Below are my notes taken during my phone interview with Hugo Ferreira, lead singer of the Louisville-based Tantric, who'll perform May 9 at Planet Rock.
Take consideration when reading this, I didn't bother going through and cleaning up my shorthand or punctuation.
THERE WERE THREE YEARS BETWEEN 1 & 2, 4 BETWEEN 2 AND 3. WHEN CAN WE EXPECT "MIND CONTROL"
"Already recorded, set for July 21st. The single drops June 16th, I'm really excited about it. Should be starting to leak some songs on MySpace soon."
ON MYSPACE, YOU CALL THE "MIND CONTROL" TRACKS "HARD-HITTING." WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? MORE ROCK AND LESS OF THE ALT-MELODY THAT MADE YOU FAMOUS?
"This record a depar-ture a little bit from last record, in this way, I think generally the whole record is the heaviest side of tantric. Every-thing is right around heaviness of down and out, a lot less ballads, where other record more nostalgic, i guess way to describe it, not that this one doesn't have integ-rity, i just we purposely tried to make a more aggressive rock record, all of us in the band can-not wait to share it with the world. We're really proud of it."
WHY MAKE A HEAVIER RECORD?
"I think that was just what we were feeling. As soon as done touring with this record, went down in basement and started writing songs, told band members to send me riffs, more col-laborative than last one, all the riffs my band members sending me heavier riffs in general, that kind of made it eas-ier for me to write heav-ier songs. I don't know if we purposely tried to go there, just leaned that direction naturally and we kind of embraced it and went for that whole vibe. Mind Control one of the first songs wrote for the record, set the bar really high
WHAT ABOUT SUBJECT MATER? HOW DOES "MIND CONTROL" COMPARE LYRICALLY TO PAST ALBUMS? WHAT'S IT ABOUT?
"Lyrically, this record touches on a lot more subjects, where last re-cord more self-loathing, i cant believe going through all this shit, this one more observational, talking about stuff going on around the world, just some fun songs, very carnal, etc.
A COUPLE YEARS INTO THE NEW LINEUP, HOW IS TANTRIC HOLDING UP?
"I'll tell you one thing, I've never been in a band I get along well as in this one, a lot closer together, better friends than ever were, work unified as a team to achieve our goals we set individually, a good balance not get in each other faces when know not supposed to, everybody's super cool, even when not playing enjoy hanging out and that's important thing
ANY PLANS TO RELEASE MORE "TANTRIC III" TUNES?
"We released two of them on this last record, and I don't know, for me, I would love to release that record 'cause it's a great record, but there's so much bullshit going on with label, record owned by Warner Bros, want $250K in assets, unless Warner bro decides to release it, it's kind of tied up
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS THE MESSAGE BEHIND TANTRIC THE BAND? WHAT KIND OF IMPACT DO YOU HOPE TO HAVE ON A LISTENER?
"I think Tantric is a di-rect reflection of general society and the general view of people in our age bracket and just in our class of life, i think we just reflect views that generally everybody feels, not super contro-versial, just reflect and project views other peo-ple feel, just through music, we're like the hallmark card of rock and roll as far as expressing what we feel fucked up about the world or sit or what's wonderful about world or beautiful world, everything you can think of general human being asks himself every day in life
DESCRIBE YOUR LIVE SHOW.
"I think our live show developed throughout the years, especially with this lineup and we really plan on spending a bit more money on produc-tion this year, a bit more elaborate as far as songs, i plan on at some point asking the fans what they wanna hear as far set list concerned and then play everybody's favorite, have four records to pick from, hard to come up with a set list make eve-rybody happy, that's why we're doing this shorter tour to experiment with set arrangements, come up with a compromise everybody really loves
WHAT'S NEXT FOR THE BAND? TOP OF THE CHARTS OR HAPPY WHERE YOU'RE AT?
"Mind Control is the first single and it comes out June 16 all over the control, call stations and get them to go, as soon as know what tour sit is, don't know if headlining or opening a bigger act, hopefully headlining, be in a city near you, enc everybody to join Tantric MySpace and Facebook, we're definitely into that shit.
