INTERVIEW: JOHN + GUS OF ACID CAROUSEL
INTERVIEW: JOHN + GUS OF ACID CAROUSEL
By: Sloane Lenz
I happened to catch Acid Carousel at Saturnalia Festival in Austin a couple weekends back and was blown away by their presence and energy on stage. Lined up perfectly across the inside stage at the Sahara Lounge, you could tell they were there to pump out some sound. Three guitars and a bass on the front line, backed up by keyboards and a drummer, the room was in awe from the first song. Birthed almost two years ago from the minds of John Kuzmick and Gus Baldwin, now based in Denton, TX, the guys have been traveling and releasing music at a shockingly rapid rate ever since. With a current lineup of 6 members (John Kuzmick (21) on vocals and guitar, Gus Baldwin (19) on vocals and guitar, Ian Salazar (20) on bass and saxophone, Lucas Martins (18) on guitar, Fielder Whittington (21) on drums, and Drew Wozniack (21) on keyboards) the stage is always full of a rotating crew of musicians, nearly busting at the seams, but effortlessly getting their point across. They’re a great blend of heavy psych vibes, while incorporating dreamy pop elements and classic rock and roll energy behind it all. They have a new mini record titled Street Cowboy coming out soon on Dreamy Life Records, as well as three full lengths set for next year. I had a chance to chat with John and Gus and hear a bit about how the band was birthed, who inspired them, and what we can look forward to coming from them in the next few months. Check out the full interview below:
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INTERVIEW:
Sloane: “How was Acid Carousel born?”
John: “Acid Carousel was born when I decided to record a few songs I'd had for awhile that I wasn't going to use for the band I was in at the time. I released one of those songs as a single on Facebook where Gus saw it. He commented that he was going to play bass for the band and I just said alright.”
Gus: “Yeah, and eventually I wanted to play guitar too so I did that.”
Sloane: “Describe your sound in three words.”
Both: “I guess you'd describe our sound as like enamored, sexy pop. (laughs)”
Sloane: “I read that you guys try to stay on a strict release schedule of putting something out every three months. What made you make that decision to work towards a goal like that?”
Gus: “Three months I guess is just the amount of time it takes John and I to get bored of our last release and get antsy to put out something new. We don't necessarily keep up a release schedule that tight, but we just like the idea of always working on a new release. Always.”
Sloane: “Who are some of your main influences musically?”
Gus: “My main peeps I try to draw inspiration from are people like James Brown, Tim Presley, Captain Beefheart, Ray Davies, Can, Serge Gainsbourg, and some heavier stuff like the Damned and Sabbath and things. But we listen to anything we can find so our music tends to sound like a weird blend of all the different things we like.”
John: “I get a lot of inspiration from Anton Newcombe, The Beatles, mid-sixties Brian Wilson, Brian Jones, Spoon, The Olivia Tremor Control, Syd Barrett, Donovan, etc. I could go on, but we try and draw inspiration from as much as we possibly can.”
Sloane: “What's your writing process like? Does everyone have a certain "job" in the process, or does it vary song to song?”
Gus: “Writing process is usually all John and I. We'll both write songs to either bring to the group to learn, or we'll bring ideas to each other to help finish. Recording wise its usually just a free for all between us two and a few other people, but generally John ends up writing all the bass lines, which I'll then put drums on top of.”
Sloane: “Has music always been something you knew you wanted to do? Or do you remember a moment that you realized it was a path you wanted to pursue?”
John: “There hasn't really been a moment in my life I can remember where I didn't want to be involved in a band or just making music. Even through some of the dumb phases I went through in middle school, like thinking I could play football, I was always thinking about how a certain artist might have gotten a certain sound or how I could write music like my influences.”
Gus: “I guess I started playing music around age 6 and kept playing. Music was the only thing I would consistently be interested in or any good at, so eventually I just stopped doing anything else and made it my full time obsession.”
Sloane: “So you guys started your own label, 'Get With It Records'. What inspired that and how has that been working from both angles?”
John: “The inspiration for the label was mainly just having a platform to release stuff on. We want to record other bands or release other people's music, but we're always busy working on stuff of our own, or playing shows, so we haven't had time. I also feel like it makes more sense to release on your own label, because then you can do whatever you want.”
Gus: “Yeah if anyone wants to be our label CEO feel free to hit us up (laughs).”
Sloane: “If you weren't playing music, what do you think you'd want to do for the rest of your life?”
Gus: “If I wasn't playing music I'd probably wanna be a goat farmer or a butler or something hot like that.”
John: “I'd be a vagrant.”
Sloane: “If you could collaborate on a song with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be and why?”
Gus: “I wouldn't wanna collaborate with James Brown because that would just be silly, but I'd give my right arm to play in the J.B.'s for like ten minutes.”
John: “I'd probably wanna work with Brian Jones, he could play anything he wanted and write such amazing parts. We could make a super Middle-Eastern vibe record together, I feel like.”
Sloane: “Stylistically, were you guys all on the same page about how to dress and how you guys present yourselves? Or was it something that sort of developed into what it is?”
Both: “The street cowboy life chose us, so thats how we present ourselves to the world.”
Sloane: “What's your dream venue to play one day?”
Gus: “My dream venue to play has been the Paradiso in Amsterdamn ever since I went there a few years back. Old church. Sound Huge. Lots of Dutch too, they're really nice. But I think it would be cooler to do a set on the international space station, or one of Richard Branson's spaceships if we could.”
John: “I feel like we need to be the first band to tour space. We can do a several planet, solar system run that'll have the aliens going crazy.”
Gus: “We're gonna throw a huge festival 53 miles West of Venus.”
Sloane: “What's been your favorite gig so far?”
Gus: “My favorite set we ever played was when we played to 15 people after a sold out Walters show and got our power cut after 3 songs cause we got too rowdy.”
John: “My favorite set was when we played a house show festival with 15 or 16 members as Acid Carousel and The Tangerine Dream Machine.”
Sloane: “How was the name Acid Carousel decided upon?”
John: “I came up with the name Acid Carousel from Brian Jonestown Massacre references. "Acid" being another name Anton Newcombe released a few songs with in the early 90s, and "Carousel" which is a song from the If I Love You EP.”
Sloane: “What message do you hope to get through with your music?”
Gus: “I guess my songs don't really have any message, they're just a way for me to have fun expressing all the weird things I find entertaining about life.”
John: “A lot of my songs are about actual experiences I've had or things I see going on around me. There's a lot of memories I write about, just expressing how I feel or felt about those.”
Sloane: “Anything new in the works you can tell us about?”
Gus: “We've got this new EP mini album thingy wingy called Street Cowboys that’s gonna be out on cassette from Dreamy Life Records very soon that we’re really excited to finally be done with and share with people! Other than that, for the new year we’re planning on recording a new record we've been making with a dear friend of ours named John David Bartlett, who used to be active in the Texas psych scene back in the late 60s, also for Dreamy Life. We're also about to hopefully start recording the first parts of this rock opera we wrote about a cult that our drummer is the leader of.”
John: “We're always writing new stuff though, so who knows, we might have even another record this upcoming year, but I wouldn't say for sure just yet.”
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Keep up with Acid Carousel on their Facebook here:
https://www.facebook.com/Acid-Carousel-935297826554283/