Fox Reviews Rock

Introduction

The moment I discovered this blend of Psychedelic and Alternative rock on the Dingir Zu Prophet Show, I was hooked! Their sound has drawn parallels to iconic groups like MGMT, Tame Impala, and Pink Floyd, and rightly so! Having toured extensively across Europe and even made a stop in South Africa, I can’t wait to see them live. Check out our interview, follow them on social media, and give their albums a spin or ten!

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Interview

Fox Reviews Rock – What exactly does Spiral Drive mean to you in terms of why you named yourself that?

Spiral Drive – I read a book by Christian Rätsch, a German scientist and ethnobotanist who unfortunately passed away not to long ago. I’ve always been a big fan of his work. In the book, he talks about the Lakandon people and how the snail shell is seen as a symbol of a gateway to another world. I found that idea really fascinating. I’ve always thought the spiral is a powerful symbol and originally I thought about the name Spiral Tribe, but that already existed. So I came up with Spiral Drive – the drive or momentum of the spiral pulling you into that other world. It just made sense to me, especially in a psychedelic context. And I liked how it sounded.

Fox Reviews Rock – You’re going on tour later this year to The Netherlands, UK & France. Where can people buy tickets for those shows, and how do you pick where you tour to in general?

Spiral Drive – Tickets are available through our website. If you go to the tour section, you’ll find all the links to the individual shows.

Where we tour depends on where it’s actually possible. It’s not like I can just decide to tour wherever I want. For example, I’d love to tour in Spain, but right now the opportunity and connections aren’t there yet. My booking agent in the Netherlands, who has been handling Benelux, recently made France and the UK possible. The UK has been on our list for a while since people from there have been coming to our shows in Europe and we have a strong listener base there. I’d love to tour North America or Australia too, but again, it all comes down to what’s realistically doable, the contacts and the right support.

Fox Reviews Rock – What exactly made you release a live album “Space Pirates Session”? Also what is it about playing live that you enjoy the most?

Spiral Drive – Between 2014 and 2017 had written and recorded a bunch of songs on my own as pre-productions. Then I got together with some friends to play them live, and we instantly had great chemistry. We went into the studio and recorded them live, with a bit of jamming to capture that chemistry we had. That session was actually the recording session of Unity, but we didn’t release it right away and there was no plan.

In early 2018, our first drummer Tilman told us he was going to the US with his other band Sea Moya. So we decided we needed to capture that lineup in a proper live session before he left. That’s how the Space Pirates Session came about. We released that first in Feb/March 2018 and later I went back to the recordings from November 2017, which became Unity. Released in Autumn 2019. A lot of the songs overlap between the two.

Regarding playing live: honestly, it’s the human element. Every person has their own feel, their own sound, their own vibe when they play. And when a specific group of individuals comes together, something really unique can happen. Especially when you’re not playing to a click track.

I just love that and the spontaneity too – being able to change things on the fly and go with the flow. That’s also what I enjoy most in the studio. A lot of the artists I look up to recorded their music live and for me it’s kind of a matter of integrity to do it that way. On the other hand there can be songs or sound aesthetics that need overdub recording or click track, but Jamming and improvisation are something really sacred to me. That freedom and that in-the-moment creation. I just love it. And you can really tap into that energy in a live studio setup as well.

Fox Reviews Rock – Just a year later you released “Unity” — our favorite song off it is “420.” We were wondering what the significance of 420 is?

Spiral Drive – Yeah, so 420 and another track called Haven actually came out of a live jam we recorded in the studio. We were just improvising and captured the vibe as it happened. 420 is just the international code for weed haha and it kinda fitted in my opinion.

Fox Reviews Rock – The above song is an instrumental, which you tend to do a fair few of. What exactly is it about instrumentals that you enjoy so much? Do you aim for a specific number per album, or does it just happen naturally?

Spiral Drive – I don’t have a set number of instrumentals per album. It just happens naturally. I really love instrumentals because they can reach the listener in a different way. A voice always gives you a context, a frame, something to hold on to.

With instrumentals, there’s more room to get lost in the music and even more room for interpretation. There are no vocals to distract you, it just pulls you in and takes you somewhere. That’s what I love about it. It’s also easier for me when I’m improvising. Like to just speak through the guitar instead of having to come up with lyrics or vocal melodies. I’m always keen for jamming and freestyled, flowing instrumentals that kind of take you on a trip.

Fox Reviews Rock – “Infinity” has a real swagger to it. Is there any inspiration behind the song’s meaning relating to willpower and habits in your day-to-day life?

Spiral Drive – Infinity is basically about struggling with addiction. That cycle of trying to stop, getting it under control, then hearing that voice again that pulls you back in. It’s this unbearable loop of quitting and starting over and over. The song is about that cycle and the struggle of breaking out of it.

Fox Reviews Rock – If you could make any animal talk like a human, what would it be and why?

Spiral Drive – I think dogs. Dogs are just funny, and I imagine if they could talk, it would be pretty hilarious. But honestly, it would be cool if all animals could talk. I just really love animals in general.

Fox Reviews Rock – “Screwed” is a collaboration with Mother’s Cake. Could you tell us about the connection between the two acts?

Spiral Drive – First of all we are all from roughly the same area in Tyrol/Austria. I first saw Yves and Benni from Mother’s Cake when I was 14. They were supporting Velvet Revolver with their old band Brainwashed. I saw them again a little later at another gig. Then maybe around 2010 in Innsbruck i saw Mother’s Cake live for the first time. I immediately became a huge fan because it was totally my kind of music and attitude.

