Robex Lundgren virkblogg.

Have any of you played in other bands? Yes a bunch.

How is it that you started playing music? I wanted to play piano to accompany myself learning songs for musical theater.  Also my gramma had wonderful rough hands and would rub my back.  I feel like she gave me a sense of the body as three dimensional kind of rhythmic sculpture. The guys grew up near DC and attended many punk shows when DC was a happening scene.

What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you? Alexi Papadopoulos, upright electric bass.   Yanni Papadopoulos, guitar. Cheshire Agusta drums

Have you had other previous members? Nope

Did you make music even when you were young? Yes.  

Where are you from? The guys are from Maryland outside of DC.  I'm from West Virginia.

What year did the band form? 1993

What's your style of genre? We don't know.  We leave that to the listener. Other people have called it many things most hysterically, doom jazz.  

What inspires you? Doing the work.

How often and where do you reherse? Our rehearsal schedule has undergone many permutations.  Yanni and his wife have two very young kids in their household now.  Life and babysitting sometimes take the place of band practice, but we get our licks in.  I have a studio in the basement of my house.   We have had many practice spaces over the years.  

How have you developed since you started with the music? We are all twenty plus years older. There are songs we wrote ten years ago that I can't play anymore not because I don't remember them but because I just don't play that way any more.  The drum parts just don't sit in my body the same way.  But I think essentially we are still chewing on the same ideas. Hard to say whether we've gotten better at expressing those ideas or not.  

Do you have other interests of work outside the band? Alexi owns a coffee shop with his wonderful wife Wendy. Yanni and I both teach. 

What made you decide to make this music? I was the craziest thing in my band and Yanni was the craziest thing in his band, so he poached me to make our band.  Then we needed a bass play so he poached his younger brother.

What are your songs about? We like to leave meaning up to the listener.  Ain't no lyrics. Stories without words.  We like to take listeners on a journey of their own devising.

Who does the composing and writes the lyrics? We all write.

Do you compose in a certain inviroment? I think Yanni sits in a room alone with a metronome and a guitar.  Alexi writes on the bass and on the guitar and sometimes plugs everything into Logic including drums. I sometimes write at the drum set. While playing I imagine bass lines.  Sometimes I write on bass guitar.  Sometimes melodies come with the rhythms of walking or running or daily life.  I will also plug everything in to logic and sketch out guitar parts and whatnot.  Then when we are together we bang on the material and fight about it until it seems right.  Songs continue to develop on the road and in the rehearsal room sometimes for years.  

Have you done any covers live? Yes. The Obsessed.  Hendrix. Michael Jackson.  Cream. Funkadelic, Dylan, Motorhead to name a few.

What ages are most of your concert attendants? All ages

Do you always play the same songs live, or do you vary? Vary.

Do you have a regular place you play live often? Philly.

What was your first gig like? Our first gig was canceled because of flyer wars in downtown Philly.  As we were driving up, we saw cops surrounding the venue,  split the scene and gave a show in our practice space.  Then we went to DC and played in the old 930 club.  We wanted to get on the road anyway.

What was your latest gig? New Orleans, Louisiana with Mea Culpa, Eat the Witch and Sunrise Sunset

Have you had to cancel a gig? Yes we had to cancel the same tour two years in a row due to serious injuries.  It sucked balls. 

Where have you played live this year? New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Knoxville, Atlanta, Richmond, Norfolk, Pensacola FL, Winter Park FL, Columbia SC, NOLA, Houston TX, Austin TX...um....a bunch a US places is where.

Where do you plan to gig the comming year? Regional stuff around Philly and Europe in April of 2016.

When did you start to sell merchandise, and what do you have for sale?  In the beginning we had cassette tapes with a picture of a drowning clock on them.  Now we have 7 full length releases and countless singles and split singles and compilations and side project CDs and t shirts, sometimes hoodies and patches  and pins and stickers and posters n junk. 8th full length to be released ASAP.

Where can people buy your merchandise? www.stinkinglizaveta.com but beware, 7th Direction vinyl is sold out.   You may also be able to order from At a Loss Recording  or Translation Loss in US and Exile On Mainstream in EU or even possibly Monotreme Records in UK. 

What do you think about people downloading music instead of buying records now a days? The industry is in transition.  All publishing industries are in transition from factory, paper and plastic and pressing and trucking to a new delivery system.  No one yet knows how it's going to turn out and I've never heard anybody say anything even remotely intelligent about it, apart from this guy, Stephen Witt in his book, How Music Got Free.

How do you think the music industry have changed because of this? What do you think of my work?  Nice FB page. It's lovely of you to do this. 

Do you have any role models or idols? Dig this. I AM a role model. On a less snarky note: At this stage of my life I feel like I'm my own role model, but I get life and learning from others every day, from my students, from colleagues, from my dear husband and family which includes my band mates.   When I think of idols I think of longing to be someone besides myself.  I'm into being myself.  

Why do you think that they exist? I'm not prepared to get into the weeds of my views on the nature of being just now.  Listen to our music.  Our music says a lot about the nature of being and with way fewer words.  

Is it easier to find inspiration from older bands, or bands that are more active today? Some bands can tell you what not to do.  Some can tell you what might be good to do.  I don't get inspiration from other bands necessarily.  I listen to all kinds of music.  Truth be told I don't look for inspiration.  When I work stuff happens.  When I don't stuff doesn't.

What have been your biggest obstacles? Biggest personal obstacles?  Biggest obstacles to the band as a business?  Biggest obstacles to remaining a band? Confronting my own capabilities and limitations.   The band is a success, but the industry could use a lot more imagination and has played a very big part in destroying local culture which has sucked the money up and away.  All bands haveshit.  

What advice would you give other bands or artists? Make the call. Don't sit around waiting for the call to be returned.  Make the second call, but don't be a pest.  Play gigs.  They lead to other gigs.  Sign your own checks.  Don't sell yourself short.  Learn to play your instrument.  Be yourself.  And for my sake, take the whining and/or the vomit vocals home to your mom.  She might care.

How do you get psyched for a gig? Drink no more than one cup of coffee the morning of the show.   Do yoga, warm up the hands with sticks and pad,  and don't drink alcohol until after the show.   All of us pretty much stick to that program although Yanni warms up his hands on the guitar.  Alexi....not sure if he does instrument warm up.  I don't think so.  

Do you have any new material? Yep.  We just finished recording our 8th album down in NOLA.

What are your web sites? www.stinkinglizaveta.com  but we don't use it much anymore.  We use the Facebook to communicate and announce shows and so forth

How can people reach you?  the FB

What are your plans for the future?  Put out the 8th album.  Tour EU.  Keep making music as long as we continue to have something to say to each other.

Do you have something to add?  Nope, but thanks for asking.