Dear readers, in this article we have the pleasure to offer you an interview with a Swiss trio that offers Psychedelic Rock sounds contaminated by Prog and Space Rock. We welcome The Universe By Ear.
Hi, how are you?
“Hi Jacopo, nice to hear from you, We are fine and sweaty in this weather. By the way, I am Stef, the guitarplayer and singer for The Universe By Ear.“
Your sound incorporates elements of Psychedelia, Prog and Space Rock, where does your passion for these sounds come from?
“As musicians we were always looking for styles that challenge us. We could play hardrock or blues, but I guess, we are always looking for something beyond that. But at the same time much of what makes progrock is really annoying in our ears. We don’t like the fairytale-side of prog, if you know what I mean. No unicorns, capes and keyboard-towers for us, please. We also don’t want to turn music into the Olympics of who can play the fastest and the most complex stuff. There are other bands who treat music like a competition. So basically we want to play rockmusic that hits hard and has a strong groove and power, but is embroidered with spacey and psychedelic elements. And yes, we have a 13 minutes song on that album…“
Your new album ‘III’ was released on October 28, 2022 how would you describe this work?
“And two weeks ago the Vinyls finally arrived as well. So it is still very new to us. I think III is our best work so far, because we stretched out on song lengths and tried to strengthen the effect of a certain par repeating over and over and growing louder and more dense at the same time. The songs were road-tested. We wrote them over at least 3 years and kept changing parts to make them have more impact. In one sentence, III has the strongest impact of our albums so far.“
The music and vocals are very intense, what themes do the lyrics deal with?
“Lyrically we go deeper than before. It’s the big ones: live, death, sanity, the future of mankind and so on. As the principal lyricist I am always amazed how the lyrics that come to me get clearer in meaning after some time. “Something in the Water” for example is me dealing with the pandemic. The four very different parts of the song also have four very distinct voices lyrically: It starts with the weird instrumental part, which can translate s a los for words. In the strong loud chorus part (the 7/8 pattern with the cheesy harmony voices) we talk about the power of water, the blood in our planets veins, if you like. Then comes the spooky part where the narrator thinks the water is poisoned to give him wild dreams. And finally there’s the epic ending, where we al “sail on” into the unknown. And that’s only one of the songs. If we ever meet, we can chat for days about those lyrics.“
The tracks are all long and very elaborate, how does the creative process of your music take place?
“We start with a jam or an idea by one of the three musicians, then we build the whole thing very quickly. Usually a song is done after 5 rehearsals. But now comes the tricky part of finishing the lyrics, adding the vocal harmonies, changing the sounds and parts. And then we’ll play the stuff for years, in the rehearsal room or on stage and record it all the time. Our credo is: if we get bored listening to it after a months or even a year, we haven’t finished it yet, so we throw away parts and make others longer and bigger. And eventually it just feels right and we cannot imagine ever having had a different version. Then as the final step we sometimes shorten things slightly to fit on the album. “Sail Around the Sun” is 13 minutes on the album, but closer to 15 when we play it live.“
Your sound is engaging and intense, will there be a chance to hear you live in the near future?
“Thank you. I think you have a good point: our universe is easier to access if you see and hear us on stage. The best way to stay informed about upcoming shows is to visit www.theuniversebyear.com or find us on social media. There’s also loads of clips on youtube, I think you can watch the entire show we did for Rockpalast at the start of the pandemic.“
The album was released in October 2022, are you already working on new music?
“Surprisingly no. For one thing III still sounds fresh enough to us, we are far from being bored by these songs. And then we just finished recording and mixing a live alsbum, that is supposed to be released at the end of 2023. On that we remodeled songs from all our three albums, so our creative energy went there. But I am sure that new songs will come.“
This is your third studio album, how has your sound evolved over the years?
“Yes. I short the fisrt album was an experimental balloon were we tested how far we could stretch the sound of a three piece band. we never used overdubs, so we just have a limited arsenal of sounds. On the second album we went for a more concise sound, shorter songs, more vocals. Here we learned to use the three vocals we have. And on III we put it all together and allowed the songs to be longer and bigger. And yes:, I wonder where the next one will take us…“
What advice would you give to young artists approaching the music scene with a genre like yours?
“I don’t think I am in any position to give advices. if you want to make it big, be successful, make money, then don’t play this kind of music, in fact don’t play music at all, become a lawyer, an IT-guy or a doctor. My only advice is this: make the music you love and play it for you. If noone else likes it, you are still doing it. And if they like it, it feels even better, because they like something you love and not something you made because you think others would like it. Be true to yourself as an artist. Always.“
You are a Swiss band, how would you describe the Rock scene in your country?
“It is shattered into subgenres, that don’t really connect. So I wouldn’t say there’s much of a scene altogether. And then you have the big radiostations that only play the simple stuff, because they don’t want to frighten the audience. Boring them seems to be ok. We certainly prefer to play outside of Switzerland whenever we can.“
Do you have any other passions or artistic activities outside of music?
“Oh yes, everything else would be unhealthy, some of us have families, an we all have jobs we like. The drummer and the bassist are music-teachers and I’m a cultural journalist. And we have other bands. This is important to grow as a musician, but our creative heart is in this band for sure. I guess music is a big part of our lives.“
I thank the band for the interview and wish them all the best for the continuation of their artistic career.
“We thank you for your time and for helping spread The Universe By Ear al across your part of the universe.“
Read our Review of their new album “III” here: [Review] The Universe By Ear – III
Purchase the album on Bandcamp: https://theuniversebyear.bandcamp.com/album/the-universe-by-ear-iii
Beni Bürgin / Drums
Pascal Grünenfelder / Bass, Vocals
Stef Strittmatter / Guitar, Vocals