Introducing Interview: Déjà Vega

Having released their single ‘Pentagrams’/’Skeletons in the Florist’ at the beginning of this month, we caught up with Déjà Vega to find out a little bit more about the psych-rockers…

Hey, how are you?
Hello, I’m very good thank you.

You’ve just released your debut single – what’s the reaction been like so far?
Yeah the reaction has been great, lots of good reviews, and the reaction live has been a bit overwhelming. We’re being compared to some of our biggest influences, and people telling us we’re their favourite new band makes us really happy.

And what would you say your biggest influences are?
For me personally I’m a massive fan of Krautrock and Punk. As a whole though, we listen to a lot of music and share a lot of music with each other, but the groups that made us three want to write music was bands like Joy Division, The Bunnymen and The Charlatans. And were all massive fans of the 50s Rock ‘n’ Roll and Garage.

How would you describe your sound in three words?
Driving. Groovy. Gnarly.

There seems to be a lot of psych influenced bands emerging at the moment – do you think something in particular triggered this?
Erm yeah, I’d say there’s always been a scene for Psych music and it’s always had its followers, but I’d say recently it’s bands like Tame Impala, The Horrors and the constantly great Anton Newcombe who have helped give it a massive comeback.

And how do you make sure you don’t blend into the masses?
We never set out to be a Psych band or to be described as Psych, but I can see why we are. There’s some great bands around that are included in ‘the scene’, but like Mike says about our stuff, ‘it’s got groove’, but it’s repetitive and it’s heavy. It’s just our version of psych I guess, and if you’ve seen us live you know we’ll never blend in.

Where’s your favourite place to play?
Haha. We played Scunthorpe a couple of weeks ago, and it’s safe to say that was the best crowd reaction we’d ever had, but then we played the Shiiine On Weekender this weekend, and it all went massive.

And what’s the weirdest gig you’ve ever played?
We played a charity event in Chorlton in the summer and we were the only live band on the bill – the other acts were all acoustic. Everything was calm and really laid back, but as soon as we came on for a short four song set, this big old guy who was dancing to the DJ beforehand suddenly got possessed by our music and became like our personal shaman for the evening. His dance moves consisted of stroking walls whilst wearing a bandana, hahaha. It was so odd to witness, but we were really happy – he ended up falling off stage backwards over the monitors.

What’s the best part about being in Déjà Vega?
The best part about being in Déjà Vega is being in Déjà Vega.

Finally, if you could have written any song in the world, what song would it be?
If I could have written any song in the world, it would probably have to be Television’s Marquee Moon.