Sweet and palatable tunes like candied cherries in your mouth, that’s what dream pop darlings The Bilinda Butchers are capable of making.
If you’re in to indie pop and shoegaze music, or bands like Fazerdaze, Tamaryn and Thud, San Francisco based dream pop band The Bilinda Butchers have to be on your watchlist. Currently consisting of Michal Kepsky (vocals and guitar), Adam Honingford (guitar), Lukas Untersteiner (bass) and Brock Lowry (drums), the band talks to us about creating a soothing wall of sound with a hint of pleasant melancholy.
Interview with Michal Kepsky from The Bilinda Butchers
Regret, Love, Guilt, Dreams was quite a lovely name for your 2011 EP. It feels like it’s the sentiment of looking back at your younger self, sort of realising all the things you could’ve done but never did. Why did you name it that?
It’s strange to think back on it now because it came out in 2011. So I’m not the same person I was when I wrote it and named it. I was an emotional and rebellious teenager. I guess I wanted the name of the record to reflect that.
Your single Girlfriend, is it a sequel to your old track Boyfriend? What’s love and romance to you guys?
I wrote Girlfriend during the same time we were recording Regret, Love, Guilt, Dreams, so it has that same sound. I wasn’t able to finish it back then, but I always liked it so we wanted to finish it before this tour so we could play it. And yes, it is kind of a sister song to Boyfriend, using the same opening line. Well I’m not sure how to answer the second part (laughs). But I guess I would say a lot of our early music was about long distance relationships, so it focused on longing for someone and learning how to be in love on your own.
Tell us more about the idea behind your album Heaven (released in 2015…?)
It actually came out in 2014! (Oops) We’re very slow with releasing new music – haha. Heaven is a concept record set in the Edo period in Japan about a young woman who kills herself to follow her lover after he is killed.
Fans of The Bilinda Butchers probably already know that you guys are big fans of Wong Kar Wai. How have his works inspired you guys?
His story telling and cinematography style is very dramatic and romantic. We aspire to write music in a similar fashion.
What sort of sounds do you want to proceed with in your future material/record? What have you guys been exploring in the past few years?
We try to do something different with every project we work on. Our next record is more electronic and dance music driven, inspired by late nights in China.
What matters most to you in your music making?
To do something different and unexpected. I hate the thought of sounding stale.
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