INTERVIEW:  

this was conducted by Javi Dieguez with Michael James in May 2004.  the interview was translated by the author from Spanish to English.

I stumbled upon Explosions In The Sky near a wall inside the Pontevedra Exhibition Center, with DJ Rupture playing in the background, about an hour and a half before their show.  I made some silly comments asking if they were "enjoying" the show, and talking about the "marvelous" sound quality, and ended up chatting with Michael.  During our conversation I asked him several things which I transcribe here as best as I can remember them.
 

Javi:  Do explosions in the sky like to play big sized venues like this one?

Mike:  Actually we prefer smaller ones.  The small bar "O Meu Mercedes" (capacity 200) that we played last year in Oporto is exactly the kind of place we love to play at.

Javi:  What did you like most about the European shows?

Mike:  I like that people are so quiet and that they actually listen to the music.  In the USA people are more chatty, maybe because they are accustomed to getting a lot of shows.

 

Javi:  Was it maybe a bad idea to extend the European tour so much?

Mike:  Possibly it was because we are very tired now. But we like to play Europe.  We thought we were going to have a little break from May 7th-9th before knowing we would play Spain & Portugal again.  But we really wanted to return here and we are glad it was possible.

Javi:  I am curious.  Why don't you ever play an encore?

Mike:  Actually, we have tried it, two or three times last year.  But we found that it does not fit well with the rest of the show.  We are not the kind of band who like to separate their set into several parts, come off the stage and then on again.  Our songs are always tied, we prefer to play them all in a single piece without any breaks.  The fact that we end up very tired is also a reason.
 

Javi:  Why did you play so many shows in the UK this tour?  You played ten shows in February, and now ten more?

Mike:  Because out booking agency is from there.  It's much easier for them to book us shows there.  They actually wanted us to return once again to play more shows, but we had to say no.  We also played many shows in France and we really liked them.
 

Javi:  Where can we find accurate tour dates?

Mike:  It's also difficult for us to know the tour dates!  We get to know along the way, and we try to submit them to our label as soon as we confirm them, but it's not always possible.  Angels-Gone usually has got accurate dates as well.
 

Javi:  How about playing a full tour of Spain in the future (when you feel like touring again, of course)?

Mike:  We would love to do that. Spain is my favorite country, as well as Italy.

 

Javi:  Which of the shows you played in Spain did you like most?
 

Mike:  Madrid, at Moby Dick, that was a favorite.  I also remember the great crowd at Barcelona, and of course the show in Fuengirola.  In Italy the shows were really good as well, especially one show we played at a really small town (I assume Mirandola).

Javi:  What happened to songs like "A Poor Man's Memory", "The Long Spring" or "The Moon is Down".   Why are they not played regularly?

Mike:  Yes, those songs have not been played much recently.  We played "A Poor Man's Memory" in Austin last year.  "The Long Spring" was played at the Peel Session, and also at some older shows, but we don't feel it fits well with the rest of our set.  "The Moon Is Down" was cycled to make room for other songs, and honestly now we would need to learn to play it again.

 

Javi:  What about songs from the very first album?  You seemed to have been considering playing some again?

Mike:  We played "Magic Hours" at some shows in 2002 but we were not too happy with the results back then.  We were also considering to play the last song of that album (Remember Me As A Time Of Day).

 

Javi:  What are the current touring plans?

Mike:  We will play some European festivals for two weeks in July.  Of those, I think only Accelerator in Sweden and Quartz in Norway are confirmed right now.  Then we will play for just one month in the USA.  We have scrapped the Japan & Australia tour plans, as we are a bit tired from the extremely long tour and want to get to write the new album as soon as possible.
 

Javi:  Any new songs on the horizon?

Mike:  We have no new songs yet as we don't usually write while we are on tour, we prefer to wait until we are back home.  We are excited about writing the new album.

 

Javi:  You know that the official website is down, don't you?

Mike:  Yes, we are looking into it.  We don't know exactly what happened, but we are aware that it is still accessible through the alternate address.  I guess it should be a problem with the registration.

 

Javi:  What about the unofficial websites?

Mike:  I know Todd from www.rectangular.org, he is a nice guy and we should be linking to his site soon, but we barely know how to build a web page.  I also know about the www.kerm.net site.
 

Javi:  Well, that's all Michael.  Thanks a lot for your time.

Mike:  You're welcome.  Nice to talk to you.