Rockezine.com interview with Black Nasa on Mar 05, 2003

with Chris Kosnik on Mar 05, 2003


		Is there a story behind the band name? Yes. I saw in a magazine or on the Internet about the theory that we never went to the moon, that the moon landing in 1969 was filmed on a sound stage on earth. The person who wrote the story referred to the space program as "Black Nasa"
		Your own comment on the debut cd "Black Nasa"… I think we just tried to make a cd that had something for all rock fans; we didn`t want to write the same songs over and over like a lot of today’s Kyuss clones do.
		Who are responsible for the song writing, and does any of it exist from jams? We all write together for the most part, but if one of us comes up with a whole song by themselves we will play it too. The song "Blackout Mode" comes from a jam.
		Why the Bachman, Turner & Overdrive cover? When I was a kid one of my first records was a B.T.O. album that had "Taking Care of Business" on it. The very next song was "I Don`t Have to Hide".. He just sang in a low voice that was kind of funny to me as a kid. 20 Years later I heard it again and thought what a great song this still is.
		The cd sounds pretty direct, how was the recording process? We rehearsed for a month before we went to the studio, so we had all our ideas worked out before we got there. It went pretty fast, and was finished in about a week.
		Any interesting quotes from the recording days? Yeah,........You fucking suck!! Play it again asshole!! No!!!!! No!!!!!!! What fucking song are you playing?????!!!! Fuck this......
		Chris is originally from Atomic Bitchwax, do Corey and Duane have a history? Corey and Duane have been jamming on and off for years....Duane played with Bitchwax on our last tour, he did the slice part on the song Smoke Screen.
		How did the band get together? We became friends through a bar called The Brighton, we all played in different bands there and soon ran into each other over time. We`ve been great friends ever since.
		Seventies rock and also some Pink Floyd can be heard on the album, which bands were your examples? I like so much more than what`s heard on the record but I like AC/DC, Kiss, Black Sabbath, Allman Brothers, the Cars, to name a few.
		The music can still be compared with Atomic Bitchwax in the basis; don`t you miss the jam-based approach? In a way that approach still plays a large role in the way we write, what we do is work up a riff and jam on it for 30 min. or so ... during that time the riff goes through changes until we agree to use it in a song or just toss it out and move onto something else... All songs have a main riff; some bands just leave the jam that created it in the finished song.
		On stage I think I heard some extended versions, you like to improvise when playing live? The cd was recorded so long ago ... I think the songs sound better live and improvised.
		Duane plays slice in a pretty heavy way, but why the choice for so much use of slice? That`s just the way he plays, he`s influenced by a lot of slice players like Duane Allman... I hope it sets the band apart from many others playing this style of rock.
(Cor Schilstra)