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Space Kadet was something of another kind when it came to ending the weekend at Imagine Music Festival for the fifth year anniversary. What they brought to the Amazonia stage was an exhilarating performance with insane musicality blasting out of all the instruments on stage. The Atlanta based group brought it all with passion, talent, and non-stop smiles. When they struck their last chord, we got the chance to sit down with them to talk about their musical direction, future releases and more. Check out everything we chatted about below:
RR: Welcome back to Imagine, this is your second year at the festival correct? How does it feel to get to return and play for attendees?
Alex: Feels good! It feels great to be on a bigger stage. Last year we were on the campgrounds stage a little outside the festival grounds, there were some people there. But this year was a big step up and it sounded really great up there. The crew that was working on the stage was amazing, they were really professional and made us sound great.
RR: How did you feel about your set?
Alex: It was amazing. We spent a lot more time tailor making stuff to this set. Since this is a bigger stage, we kind of wanted to have the ability to have something to say rather than just get up and play. It was a blast. Actually getting to hear our sound on a big rig is awesome.
Rohan: It’s where our sound belongs really.
RR: When you guys are planning out your sets, do you just want to jam or do you have some parts worked out?
Alex: We have nitpicked some particular songs that we want to stretch out and jam out.
Thomas: We want to play a bunch of our songs in different ways than we have before. You know what I mean? It’s like in some parts of the songs there are little pieces in between that we can remove or add in variations that we have in our little library.
Alex: Depending on what we are playing, and this is more electronic event so we’re going to tailor slightly to that. Obviously, you don’t want to cop out totally but it’s nice to kinda bring everyone into the fold. Like, ‘Oh you like this? Well check this out mixed with this.’
RR: So when most bands play at an EDM event, like the Floozies, they include a DJ usually. It seems with Space Kadet, it’s all primarily band members and I couldn’t really pick one out. Was this by choice to not include a DJ?
Alex: Well, I’m actually the DJ. Haha.
RR: Oh got it! I just saw you surrounded by keyboards so I wasn’t sure.
Alex: We have DJ elements in the band. We have tracks on Ableton. But the way we set it up, we don’t want to make it a DJ oriented band. We want to make a band that does electronic-like things. It’s kind of like, we could definitely do a DJ set thing but it’s way more fun to do it this way because there is more that we can pull from, tear apart.
Thomas: It’s freeing.
RR: How did you all find each other and create the group?
Alex: So it kind of just started as me, writing and producing. I actually opened my first show as Space Kadet for Rohan’s other band Higher Learning and we grew up together.
Rohan: Yeah, we’ve known each other for a long time.
Alex: So obviously this is the drummer I’m going with. And we slowly started to come together. I met Bambi at college in Auburn, that’s where we’re all from. And this kid, Thomas, when Rohan moved up to Atlanta, we all started to find each other in similar circles. It just happened.
Rohan: Yeah, when we met Thomas he was playing in another band called Lucidia and we would play some shows together here and there. Became really good friends and we just ran with it. It’s definitely progressing more than it has in previous years.
RR: Do you find yourselves wanting to stick to a “groovy space odyssey” vibe to your music or do you want to expand in other directions?
Rohan: Really what we are doing is what we feel is right.
Thomas: We’re literally just playing the music that we want to play. It’s a chance that people like it.
Rohan: We’re not trying to cater to the crowd necessarily. If we don’t like it then we’re not going to play it.
Thomas: We like to party too though, you know? Our music is party music.
Alex: Yeah it’s a branch of it. You can get a little you know, dark and dubby and then we can jump back out and it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s a band’.
Bambi: Yeah, at the end of our set today that was a brand new song we haven’t released yet. It was our first time dropping it today.
RR: Yeah I was really digging that last track!
Alex: We put that together in one night. Me and Bambi and Thomas. Of course we have worked on it a lot since then and we were like, ‘We have to drop this at Imagine’.
RR: I was honestly amazed out how Rohan was playing that Drum and Bass beat so fast. I feel like my arms would have fallen off!
Rohan: Yeah, lot’s of practice, haha. We love drum and bass.
Thomas: We’re drum and bass nerds. Like, if we could do drum and bass the whole show, we would.
Alex: Yeah, maybe we will sometime in the future. We’ll see what happens.
Thomas: Yeah, we often have to pull out songs because we realized that we have like five or six drum and bass songs in there and we’re like, ‘Should we do that?’ Haha.
RR: I say always! So would you ever think of expanding in other directions then?
Rohan: Definitely expand in other directions. But still stay true to what we are. Our music is always going to be spacy, psychedelic, and ambient. We’re always trying to explore and try new things.
Thomas: Yeah, we want to tickle brains.
