Dreaming of Heaven
In Heaven are one of those bands whose tunes make me tingle; one of those bands that make me say ‘Yes’; and one of those bands that should be massive. But then again, there’s no justice in the world is there?
They’ve only played a handful of gigs to date, I’m probably right in saying that the total is still in single figures. I’ve been lucky enough to catch one of those appearances, mainly because it was a White Lemonade promotion – the gig review’s in issue one – and what a performance it was!
In Heaven are to feedback what Pele was to football – perfect control. And underneath the feedback you’ll discover some exhilarating tunes – listen with earphones for a trip of a lifetime!
Enough of my rambling, here’s a few questions and answers:
What’s the band been doing over the summer?
“Recording, hanging out, we played an anti-blood sports benefit gig, built a darkroom in our spare room and done lots of photography.”
When did the band form?
“The present line-up has been together for about a year through Cardiff Art College, although In Heaven has been together since 1989 with various line-up changes.”
What’s it like playing without a drummer?
“We used to have a drummer and when he left we thought about getting another one but realized that some of our favourite bands used drum machines, namely Big Black, A.R. Kane and more recently Papa Sprain and Massive Attack which prompted us to get one.
“We had various narrow-minded twats saying, ’Oh, you’ve got to get yourself a drummer, you’re not a proper band without one.’ And crap like, ‘How can you improvise with a drum machine?’
“It was a bit weird first playing with a drum machine because it was just used as a direct replacement for the drummer, but most of the songs we have now would not sound as good with acoustic drums as our sound has kind of evolved around the drum machine.
“Live we’re pretty shambolic anyway, so the drum machine tends to hold everything together in a way that wouldn’t work properly with live drums.
“Also, drum machines are a hell of a lot more convenient than lugging drums around to gigs and practices, quicker to sound check too. But probably the biggest advantage of drum machines have over drummers is that they only have to punch the information into a drum machine once!”
You live in Cardiff yourselves, are there any Cardiff bands you like?
“We don’t really know of any Cardiff bands, there doesn’t seem to be any similar to us. Slow Jam are good, also Crabladder. There seems to be a hell of a lot of skiffle bands in Cardiff!”
What’s the band into? Books, films, perhaps?
“David Lynch, American Psycho, Storming Heaven, William Burroughs, Robert de Niro, George Eastman, Frank Auerbach, Gerhardt Richter, Chuck Jones, Sherilyn Fenn, Spike Lee, Boyz in the Hood, Public Enemy, The Orb, Julee Cruise.”
Who’s a popstar?
“Betty Boo.”
How would you define your music?
“Guitar-led, ambient, space rock!”
Well there you go, that’s In Heaven for you. Two demos have been released to date – the first ‘Cinematic’ was outstanding. At the time of writing, I’ve only heard a couple of tracks from the second demo. It’s entitled ‘Aquanova’ and we pinched a track (‘It’ll keep a while’) from it to include on the White Lemonade compilation tape, ‘Wonderful Smile’.
Interview by Darren Jones