Sonic Boom

by Chris Peck

Edinburgh Venue May 1991

An audience with Pete Kember, alias Sonic Boom, one time leader of Spacemen 3. Sonics first solo album came out in March of this year, and this is his first tour since the Space-men split up. Anyone reading this interview should bear in mind that Sonic got more stoned as the interview went on, and most of the long pauses have been edited out, as have his "um's" and "ah's"!....

Why did you decide to tour now, what are you plugging?

Just because we haven't done any gigs with the new band, to go out and play, to do something with the band, to give away the record (a one-off 7" featuring To The Moon And Back and Capo Waltz), and to go out for the fans.

Are you planning on doing any more recording?

We've been recording, we recorded in the last few months a Spectrum album coming out later this year.

How did you get the new band together, and does it work?

Yeah (they work), I knew them anyway, more or less. Jeff, the drummer is in a band i've done some producing for, and Mike I knew through Richard.

Are you happy with Silvertone?

Really good. (Just when it looked as though the interview would peter out into a series of one liners Sonic perked up a bit)

What can we expect to hear on the new album? Will it be more positive like Recurring?

More like Recurring, a bit heavier, a couple of heavy songs from Reccuring are on the C.D. Just sort of continuing, there'll be some heavy stuff and some mellow stuff.

Do you have any regrets about the way the Spacemen split up?

Oh yeah. In some ways it's for the better, we're a better band than Spacemen 3 were, but I wasn't happy about the way it ended, I wasn't saying I was pleased about it. It was a sad thing all round. It's just one of those things, it ran its course.

Will you still play Spacemen 3 tracks, and what is the emphasis of the set?

Yeah, it's stuff I wrote. Some of them we do a bit different (such as the new style Revolution which has become even better). With the new record we're doing new tracks, at the moment we're just doing stuff people want to hear. It's quite hard for people to get into stuff if they have not heard it on a record. They get more out of a gig if they've heard it all before.

So you're not scared of getting an ex-Spacemen 3 label or crowd?

No, we haven't had that at all so far.The Sonic Boom / Spectrum album sold more than any Spacemen sold, which is why I think Jason got Spiritualised together, to show he could do it as well.

What do you think of it?

What I've heard I think is crap, really boring. They're just one facet of Spacemen 3. Spacemen 3 was multi-faceted. I'm not really impressed. I think them having a Spacemen 3 sticker on the record, not ex-Spacemen 3 has damaged the name of Spacemen 3, not much though, I think people put it in perspective.

(To resist comment at this point is almost impossible, the reviews of Sonics' concerts in the music press said they were boring, and clearly Sonic too is just one part of Spacemen 3. Perhaps we can forgive his inconsistency due to his state).

How do you feel about the resurgence of psychedelia, Spacemen 3 being heralded along with others as it's leaders?

Some of it's o.k. You mean stuff descended from the Spacemen and My Bloody Valentine? Chapterhouse, Slowdive and all those types...yeah I like some of it.

(At this point Sonic requested some cigarettes, and producing a lump of dope the size of a pepper pot, proceeded to skin up. At this point images of heaven appeared in our minds, and following this line of thought we decided to question Sonic on religion).

What part does religion play in Spacemen 3?

Religion is a bit of a dangerous word.

Christianity?(we already know the answer to that).

No, no. We didn't sing about that. I am religious, but not that. I believe there is a 'kingdom of heaven' and that it is within you, and you can access it through various mediums.

How is the drugs (still thinking of that heaven we visualised) thing going, the music papers harked on about it,tk up a few machines today he heroin thing, the Spacemen E label?

Well, nothing people say in print affects anything or me. I say what I say because I believe it, and I think there is a lot of shit, and a lot of taboo bullshit about drugs because people won't talk about them and their own drug use, so people get misconceptions about what drug users are like.

Do people mis-interpret what you say?

Sometimes it's not mis-interpreted too badly, they tend to print things I say that they think are relevant and they put their little comments after them. I think a lot of people know what I am saying and they think about it.

How has coming from Rugby affected you?

It's just a small industrial town, a railway town...a dull and boring town. It affected us not to be dull and boring, not to be small minded people.

The music press has accused you of taking yourself too seriously,do you take yourself seriously?

Yeah, I do. I do take myself and my music seriously. People who don't like it can't be expected to take it seriously. From the mail I get I think some people take it in an almost religious way. It means a hell of a lot to some people, and that means a hell of a lot to me. I'm not going to be frivolous about that. The music has always been about serious things, like people dying, like suicide, or people overdosing, or about drugs. Not particularly frivolous things.

I mean basically, the stuff I write about is the politics of life, and it's quite serious, there are lots of serious things happening in the world.

