“Press your space face close to mine, love. Freak out in a moonage daydream oh yeah!” sings David Bowie in his 1972 “Moonage Daydream.” It’s quite fitting that Memphis based band Spaceface gets their name from this song. Their music has a way of transporting you to a otherworldly place much like a daydream, which arguably is the exact purpose of psychedelic music. Leading up to their performance at Hopscotch we caught up with their lead vocalist and guitar player Jake Ingalls, who is also a touring member of The Flaming Lips.
Growing up in Memphis, Ingalls met his co-collabortors and band mates Matt Strong and Eric Martin in elementary school. “It’s almost impossible to grow up in that town [Memphis] without starting a band at least once” says Ingalls, and the three did just that in 2011 when the trio booked their first show. Being a band based in Memphis, TN a city with a rich musical history, Ingalls urges people to think about how Memphis’ diversity. “Everyone talks about Beale Street Blues and all but they forget about Goner Record’s massive influence on punk rock, Stax music with the R&B and Ardent churning out power pop” says Ingalls. Bands from the South are often linked together to have some common influence due to the region’s music history. Ingalls says “I’ve also found, and this isn’t necessarily a blanket truth, southern bands and artists tend to show their roots by generally being a little more open to hanging out with each other outside of the venue. I think starting up in the south helped us work hard and have a bit more fun than most folks.”
This past spring Spaceface released their debut LP Sun Kids. On making the album Inagalls says “the process was kind of a quick, big burst of vision and then a slow churn to make it a reality.” The song “Timeshare,” which features backing vocals by Julien Baker was recorded a couple years back for an EP that never made it out.”We really recorded the rest of the record in one week, enveloped in late cold winter nights. The real time killer was working around the Lips’ schedule to make it out to Norman, OK to mix the thing with Jarod Evans – we had to break it up into little 5 day sessions a month or so at a time.” He recalls, “not two hours after our second to last mixing session, I was on a plane about to fly out to another gig and I knew we needed “Timeshare” on there to seal the deal and texted Jarod immediately. He was like ‘Dude, you JUST left. . . let it marinate for a minute’ hahah.” The addition of “Timeshare” being a great addition to the album, with Baker singing dreamy harmony the song causes your ears to float to another world.
Psychedelic music is going through a revival with bands like Tame Impala and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. Spaceface definitely has a place within this revival. “I think, at least with this record, we wanted to bring a hazy feel good element to the psychedelic revival that we felt was missing. Less drony or groovy and more bouncy and breezy. I’ve been jokingly calling us “Nice Guy Psychedelia” says Ingalls. Though their music draws influence from 60 and 70’s era psychedelia they still look to current music has well. “With the age we live in now, it’s really a wonderful thing you can do with your playlists. You can be zipping with a Kinks sing along song and then slide right into a textural beat lab track by Teebs. Thusly, your influence is all over the board. One day you’re getting way into Jungle and the next you find out about a Moody Blues song you never heard and it changes your whole trajectory” says Ingalls.
This is the group’s first year playing Hopscotch. “I’m really hyped to see Kaytranada, Solange, Zensofly and Future Islands!” says Ingalls. If Ingall’s has picked up one thing from touring with The Flaming Lips it would be their showmanship. Spaceface’s performance is sure to include lots of lights, lasers, confetti, and balloons.
Spaceface play Thursday at Hopscotch 8:00pm @ The Basement and Friday September 7 at 1:30pm @ King’s for the “Orientation in Space VIII” day party.