Your name:
Glen
Laughlin.
Where are you
from?
Los Angeles.
Name of band:
The
Cherry Bluestorms.
Who else is in
your band?
Deborah Gee and Mark Francis White.
How would you
describe yourselves?
We’re what I
call a psych-Mod band, which means we’re basically late 1960s British Pop
influenced, with the psych element deriving from Syd Barrett rather than Jerry
Garcia.
Who are your
main influences musically?
We each have
varied influences. The ones that are most relevant to this band are a lot
of the classic 1960s bands such as The Beatles and The Small Faces, but also
some ‘90s bands such as The Stone Roses, The Charlatans, Supergrass and the
like.
What do you hope
to achieve in music?
Our primary
aim has always been to make albums that we enjoy and esteem as much as we do
our favourite albums by other artists. Once we do our best to
achieve that, we hope to turn as many people on to our music as possible,
whether via recordings, live shows, videos or other media.
What has been
the highlight of your career so far, and why?
I think
releasing our concept album Bad Penny Opera represents our highest artistic
achievement. The reviews of the album have been almost universally
phenomenal. We’re especially happy that many of the reviewers really
seemed to understand the concept and what we tried to convey. Of
course, we’re hoping that our next album will represent a new high water mark
for us.
And what’s the
moment you want to forget?
But you're
asking me to remember! Okay, I'll play! Really there are two. We played a show in an old hotel in Downtown LA. that was acoustically
the worst space any of us had ever played. The promoter was new at
booking shows, the club owner was new in the space and the sound engineer was
actually mixing from behind the stage! On top of that we nearly got
in a fight with one of the other artists! The other was our second trip
to England. I got Bell's Palsy just before we left, so half my face was
paralyzed and my left ear was really messed up. Then Deborah's back went
out. I had to take her to hospital in Liverpool. When we got back
to the flat we hired in London after a gig, we couldn't get the door unlocked
for two hours while a drunken Frenchwoman harangued us in the street!
If you had to
pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and
why?
I think As
Above So Below is a reasonably representative song. I frankly think
I have better lyrics than that, but the main guitar riff is very emblematic of
my style and it features Deborah and me singing parallel harmonies as we often
do.
Where can we
listen to it?
Where can we
find out more about your music?
Anything else you’d like to say that I
forgot to ask?
I'd love to let your readers know that
we are working on our first vinyl single, See No Evil. It should be out
soon. We'll have another album out next year. Lastly, we'd love to
hear directly from fans at our website www.thecherrybluestorms.com. If you sign
up on the mailing list, there's a free download of an exclusive track. Or, you can visit us on Facebook. Cheers!
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