Interview- The Raygun Girls

Last Updated on Tuesday, 01 January 2008 14:45 Written by Julie Johnson 2

Band: The Raygun Girls
Interviewer: Julie Johnson
Date: 5-18-05

*Online Music Survey*
What is the name of your band?	The Raygun Girls (www.raygungirls.com)
How long have you been in the scene?	Wow....I've been playing out about 15-16 years now.
How did you start your band?	Thankfully I was fortunate enough to join a recently established project. I joined last December and debuted last February. I believe the RayGun Girls have been around at least a year and a half by now.
What does each of the members bring to your band?	Geoff (guitar/vox) is everything. He is the Raygun Girls. He is the main songwriter, lyricist, etc. For the sake of space here, Geoff brings all our material and an awesome presence to our show. He is also ultimately our main motivator as well. Maya (vox) brings a much more melodic sound to the band. She is an awesome singer and always complements the music well with her melodies. She also brings in tons of sex appeal. She is really our whole stage show. George (bass) is this weird beast to describe. He brings in a bit of everything to everything he does. Awesome stage presence, solid bassist, does an amazing job with his backup vocals (sometimes even stealing the show with them IMO), brings in a light heartedness to any situation making it more enjoyable...he also likes being a pain in my ass. For me, I'll leave that to one of my members. Hopefully I bring in some more melody and dynamics to our music. I bring in some rippin leads.
How do you work out differences when working on ideas for the music?	Rather than bang each other up we listen to each other, keep those opinions in consideration and try a new aproach the following week that tries to address the main grievences from the following week. Recently Geoff brought in a song and we got stuck at the end. He took our opinions into consideration and redid a section making it much more melodic and easier to take in. We'll also re-work a song over and over till we feel that we got it. We also road test songs and see how the kids like them when working out new songs.
What are some of the challenges you have faced while making music?	Making sure the songs flow and are coherent. Being a musician and being adventerous is good, but not at the sake of the song. Structure, melody and continuity are everything. That's are main challenge.
What is your band motto?	Ha Ha. That depends on which member you ask....get signed and get blindingly drunk. How's that?
What is your live performance like?	Pretty intense. We don't have a drummer currently so we play to an IPod running our drum and keyboard backing tracks. Concentration is pretty high while maintaining that presence that we are having fun performing. For me I strive for technical perfection live. I want our show to be quite impressive musically. The rest of the band has that real mix of presence, sexiness, etc. It all comes together in the end. When we get that vibe going it seems we all play off each other and the crowd. Our sound is an eclectic mix and that's what you get in our live show - a bit of everything.
How many CD's have you released together?	We have one CD (Mars Eclipsing) and one EP available through our site and shows. We are currently planning on recording during the summer as we don't have anything that features the current line up you see live. Most of the songs we preform now haven't been recorded yet as well. Hopefully we'll have something out after the summer.
What song is most personal and why?	This would really be a better question for Geoff as he's the main writer. For me I have a preference for the song Blackness. I think most guys can relate to this song. Anger, alienation, something bad building up inside you...that's what I get from it. The song doesn't try to resolve anything either which is another reason why I like it. My personal favorite is Can't Die Now cause it's the most fun for me to play.
Review one of your songs on your latest CD?	Burning (off of our EP)-This is probably the last song that has that "older" Raygun Girls vibe to it. This song is a nice mix of alternative and 80's vibe rock. The song has an awesome hook that just propells the whole thing. Unfortunately the production on this one is pretty bad so even I have to drop it a few points myself. This one is getting re-recorded this summer. This is a great show opener for us that just didn't quite have the magic when it was recorded that our show has when we do it. 7 out of 10 I guess.
How many hours a week to you spend together?	On non show weeks...maybe 3 hours. When we have gigs I'd say we're around each other for at least 8 hours. So anywhere from 3-16 hours. More so if we are traveling obviously.
What bands have influenced your style?	My influences and style are night and day with my band's. For me, it's Dream Theater and Megadeth mostly. Death, The Police and Pantera had a large effect on me as well.
