Revolushn Interview by Eileen Shapiro
With their own very special brand of psychedelic insanity, the San Francisco psych rock collective has just unleashed “Further!!”, to the unsuspecting world, a sonically tasteful album, with darkened lyrics and happy endings.
Members of this faction include: No, on guitar, keys and vocals. No first picked up a guitar at 5 years old, and had his first band at age 11. No spent several years as a sessions player and Revolushn is his first effort at creating a sound and style. Dekay (David Kendrick), is the real rock star as No describes him, and has been a professional musician all of his life. He’s been a member of bands such as “Devo”, “Sparks”, and “Gleaming Spires”, and writes most of the lyrics for the group while playing the drums. Guinevere Q NBFD, plays the bass and does vocals. She is an activist, an award winning composer, a published poet and a full-time musician. Young Sun began his career as an actor in theater, commercials and film. He pays guitar, mandolin and vocals. Schubert Ola plays the keyboards and sings. She was born in Russia and studied to be a concert pianist at a very early age. She became a doctor in the Red Army, and years later joined the band. Even if this group sucked, they can get by on their interesting names alone.
Revolushn began as a studio band and played songs written by No and Dekay. Their first release, “The Freshman”, received airplay and modest sales. This new release is totally over the top. I hesitate to put the artistry of the record into words as I don’t wish to ruin the impact it will have on the listener. It’s effervescence is thrilling, compelling and essential.
I spoke with No about the creation and inspirations of the album, future projects, Thailand,as well as almost everything else on the planet. When asked the message of the album, No said to the Fresh Committee, “BE FREE. We want to say you can do anything you want because the universe is larger than shit. We sing about space and life in this fluid world. You never know what will happen so be happy and nice to other humans and animals”.
I wish that your real name was NO!
It started on this open mic thing. I was so afraid the first time I did it. He said, ” Do you have a name”, I said, “No”, and it stuck. I’m working on this song that is so powerful it’s going to take me a second to come back to earth….
Take your time. I love this record, I think more than the other one.
Oh thank you, that’s good to hear that you compared it to the old one and thought it was better.
I think it’s so deep.
It is. That’s what we went for. That’s why the music is sort of punky in a way. The lyrics sound poofy on the surface, but it’s cool. The first record we got points because a bunch of goof balls put out a record in the first place. With the second one we said, “we don’t get those credits anymore”.
The song “Dinosaurs”, I think it’s dark, but I’m not really sure.
It’s dark with a happy ending, because the dinosaurs die. That’s what Shubert said too, that it was too dark. She does our videos so she has to listen to these songs, over and over and over, and with that one she wasn’t feeling it. The other night we were riding in a car and she got it, she said, ” I know what to do now”.
I can see a full length movie made out of that song, or at least an animation.
Yeah, it’s so weird. That song, it reminds me of food poisoning. We were in Thailand, and my wife is Russian. Thailand for Russian is like Acapulco is to America. We went there to meet her family, but we ate at this restaurant. Two times in a row I had the same dish, it was so good. The third time I had what they called steak. I should know that you shouldn’t have something they call steak in a buddhist country. It was meat smothered in sauce. I was hungry, so I are it and then all of a sudden I flashed on this idea seeing all these weird artifacts and dragons all around. This family that runs Thailand is kind of oppressive. I just started thinking about this, then I saw something about this knucklehead Trump, people running the world are dinosaurs.
You say you’re in the studio, would that be for a new project?
Well for the next album.
Well, I really like this current record.
We really tried hard this time. The songs were good on the first album, they just didn’t fit together.
Are you going to tour with this, what do you think?
Oh yeah, we’re trying to figure out how to do it. Right now we’re playing birthday parties and stuff like that. It’s kind of fun because David, he’s toured stadiums half his life. We’re doing that kind of stuff and we’re trying to figure out how to do it. We know we’re going to lose money on the first tour, and it’s ok. It’s in the budget. We know we’re going to lose money and we can’t just tour around in a van because David won’t do that. I won’t either really. It’s not to say that we’re uppity, I just think there are easier ways to do it. In one of our plans we fly into LaGuardia, Monday night. We play little clubs around the greater New York area. Then on Frida or Saturday night, we play a really good place. I’m picking cities around the country were we know rich people that have a house big enough for us to stay at, where they owe me at least one favor.
I like your wife because she’s Russian.
Oh yeah, she’s the greatest. She’s the smartest person in the band I think.
Russian people tend to be smart.
Yeah, they really are, and once they like you, you’re in. When we first met she was a hard-ass business person. Now I’ve become a different person and she’s totally bohemian. She’s an artist, and it’s really cool.
For more info if you dare:
Revolushn.com
https://www.facebook.com/olgas.page.9
twitter @RevolushnBand
Written & Contributed by Eileen Shapiro
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