Do you write the music for other people, or for yourself?

A bit of both, partly for other people to be able to relate, partly because I know other people relate to some of the things I feel, or some of the things I feel should have songs written about them. It means a lot to me and to other people. Things like recreational drug use are very important to some people, certainly for myself. Recreational use of psyche-delics like LSD or magic mushrooms really helped me work out what I did or didn't believe in, what was the potential of myself, or my music. Psychedelic drugs helped me work that out.

Do you write your music or lyrics when tripping?

No, not usually, not when tripping, I usually write them afterwards about experiences. I jot things down but it's too hard.

Is remembering things hard?

Usually things come to you when you can't get to a pen for ten minutes!

What about non-hallucinogenic drugs?

Heroin is hypnotic... equally I felt them inspiring beautiful feelings and vibes, and that feeling inspired me to sum it up in music, so that other people could feel the same feelings.

Is your music a backing track to being stoned?

Partly...it can be used in two ways. Some use it to lull themselves to sleep, some get a psychedelic or drug like feel from listening to the hypnotic repetitions of it...and some use it as an assist to go to another level of consciousness...to be fair some lyrics are pretty frivolous like 'Pretty Baby'.

What do you hear when you are tripping?

Other sounds affected by the acid as it were, so what you hear is not really reality, but the sound of when you're tripping.Like a lawnmower, or two lawnmowers in the summer, and the way they phase in and out can be the inspiration for a fuzz guitar sound, or a keyboards sound.

Do you try to recreate that on record?

Yeah, if I think the feeling is good, if i think the feeling is the lazy vibe of a summer afternoon.

Are you trying to convert people to your way of thinking, or are you a spokesperson for people who already agree?

Neither really, there is no need for a spokesperson, and I'm not trying to convert people. What is the point of these interviews? To try and put in to words, hopefully, what you are doing in music, so that people can get an idea of what you're about, and to try to get an impression of whether they'd want to listen to it or not. But I don't think people should listen to drone music all the time, I think it has got its time and place. I don't listen to it all the time.

Certainly I do like it, there are a lot of emotions that can be summed up through drones, through two or a maximum of three chords.

Do you try to write songs that aren't minimal to capture both types of audience?

Yeah,some songs like "Honey", or "Just To See You Smile" are very simple, its got a drone going through it but what's played to it is complex progression riffs...I think that Brian Wilson said that a genius made the complex sound simple. I think he's right but we're coming from the opposite direction, we're trying to make the simple not sound simple. We're trying to make music that doesn't sound like nothing.

What are your influences?

Suicide, Stooges, V.U., Stones, Electric Prunes, Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Phil Spectre, Beach Boys, Punk, New Wave, 60's, Rockabilly, Rock'n'Roll, Blues...mainly Blues based music. (Ask a sweeping question...)

When did you start taking drugs?

10 a.m this morning...When I was about 13.

(The year he went off to boarding school.On his next birthday he will have taken drugs for half his life.)

Did that change your music taste?

Yeah, I started getting in to new stuff, Punk, Ska, Reggae, that kind of stuff. I think it affected the way I listened to music.

You said you wanted to make simple songs, but intricate, is that to do with hearing more when you are stoned?

Yeah, sort of. I think that simple things, lots of things playing the same note, you can hear more through the way the harmonies interact. Like the track I did called Ecstasy Symphony, its one note recorded on a keyboard, recorded lots of times with different effects. You need to hear it really.

Looking to the future, how long will you keep going for?

Dunno, I can't imagine doing anything else. I've been doing this for 8 or 9 years.

And so we slipped off in to the mingling audience. By the time the support came on stage a fair majority of the audience was under the influence of some kind of drug, and had elected to sit down for the forthcoming show, a feature that seemed to annoy the music press and a couple of hecklers in the crowd. The rest of us didn't mind, we knew there was no way you could stand up to the mindbending onslaught of psychedelic lights and music. The support Wave put on fairly good show, and though they were no match for Sonic Boom they introduced them well, convincing the audience with an air of finality that the floor was the only safe place to be.

Sonic Boom came onstage with little fuss, and after a technical hitch in the first song, they proceeded to enthrall the audience with a mix of Spacemen 3 songs, as well as a Mudhoney cover, just to prove that they too can steal other peoples songs. Then they dealt the killing blow.If anyone prefers Mudhoneys version of Revolution they should hear what Sonic Boom have done with it, a couple of false endings, and played with a passion that left the audience speechless.

Having gone to the interview expecting the worst we all found Sonic to be a charming and honest guy who has had too much bad press, a controversial stance perhaps but what the fuck.