The Entrance Band Joins Indigo Festival At Observatory Jan. 31

The Entrance Band

The Entrance Band at The Observatory Jan. 31

The Entrance Band joins the Indigo Festival at The Observatory on Jan. 31.

A psychedelic rock and roll band in the true sense of the word, The Entrance Band found a common ground in the music of Jimi Hendrix, who made a big impression on each of them at an early age.

“I’m starting to no longer want to use the word “psychedelic” because I feel like it’s being so misused and inaccurately applied to things that in my expert opinion are not psychedelic,” Guy Blakeslee said.

“But I would generally say we are like a psychedelic rock and roll band. I think I’ll stick to that term but maybe defend it.”

Blakeslee (Vocals/Guitar), Paz Lenchantin (Bass) and Derek James (Drums) are currently based in Los Angeles but met in Chicago about ten years ago.

“There was a house that we all lived in at different times,” Blakeslee recalled. “I actually lived there with Derek and when we moved out, Paz and some other friends kind of took over the house. We were all like roommates but not at the same time.”

One of their favorite songs to play live is “Fine Flow”, which is on the latest album, “Face the Sun”, and also on an ep.

“For us in the band it’s exciting to play live because there’s a lot of improvisation in it,” Blakeslee said.

“There’s a long, extended section of the song where we never know what’s going to happen. So that’s always exciting, especially for me, because as the guitar player I’m the one who gets to pretty much go the most far out in that song.”

Middle Eastern surf mixes that Lenchantin discovered inspired other songs on the latest album. One of the newer songs was built around a vocal melody from a Turkish surf band that was turned into a bass line. Another song came about from a maraca that James got and kept playing with.

“Overall I feel that the album has something to do with taking a journey toward the light and sometimes you pass through the dark on your way there,” Blakeslee explained.

“But if you keep facing in the direction of the light then no matter how dark it gets you’re always headed in the right direction.

“It’s also like the archetypical journey of mythology. I’m really into Joseph Campbell and ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ which is about how the hero often starts out as a really weak, small character and then through trials and tribulations ends up conquering the dark source.

“It’s usually not through being big and strong physically but through having this other kind of bravery that comes from being open. It comes from open mindedness rather than physical power.”

There was a four-year gap since the previous album came out due to Universal Music Group pulling the plug on their label, Ecstatic Peace, which was run by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth.

“Universal Music Group, this big corporation, had given him an imprint where he could sign whoever he wanted to and try to have commercial success with really weird, experimental kinds of music,” Blakeslee explained.

“We were pretty much the last band that he got to sign before his whole project was dropped. It wasn’t just us, but like everything he put out. Universal Music Group basically said, ‘we don’t know how to sell this; we don’t know what to do with it so we’re not going to invest in it anymore.

“On the one hand that was kind of bad for us because it meant we didn’t know how our next record was going to get made and come out.

“But on the other hand it was kind of good for us because it gave us a lot more creative freedom and autonomy back that we might not have had if we’d continued to make all of our albums with them.

“We ended up using Kickstarter to raise funds to finish the album. So that’s how we were basically able to make an album without a record company. Our fans, which are really awesome around the world, contributed everything from six dollars to like someone who gave us $2000.

“But then that still didn’t even cover manufacturing actual physical records; that helped us to finish the recording of the album but then we still had to find someone to help us put it out.

“We ended up finding a really cool label in New York to put it out and we put it out a few months ago.

“It took some years from the last record for this one to come out but there was never a time when we weren’t doing something.”