What inspired the name of the band? What are your influences and are they the same as when you started out?
Picking our name was not an easy task. Some of us wanted silly, irreverent names, while others wanted to take a more serious approach. We have been arguing for a while and going back and forth with some admittedly bad names when one of us, we forget who, brought up Anfang. The word Anfang is German for “beginning” and seemed apropos since we were starting a new band from the ashes of another and wanted a fresh start. None of us are German, nor do any of us speak German, but we thought it looked and sounded pretty cool which is everything we could ask for in a band name. As far as influences are concerned, we all come from varied musical backgrounds (and sometimes eras) and therefore pull from a lot of different influences. That being said, Queens of the Stone Age is a band that we continually find ourselves most often being influenced by. They have the riffs, the lyrics, the mood, the aura; the sort of cohesiveness and identity we are constantly aiming for as a band. As for influences outside of music, I think the sci-fi films of Denis Villeneuve are especially influential. Specifically in Dune, Blade Runner 2049 and Arrival, his world-building and his use of color and texture to tell a story is moving. Nothing in his toolbox goes to waste. Not to mention the score! The music is a character in and of itself. The idea of music having its own soul is something any musician can get behind.
How do you approach songwriting? Are there any themes that you are keen to explore when you start off?
We typically all work together when writing songs. Whenever any of us have an idea for a song, we’ll bring it to the band at practice and flesh it out from there. Some of us are more efficient songwriters and come to the band with more ideas than others, but the songs are always completed by all of us working together to make them the best they can be. Regarding themes, we all tend to explore differently when coming up with song ideas. We tend to have an ethereal, atmospheric, spacy motif to all of our songs, but I wouldn’t say all of our songs start out that way. Some of us dig into our emotions and try to express those ineffable feelings from everyday life. Others in the band are more literal and try to tell life experiences through their songs, and sometimes we just doodle on our instruments until we have something they think sounds gnarly.
How do you approach songwriting? Are there any themes that you are keen to explore when you start off?
We typically all work together when writing songs. Whenever any of us have an idea for a song, we’ll bring it to the band at practice and flesh it out from there. Some of us are more efficient songwriters and come to the band with more ideas than others, but the songs are always completed by all of us working together to make them the best they can be. Regarding themes, we all tend to explore differently when coming up with song ideas. We tend to have an ethereal, atmospheric, spacy motif to all of our songs, but I wouldn’t say all of our songs start out that way. Some of us dig into our emotions and try to express those ineffable feelings from everyday life. Others in the band are more literal and try to tell life experiences through their songs, and sometimes we just doodle on our instruments until we have something they think sounds gnarly.
Why do you write the sort of music that you do?
We are all nice, polite midwesterners that try our gosh darndest to not let negative feelings impact our daily lives. That being said, we need an outlet for those bad thoughts, and rock music is that outlet for us. It lets us express our less polite feelings in a positive, healthy way. We have an unofficial band motto that I think sums up our draw to hard rock nicely; “As angsty as we are polite.”
How do you decide what songs to perform live and how do you transpose them into that live setting?
When choosing songs to perform live we’re typically selfish and pick the songs that we like to play the most, as opposed to picking the most popular songs. We don’t necessarily have albums and albums of songs to choose from, but how much fun we’re having definitely plays a factor since it makes for a better show. Transposing our songs to fit the live setting can be a bit of a challenge. When we record our songs in the studio, our bass player records the bass guitar parts and rhythm guitar parts separately, which he cannot do when he is playing live, due to his lack of having 4 arms. Our solution to that is to have our bass player play both the bass and rhythm parts out of the same rig, using an ABY switcher to go between the bass amp and the rhythm guitar amp. That way he can play just the bass parts, just the rhythm guitar parts, or both simultaneously, all out of the same setup.
How do you decide what songs to perform live and how do you transpose them into that live setting?
When choosing songs to perform live we’re typically selfish and pick the songs that we like to play the most, as opposed to picking the most popular songs. We don’t necessarily have albums and albums of songs to choose from, but how much fun we’re having definitely plays a factor since it makes for a better show. Transposing our songs to fit the live setting can be a bit of a challenge. When we record our songs in the studio, our bass player records the bass guitar parts and rhythm guitar parts separately, which he cannot do when he is playing live, due to his lack of having 4 arms. Our solution to that is to have our bass player play both the bass and rhythm parts out of the same rig, using an ABY switcher to go between the bass amp and the rhythm guitar amp. That way he can play just the bass parts, just the rhythm guitar parts, or both simultaneously, all out of the same setup.
What plans do you have for the future?
In the immediate future we’d like to record and release as much of our unreleased catalog as possible to get our music out there for everyone to hear… and also for our sanity. There are only so many killer songs we can sit on before we start losing our collective mind. We also cannot wait to start playing live regularly again (pandemic willing) since it’s one of our favorite parts of being in a band together and is a fantastic way to continue building our fan base. We’ve talked about recording an album and touring further in the future, but we’re taking things one step at a time. For now.