The very first scarce jams were as early as Summer 2013 I guess, only fooling around in the rehearsal room with 3 or 4 songs and a lot of free form stuff. We even had 2 support gigs by that time but yet remained without a name. The real start was in January 2014 just after we recorded the album and finally found our name. Immediately after that we started to play a lot live. We kind of made everything the other way around: First the album then the gigs.
2) Whom are some of your musical influences?
We like old music mainly. 60s psychedelia, 70s rock, progressive stuff, beat, garage, even 50s jazz, folk, country, blues, pop music …nearly everything that sounds organic and analog I would say.
3) Will the band be playing any live dates, or festivals?
Oh, sure! We constantly play shows. We will be on tour in March including Germany, The Netherlands, Swiss, Austria, Luxemburg and Italy. The year we hope to tour in Spain and whatever comes along. We love to play live.
4) Any bands out there now that you like or have shared the stage with, Kiryk?
Yes, though we're pretty new on the scene we had the luck to play with many cool bands like Blues Pills, The Flying Eyes, Aqua Nebula Oscilator, Pontiak, Siena Root, Heat and many more.
There are many great new bands around. It feels like this whole rock'n'roll thing is really happening at the moment. …But to be honest: it was always around and it will always be I guess.
5) What is the psychedelic scene like these days in Germany, and Europe?
I think the word "psychedelic" has become a hip accessory these days and completely lost it's original meaning regarding music. Suddenly so many bands call their sound psychedelic or they are called that by others. I have done psychedelic music for many years but with WEDGE I don't even think we are that much of a psych band.
So the real 60s-Psych scene is really small. Well, there are a lot of kids who like to do drugs wearing funky retro clothes and stuff like that but many of them have no connection to real psychedelic music. But on the other hand that's all right with me as all the small scenes seem to merge into something bigger I guess. Like I said before: People are getting more open minded these days. After all it's all rock'n'roll more or less. I rather think this is a good thing.
6) Who is the songwriter of the band?
I write the most tunes so far. I really like melody and I think a good song has to be catchy no matter if it's a rock song or a pop song. Many people tend to think that they loose their underground credibility or whatever if they pay attention to melodies but this kind of thinking is only the straight road to boring songs.
7) Do you jam sometimes to work out songs in the studio?
If I write songs I have most everything down before I let anybody hear it. This includes the band. I write nearly all my songs on acoustic guitar so of course we have to jam along on the tunes to see how we can make them happen as a loud rocking band but to be honest there is not too much jamming in the songwriting process. There are certain parts like bridges or endings and such stuff that come out of a jam sometimes and we arrange the songs all together. Everybody adds his part to make the song better but the basic idea is always there first. …but we jam a lot live once we "know the song"!
8) What lies in the band's future and any WEDGE side projects that you wish to tell us about?
This year will see our second studio album, new videos, a lot of touring and many surprises! ; )
For my part I started out this band as a kind of a side project to my other band The Magnificent Brotherhood but it turned out that after 12 years or so it was just time to do something else and now WEDGE is my only band. The Holg & David are playing in another band, The Feminists. A great live band too! They dress themselves like women and rock like crazy. It sounds weird but …well, IT IS weird! Great band.
Appart from that there is not much time for further side projects as we want to put all our energy into WEDGE.
9) What do you spend your time doing when not in the studio, or writing music, Kiryk?
I am a graphic designer. I do a lot of record sleeves and posters for bands. My work is very much inspired by the psychedelic art of the 60s and art nouveau so I do stuff mostly for psychedelic bands …more or less. New ones but also the original folks like: Vanilla Fudge, The Seeds, The Electric Prunes etc. Other names you will find on my posters & covers are Baby Woodrose, DeWolff, Atomic Bitchwax, Fuzz Manta and a lot of garage psych bands of today. You can check it out HERE.
Interview By John Wisniewski
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