This Saturday, Boynton Beach's Limitless Agency offers more than just a one act show. They're putting on a lineup with eight bands. Yes, eight: Strange Ways, Everyone's Fault, Pilgrimage, the Vogans, Smith Sundy, People, Iron Young, and Be Brave.
As much as we wanted to interview all 8 of these bands, we couldn't. But we did get to sit down with the Michael Basso of Smith Sundy -- who manages the synth, bass, and vocals -- to get the low down on funky names, delayed vocals and outer space.
Side note: Smith Sundy is looking for a new drummer, so if you think you can handle the honor of sitting in their drummer's throne, go for it.
New Times: So, what's the story behind your name?
Basso: The storage unit that we practice in is on a road in Delray Beach called Smith Sundy. We never really planned to name the band after a road at first, we initially wanted to name it after our cats, but people seemed to like Smith Sundy when we brought it up, so we just stuck with it.
We saw your picture of "The Song on the Wall." Is there a funny story behind that?
Well, when we first started writing songs, we didn't have any names for them, so we would just refer to them as, the "song on the wall" which we had taped to the wall or "the gospel ending song," which had a gospel sounding ending. After a little bit, the names just stuck.
"Voyage Through the Telephone" has a really cool sound with delayed vocals. Are all your songs like that?
Not all of them. Our more poppy mainstream songs don't, but we like to incorporate delay on the vocals for our more psychedelic songs and we really enjoy the sound of it when used properly.
Describe your sound.
Our sound is really all over the place. Some of our songs, like "Song on the Wall," are more mainstream and poppy sounding mainly for the listening pleasure of non-musician fans. However, the sound we really want to be known for is more along the lines of psychedelic rock with some post-rock influences.
Who are your influences?
The list is endless, but we grew up listening to classics like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin , Crosby Stills & Nash, and the Grateful Dead, but the bands that really reflect our sound would be Pink Floyd, Santana, and some newer less known bands like This Town Needs Guns, American Football, the Sound Of Animals Fighting, Tame Impala, El Ten Eleven, and even some local bands like the M(e)yers Trilogy, Cowboys and Aren't Indians. If you want, I can go on...
What inspires your music?
A lot of the inspiration we get to write our songs comes from outer space. It is amazing to us to think that there is something so vast and intricate out there, and how small we are compared to it. When we write songs, we usually try to give the listener a sense of traveling through space and time, whether it's the feeling of taking off in a space ship, flying through a field of Asteroids or just floating weightless through blackness.
So do you believe in aliens?
I believe there's something out there, but I don't know if it's intelligent or not. There's really no way to know for sure though.
Smith Sundy, 5:30 p.m. at Pre-fest at the Limitless Agency, 1499 S.W. 30 Ave. #14, Boynton Beach.
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