We got to know each other over the years. I moved to Mannheim in 2012 and started hanging out with Jan and Yves more. We played shows together with other bands, jammed a lot, just spent time together. I ended up producing Yves’ other band Blitzpop in 2015/2016, and later also worked on the 4th album Cyberfunk! album as a producer and instrumentalist.

Eventually, I joined Mother’s Cake as a live musician / multi-instrumentalist and also got to produce and write for the 5th album Ultrabliss. We’ve stayed close ever since and still love making music together. The idea for Screwed actually came from a jam we had in 2016. It was Yves’ idea and we brought it back to live years later for Visions In Bloom.

Fox Reviews Rock – We would like to know exactly how someone gets an Ego Placebo. What is this song about?

Spiral Drive – An Ego Placebo is basically what happens when you do something selfish or destructive to make yourself feel better, even if just for a moment. The song is about making big human mistakes and going down a dark path because in that moment you think it’s what you need. But later you realize it didn’t actually help you at all. So it’s a placebo for your ego. That term or title just came to my mind and the song explores that idea of temporary relief that ends up meaning nothing.

Fox Reviews Rock – “Space Train” is really popular — what do you think people connect with so strongly about that song?

Spiral Drive – Yeah, Space Train is interesting. It’s a short, simple song, but there’s a lot of love in the details. It’s got a warm sound, a tight groove, and a strong bassline and soundscape. Thematically, I think people just connect with it because at some point everyone wants to hop on the “space train”, whatever that means to them. It’s a kind of longing for escape or elevation. I think it taps into that human craving for transcendence or getting high , metaphorically or literally.

Fox Reviews Rock – You’ve been compared to bands like Queens of the Stone Age and Pink Floyd, but your music is really varied in style. Was that always intentional or something that developed over time?

Spiral Drive – I think my sound developed naturally over time. My dad was a huge Beatles fan, and my brother, who’s fifteen years older than me, basically bombarded me with 80s and 90s music from the moment I was born in 1990. So that stuff is deeply rooted in my DNA.

So there was always this mix of old school legends like the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, GnR + the grungey and crossover 90s vibe: Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, RHCP (Blood Sugar Sex Magik + John Frusciante!), Rage Against the Machine and so on.

I was a kid/teenager in the 2000s, right in the middle of the nu metal and alt rock wave, so bands like Incubus, Muse, Korn, Limp Bizkit were huge for me. Wes Borland was actually my first guitar hero when I was ten. Sorry not sorry to the haters: the music itself slaps. I also got into stuff like The Vines, Radiohead, Oasis, Queens of the Stone Age, and always some hip hop along the way.

In the 2010s I really got into more psychedelic indie and neo psych stuff: MGMT, Crumb, Mac DeMarco, Vinyl Williamsand so on… but also All Them Witches, which are surely heavier.

I’m especially a huge fan of the Aussie (psych)music scene: Tame Impala, King Gizzard, Hiatus Kaiyote (not psych per se but imo pretty trippy shit), Psychedelic Porn Crumpets etc

And also I to some degree kinda dig that whole repetitive stoner rock swamp where everyone kind of wants to sound like Kyuss haha

At the end of the day, I’m into all kinds of music from all decades. My whole world is psychedelic music tho, which I actually studied in my master studies. I love exploring different psychedelic styles and combining them with different vibes: heavy, fuzzy, funky, slow, fast, proggy, poppy, energetic, chill etc

I dig that heavy energetic but laid back gritty grungey energy. But when it comes to production, I love warm, smacky, dry and fat drums. I’m not into that overly clean roomy standard rock sound. Fat drums and grungey psych pop melodies, that’s the sweet spot for me in Spiral Drive.

All those unconscious influences blended with the conscious ones, and that’s how my sound ended up being this fragmented mix. That’s also why the songs on an album can sound pretty different from each other, but I actually like it that way. I’ve never been interested in making a record where every song sounds the same.

Fox Reviews Rock – You’ve previously toured South Africa — can you tell us a story or something memorable that happened while you were there?

Spiral Drive – We met so many incredible people down there. It was beautiful, the work, the food, the whole experience. It’s a stunning country with a complicated history, so it was super interesting to be there.

We were lucky to have good friends from The Tazers who invited and really guided us through everything. One experience that sticks out was when we were on safari. It got dark all of a sudden around 6 PM and we had to drive back to Johannesburg. Got kinda scary and dodgy haha.

But honestly, we felt safe the whole time because we were with such amazing people.

The whole trip was a blessing: playing shows with The Tazers, meeting other artists, getting to know the local culture. 

I think one of the most special moments was going up Table Mountain and watching the sunset. You could see both the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic from up there at the same time. That really stayed with us all.

Fox Reviews Rock – Finally, after the tour, what does 2025 have in store for Spiral Drive?

Spiral Drive – We’ll be touring in June and right now I’m finishing up an album I wrote and produced last year with US based Johnny Mackay aka Lord Fascinator here in my studio in Mannheim. It’s inspired by Kraftwerk and NEU! and based on five different modes of transport. Utilizing the classic motorik-kraut beat ‘Reise’ moves from car to bicycle to train to plane and finally to spaceship. A trip from the road to outter space. It’s very likely that this will be the next album release. Hopefully this year.

In the meantime, me and the band, we’re also working on the follow-up to Visions in Bloom. I’m hoping to have all the recordings including vocals done by the end of this year so we can release it sometime in 2026.

We’re also really aiming to finally get over to the US where most of our listeners are. There’s a lot of demand there, and we really want to make that step. But we still need the right partners to make it happen, it’s not easy.

Until then, the goal is to keep strengthening our presence in Europe and do more touring in the UK. And of course, to release more music.

All rights to the songs used in this interview are retained by Spiral Drive. This site claims no rights over them. The image was provided by Spiral Drive and taken by Andreas Wroblewski.