How many people at once have you played in front of?	Well over a thousand recently at the NY Auto show.
Can you share with us a crazy band releated story?	Geoff's birthday bash a few months ago at Wild Spirits in NYC. The show was over already. Some of our friends stayed. We got totally ripped. George and me are reinacting the UFC on the floor ("Tap Out Bitch!!!), chicks are making out on the counter, hard liquor is being poured from 5 feet above down your throat with no end in sight and the unthinkable happens....This Love from Pantera comes on. Mosh Pit ensues between 3 of us. Somehow a bar stool got into the mix and Geoff breaks his pinky on his right hand. This finger is broken ugly. I've never seen anything like it. Even now, Geoff's hand is taped up like Mankind from the WWF (Mandible Claw). He refuses to get surgery so he's gonna have this deformed pinky now for the rest of his life. He doesn't seem to mind. I know that's not to crazy but we're pretty normal I guess.
What was your worst experience as a band?	Hmm....nothing really since I've been here to see. Maybe playing this one dive in Manhattan here that had like 8 people. I won't the venues name but the soundguy was the bartender and had to fix stuff in the bathroom too. Lousy gig.
How do you accept bad reviews?	Music is subjective. There's nothing in this world that everyone is gonna agree on and like. We take it with a grain of salt and move on. Thankfully we are reaching and connecting with people and that's what matters. We will listen to criticism that's constructive and keep it in mind. We are always trying to improve and grow as musicians and as a band.
What do you think your band needs to work on more?	More metal, heavy songs. We seem to go over big time more with the metal crowd than the goth crowd lately. We have been thinking of going a bit in the Fear Factory direction lately. The last few months of responses would say that we would be smart to pursue that. I think we need to break out the 7-strings and get a bit nasty.
What is your latest concept your latest album?	Musically is gonna be about diversity. We tyake chances that many bands lumped in our genre wouldn't. It's gonna be more dynamic, heavier, and bit more poppy with the hooks and some interesting instrumentation in the songs. Lyrically the concept seems to be pretty dark. I don't want to comment to much on that now as we are still writing.
What do you feel your band could work on more?	Promoting. We play shows too often lately and we can only do so much ourselves. Which brings us too...
How do you promote your band?	We have many websites.lol www.raygungirls.com, www.myspace.com/theraygungirls, www.myspace/Jay_Of_The_Dead ...there are more actually. We do lots of contests as well.
Do you feel your music is accepted in the underground?	So far, definetly. The underground I'm not worried about. I've seen the love. Do we have a mainstream appeal is what I want to see.
What kind of goals have you set for your band?	Sign a deal. Make a killer record. Give the best show possible every night despite if there's 6 people to see it or 600. Musically, to take chances and to not repeat ourselves. Not to stay in any comfort zone for too long. At the end it comes down to making good music and having our integrity while making a buck hopefully. We do need to eat.
Where do you see your band in the next five years?	Signed to an indy probably. My band would hate to see this. Major labels, I just don't know if the RayGun Girls is a "safe" investment for them to consider. I do see us with a drummer by then too.
What do you think about the current underground, goth, industrial, EBM scene?	It's not my scene, never was. I'm the metal/prog/death guy. I will say that from what I've been exposed too it's like every other scene out there. There's some genius bands and there's a lot of shit as well. The bands that really seem to appeal to me from here thus far are the ones that are willing to move out of the paint by numbers (delay on a guitar, it must be goth) attitude and reinvent themselves while staying true to who they are. Those are the ones that will make it.
Do you have any current news to share with us?	Just that we're gonna be recording very soon and it's gonna be a good reflection of what our live show is like. We have a ton of dates (many more coming up soon) and hopefully we'll see you all at a show.
What do you like to do in your spare time?	Workout, video games, the usual guy stuff.
Do you have an upcoming tour, if so when?	Check www.raygungirls.com -There's some stuff coming up very soon for the summer.
What are your other interests, hobbies, etc?	I really don't have much time for other hobbies outside of music. I'm working on a Dream Theater cover band right now. So that and horror movies I guess.