Interview with Justin from Far Corners

One of my all time favorite bands is Mr. Airplane Man, a female-fronted garage rock band that used to be on the Sympathy for the Record Industry label, one of the old pinnacles of garage rock (White Stripes started on this label). They put out some amazing releases but eventually went defunct before returning from the mean-ol-grave in 2011. A couple months ago, I sent out a tweet saying - "anyone know how to contact Mr. Airplane Man?" and I got a response that led me to another band that has Tara from Mr. Airplane Man in it. The name of the band was Far Corners, a garagepunk band featuring Tara and her husband Justin who writes the music for the band. I was directed to the band's FACEBOOK PAGE, where luckily I could listen to the band's music and I was extremely happy. Not only had I found out what Tara had been doing, but I found another band that I really liked and wanted to put on my website.

So I got in contact with Justin and we started e-mailing each other. He said he'd be down for an interview, which definitely made me happy.

The band is noisy. It's got almost swamp-like distortion followed by eerily piercing guitar wails and a ghostly scream of a voice, that all but front a blues-rock sound. Doesn't that sound awesome? Spoiler alert - It is awesome.

You can hear a cut from their new 7" HERE. And you can see a video of them live HERE

I also couldn't find many pictures, so I put up some of their posters from gigs.

Listen:

Jordan: What's Far Corners? Who's in it? When did it start? How did it start? 

Justin: The band started about 3 years ago when we formed out of an old band we were in. I was writing new songs that were different from the old stuff and wanted to kind of start over.  It's me, Tara and Sean.

J: What has influenced your sound? I take it that you have been in bands before, so how did you arrive at Far Corners?

JU: Swell Maps, X (Aus.), Simply Saucer, Wire, Blue Cheer. Tara (the drummer) and I were in a band in Boston before we moved out to New Mexico, when we got here we hooked up with Sean and he started playing bass with us. After a year or so it seemed like we should just start over with a new batch of songs and just make it a different band.

J: What all have you guys released so far and what has the process been like in terms of recording and getting your music out? 

JU: We've got two 7" out, one on Limited Appeal and a split with Earthmen & Strangers on Dirt Cult. The third will be coming out on Volar hopefully in the next few months. So far, we've recorded the stuff ourselves onto 4 track cassette. It's been cool recording our own stuff, also a pain in the ass. I guess I'd rather be frustrated with myself then with someone we were paying to record us. Oh yeah, Mads from Cola Freaks was supposed to put out a 7" on his label Mastermind. Maybe if he reads this that'll put the squeeze on him!

J: Who writes the songs? What is the process like behind getting a song written?

JU: I write the songs, sometimes they take awhile to come together. Other times they're pretty much vomited out. Lately it's been, "Here's one part, and here's another part. That's a song."

J: Do you guys play shows or have any plans to play more shows?

JU: Yeah lately we've just been playing local shows, this band hasn't been out on tour yet. Hopefully we can pull that together relatively soon.

J: You've said that you have a new record coming out soon - what does the record sound like in comparison to what you've released? Have there been any changes in roles in people in the band during this new stage?

JU: It's weird thinking that's our new record because we recorded it over a year ago. Hopefully it's different from what we've done before, I'd like to think we're always changing a little. I was trying to write stuff where the bass and guitar are playing separate parts instead of chugging along together the whole time. 

J: How are you releasing the record? Are you doing it through a label or self-releasing or what?

JU: Volar is putting it out. I think he's doing Eat Skull, Cosmonauts and a few other records at the same time.

J: What else is in the future for Far Corners?

JU: We need to record soon! We've got a bunch of stuff ready to go, hopefully we can get it to tape and move on to the next batch.