After originally forming back in 2018 with a desire to create warm and enticing psychedelic indie-rock, Texas-based outfit Roadkeeper are back to their winning ways as they deliver their latest offering ‘Enemy Mine’.
With nods to the shimmering 80s-inspired shoegaze sound, ‘Enemy Mine’ makes for a wonderfully bold return for the group. Channelling the breezy and soaring feel of acts like The Smiths and The Jesus And Mary Chain, its feels like they have truly come into their own on this shinning new release.
So with the new single available now, we sat down with them to find out more about their latest single and what they have in store for us in the near future.
Words by Chris Bound
Discovered via http://musosoup.com
Chris) Hi guys, how are you today?
Roadkeeper) We are making it. Hope everyone is doing ok out there.
For those that haven’t heard of you yet, how would you best describe your sound and who have been your biggest influences so far?
Roadkeeper is an independent, self-produced project that blends dreamy aesthetic shoegaze with anthemic psychedelic rock. Influence is fluid. Everybody brings who they are and what they are inspired by to the table. This varies all the time. It could be a musical group, or it could noise from a walk or something.
You are also from Texas; can you tell us how the music scene there has influenced your sound?
Dallas. Austin. Houston. They are all cool. Tyler is cool. We are usually doing shows with Gorgeous Jetson or Lucas. But we listened to ZZ Top and Michael McDonald when we were together. Deep Purple. Bun B. Failure. Other stuff.
You first formed in 2018. How would you say your sound has changed since then?
As a four-piece guitar band our sound is a colour on a bigger palate that gets equal play to other colours on the palate. A lyric or soundscape or a random glitch from recording are all just as important as our overall ‘sound’ would be. We don’t start jamming and say, ok this is what we want to sound like, you know. We just start with something small and go from there.
You have just released your new single ‘Enemy Mine’. Can you tell us how that track came about? What is the story behind it?
‘Enemy Mine’ came together fast. It is a band jam. It is about impressionable people, especially young boys, being radicalised via YouTube and social networks. How sad it is, how infuriating it is to see the results of it, and how thankful we are to not have been radicalized ourselves. I don't think a lot of people realize how easy it is to get pulled in that direction, especially if you are a younger white guy. It's an exponential decline that starts off soft. When you are young, and things aren't going your way it is easy to anchor your ideology to concepts like logic and reason. But logic and reason do not always equal truth. They often do not, and you cannot base your whole perspective around them.
And was there a particular style you were looking for when you wrote it?
Not really, it was a quick song. The song was there.
The coronavirus outbreak has obviously affected everyone’s plans, but what have you got in store for the year ahead?
We are going to release a few more songs that iterate on the ideas we have already put out. After that, we will probably try to do some experimentation and change it up a bit. There are some opportunities to dig deeper into the sounds and workflows that make us unique and maybe come across something new.
And finally, what do you hope to have achieved over the next five years?
Intergalactic.
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