Alex: Yeah, we don’t want to pigeon hole ourselves in, ‘We have to be this thing’. It’s cool to come out and play something really goofy. Like one time we played a Katy Perry cover and it was hilarious.
Rohan: We did that because we were preparing to play at a frat party and we had a venue show one day and just did it then. This was like three years ago or something like that.
Thomas: We still need to do the ‘Rhythm for the Night’ thing. We should just do cheesy 90’s house music.
Rohan: We always listen to cheesy 90’s music on the road and dumb things. We like doing dumb, cool things.
Bambi: Yeah, if you’re on the road with us, you would be seriously surprised how much bad music we listen to. Not necessarily bad, but hilarious music.
Thomas: If you look up the ‘It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere’ playlist on Apple Music, that’s the one.
Alex: That’s our tour music.
RR: So your last EP, Ultra Funkular, released right before Imagine last year and this year we got your awesome remix of “Return of the Mack”. Is there any new music that fans can look forward to?
Rohan: Yeah, so we’re working on that single we dropped today, it’s called “Dream Sequence”. We’re really working on our debut album at the moment. We’re not necessarily trying to rush it, you know? It’s been in the works for a while now.
Thomas: We’re sifting right now.
Alex: We’ll have a couple singles and then have a pretty big release pretty soon.
RR: What shows or festivals are in the future for you?
Alex: We’re headlining Seeds of Sound in two weeks.
Rohan: Yeah, it’s a smaller, more intimate festival in Sparta, Georgia.
Bambi: A lot of the Atlanta circle and friends will be there.
Rohan: Yeah, and we’ll be headlining a show back in the Atlanta area in October. Our friends Potch and Chachuba from Chicago will be opening for us. Two really talented bands on the bill. Should be a good night.
RR: Quick question, so Jason Hann joined you guys on stage today. How do you know him?
Rohan: I met Jason about four years ago when my other band opened for Eoto at the Georgia Theater. Since then, he’s just been a really awesome person. I’m a really big fan of the String Cheese Incident.
Alex: Yeah, the music industry is a lot smaller than you think. And you when you start going enough, you start running into people.
Thomas: He is a master of his craft.
Rohan: He’s an amazing percussionist, it was an honor to have him sit in with us.
RR: If you could collaborate on a track with any artist, who would be your top pick and why?
Alex: So I would love to do Squarepusher just because being a bassist and producing, that man is a mad scientist and I would just love to sit down and be like, ‘Okay, make me look bad’.
Rohan: In our scene, so to speak, I would say Hunter Brown of STS9, that’s one of my favorite bands and biggest influences. On a broader spectrum, in the electronic realm, probably Aphex Twin or Thom Yorke.
Alex: G Jones would be hella tight too.
Thomas: Dude, Big Red Trey. I’m a Phish dude. I would just really love the chance to play with him. That’s the end all sit in for me with Trey Anastasio.
Bambi: I guess for me, having Jason Hann sit in up there was a dream come true. I wish there was a little more room so I could play a little more along with him a little bit. Any of those monster percussionists. Jeffrey from STS9, Jason’s a beast, Andy from Humphries. I just love people slapping skins and the sounds they can get out of it amazes me.
RR: Lastly, since you are based in Atlanta, what is something that most people don’t know about the city that you would recommend a visitor check out?
Rohan: I think Atlanta has the best food. We eat really good here, like Sublime Doughnuts.
Alex: The radio station, 90.11 is wild. It’ll just play the most ridiculous sounds. The other night it was like a wrench hitting a wire, just this weird sound for like two hours straight. It was awesome, I was like, ‘Who is listening to this and how are they okay to play this?’.
Thomas: East Atlanta Village on a Friday night is pretty lit. You can see some strange, awesome things there. And get pretty wasted.
Bambi: I’d say Little Five Points is my favorite spot in Atlanta. It’s that cultural melting pot, a lot of street art, people selling odd wares on the corners.
RR: Well those are my questions. Any last thoughts or things you want to say to fans?
Alex: Just keep supporting live music, keep supporting music in general. This is one of those industries that is so reliant on the fan base. If people didn’t come out, this wouldn’t be around. Having die hard fans come out in this heat, sweat their balls off, and run around. Going to every show and supporting every artist is the coolest thing. I’m still amazed, I wake up thinking, ‘This is my job? This is what we do?’ It’s awesome. We’re just really happy we have people that like our music.
We thank Space Kadet for taking the time to chat with us. The band has been hitting the South with a mini tour and their last show before heading back into the studio will be at Foundation House of Blues on Halloween in Dallas, Texas. You can check out the details here. Be sure to stay up to date with their latest music and shenanigans through their socials below.
Connect with Space Kadet:
https://www.facebook.com/spacekadet
https://www.twitter.com/spacekadet
https://soundcloud.com/thekadet
https://www.instagram.com/space_kadet_band
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