There is so much going on during a weekend in Providence, it leaves people wishing for an out-of-body experience to catch everything. The city is always buzzing with live music and on Friday, October 14 at Dusk it’ll be no different. The Providence Garage Fest is putting on a real cool time featuring local room shakers Gymshorts, Atlantic Thrills and Eric & The Nothing along with Boston fuzz masters Future Spa. Headlining the night will be Fullerton, California, psychedelic space cadets Cosmonauts who promise to take 301 Harris Avenue to another galaxy. To put it lightly, it’s a show you don’t want to miss.
Ahead of the extravaganza, I had a chat with Derek Cowart from the band about the origins of his musical connection with co-founder Alexander Ahmadi, not being put in a box genre-wise, Cosmonauts’ latest album A-OK! and what’s next after the upcoming show.
Rob Duguay: Cosmonauts started when you and Alexander Ahmadi bonded over your mutual love for The Velvet Underground and Brian Jonestown Massacre. When did you two start getting into each band?
Derek Cowart: I think for me it was in high school probably. I saw what the other kinds were listening to and I thought, “Screw that!” and I decided to listen to bands like those two.
RD: It has been said that Cosmonauts are too psychedelic to be punk and too punk to be psychedelic. Did the band ever feel like they were having an identity crisis at the beginning when you guys were trying to form your own sound?
DC: I think it was pretty natural. There wasn’t really an identity crisis for us. It was kind of funny getting into different types of music along with listening to psychedelic stuff. When the band started, Burger Records kind of started too so it was kind of like a home for us. For a while we did kind of feel out of place on the label; the bands on the label used to be more poignant. Usually we just listen to whatever we want so we’re influenced by all sorts of stuff.
RD: The same day A-OK! was released, Cosmonauts put out a music video for the title track. Whose idea was it for the music video to include all of these fluorescent colors?
DC: My roommate Eric Fisher directed the video and he sort of helped make that decision. I think with a lot of artwork that we’ve been doing in some recent photo shoots, we all would stand as different colors so he sort of ran with that idea.
RD: On the album, what was it like working with Mark Rains at Station House Studio in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles? He has a pretty wild resume from producing Alice Bag, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Shooter Jennings and even porn star Ron Jeremy.
DC: He was awesome, it was really nice to have it so local and he was really cool. Some mutual friends of ours brought Mark to our attention and we liked what we heard. He was great to work with and we had a good relationship by the end, too.
RD: After the show at Dusk, what do Cosmonauts have planned next?
DC: We’re playing a European tour in February, but I think mostly when we get home after this current tour, we’re going to be finishing up writing and recording demos for the next release. We’ll probably be fairly busy with that, but we might have some weird surprises coming too.
Check out the music video for “A-OK!” via Youtube: youtube.com/watch?v=swMDKL4F1kA; Listen to and buy A-OK! via Cosmonauts’ Bandcamp: cosmonautstheband.bandcamp.com/album/a-ok-2