you to covering the Talking Heads’ song “Psycho Killer”? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific creatively or otherwise?
Smoke Season’s favorite holiday is Halloween. We were feeling the spooky vibes and of all Halloween-infused songs, we were feeling “Psycho Killer” the most. Plus, Talking Heads is one of our favorite bands of all time and we hadn’t found anyone else who had made a real artistic departure from the original with their cover of that song so we accepted the challenge.
What was the last song you listened to?
“Psycho Killer”…. but only because we were watching the new music video. Apart from that, we’re most recently listened to a new mix of one of our brand new songs, “Gold”
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
Vinyl. It sounds alive.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
Spotify because they’ve been so good to us and have really helped disseminate our music to new fans through their playlists. Apple Music is an exciting new territory that we’re just starting to engage with. As for Bandcamp, we love what they represent for indie artists.
Other than the digital era overwhelming us with access to an abundance of music, what are one or two of the biggest challenges you face when trying to attract listeners to your music?
The actual process of attracting listeners. There are so many songs for them to listen to that getting them to listen to yours is always the steepest mountain to climb.
Do you gig, tour or perform? Do you ever live stream? Where can music lovers see you live?
We do all of the above. We wrapped a west coast / national tour this summer and have plans to tour throughout all of the US in 2017. We’re constantly playing live and music lovers can stay updated about tour date announcements by signing up for our email list at smokeseason.com
We do a lot of live streaming on Facebook Live and through the new Surf app (which we highly recommend all music lovers check out).
Where is the best place to connect with you online? Discover more of your music?
Hear all of our music on Spotify (search Smoke Season), but stay in touch with us about releases and news on Facebook (facebook.com/smokeseason) or Twitter (@smokeseasonband). If you like visuals, Instagram (@smokeseason) is a fave of ours as well. If you like to see behind-the-scenes peeks into our world, check us out on Snapchat (@smokeseason)
Any last thoughts? Shout outs? Words of wisdom?
Shout out to anyone reading this. Come find us online and reach out. We want to make art for your soul.
https://soundcloud.com/smoke-season/psycho-killer-talking-heads-cover-1/s-lTuEj