ANYTHING ELSE?
"Just remind everybody to buy flowers for their mothers for Mother's Day."
"Already recorded, set for July 21st. The single drops June 16th, I'm really excited about it. Should be starting to leak some songs on MySpace soon."
ON MYSPACE, YOU CALL THE "MIND CONTROL" TRACKS "HARD-HITTING." WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? MORE ROCK AND LESS OF THE ALT-MELODY THAT MADE YOU FAMOUS?
"This record a depar-ture a little bit from last record, in this way, I think generally the whole record is the heaviest side of tantric. Every-thing is right around heaviness of down and out, a lot less ballads, where other record more nostalgic, i guess way to describe it, not that this one doesn't have integ-rity, i just we purposely tried to make a more aggressive rock record, all of us in the band can-not wait to share it with the world. We're really proud of it."
WHY MAKE A HEAVIER RECORD?
"I think that was just what we were feeling. As soon as done touring with this record, went down in basement and started writing songs, told band members to send me riffs, more col-laborative than last one, all the riffs my band members sending me heavier riffs in general, that kind of made it eas-ier for me to write heav-ier songs. I don't know if we purposely tried to go there, just leaned that direction naturally and we kind of embraced it and went for that whole vibe. Mind Control one of the first songs wrote for the record, set the bar really high
WHAT ABOUT SUBJECT MATER? HOW DOES "MIND CONTROL" COMPARE LYRICALLY TO PAST ALBUMS? WHAT'S IT ABOUT?
"Lyrically, this record touches on a lot more subjects, where last re-cord more self-loathing, i cant believe going through all this shit, this one more observational, talking about stuff going on around the world, just some fun songs, very carnal, etc.
A COUPLE YEARS INTO THE NEW LINEUP, HOW IS TANTRIC HOLDING UP?
"I'll tell you one thing, I've never been in a band I get along well as in this one, a lot closer together, better friends than ever were, work unified as a team to achieve our goals we set individually, a good balance not get in each other faces when know not supposed to, everybody's super cool, even when not playing enjoy hanging out and that's important thing
ANY PLANS TO RELEASE MORE "TANTRIC III" TUNES?
"We released two of them on this last record, and I don't know, for me, I would love to release that record 'cause it's a great record, but there's so much bullshit going on with label, record owned by Warner Bros, want $250K in assets, unless Warner bro decides to release it, it's kind of tied up
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS THE MESSAGE BEHIND TANTRIC THE BAND? WHAT KIND OF IMPACT DO YOU HOPE TO HAVE ON A LISTENER?
"I think Tantric is a di-rect reflection of general society and the general view of people in our age bracket and just in our class of life, i think we just reflect views that generally everybody feels, not super contro-versial, just reflect and project views other peo-ple feel, just through music, we're like the hallmark card of rock and roll as far as expressing what we feel fucked up about the world or sit or what's wonderful about world or beautiful world, everything you can think of general human being asks himself every day in life
DESCRIBE YOUR LIVE SHOW.
"I think our live show developed throughout the years, especially with this lineup and we really plan on spending a bit more money on produc-tion this year, a bit more elaborate as far as songs, i plan on at some point asking the fans what they wanna hear as far set list concerned and then play everybody's favorite, have four records to pick from, hard to come up with a set list make eve-rybody happy, that's why we're doing this shorter tour to experiment with set arrangements, come up with a compromise everybody really loves
WHAT'S NEXT FOR THE BAND? TOP OF THE CHARTS OR HAPPY WHERE YOU'RE AT?
"Mind Control is the first single and it comes out June 16 all over the control, call stations and get them to go, as soon as know what tour sit is, don't know if headlining or opening a bigger act, hopefully headlining, be in a city near you, enc everybody to join Tantric MySpace and Facebook, we're definitely into that shit.
ANYTHING ELSE?
"Just remind everybody to buy flowers for their mothers for Mother's Day."
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