Wax Machine endorse an endearing charm within their occasionally awkward, shy persona. An appearance drowned in flurries of hair and 70s moustaches; I met Lauro and Freddie, the two main songwriting brains behind the psychedelic 5-piece that take from a range of influences to provide a significantly unique sound to the Brighton scene. It’s a sound that surpasses your general preconception of Psychedelia and takes it beyond the flowery shirt, deep into the rabbit hole full of jazz, funk, krautrock and tropicália.

Wax Machine have recently become a blitz upon the city’s scene, popping up left, right and centre with shows at Lewes Psychedelic Festival and a string of performances at Late Night Lingerie.

They have an exceptional work ethic, releasing singles and videos on a frequent basis proving themselves to be quite the determined collective. Live, they are a collective, hell bent on getting you dancing with them, encouraging you at all times to have fun too. They have recently released the strung out, schizophrenic ‘Gustav Ghostcat’, a song that takes an uncanny nosedive mid-song and thrusts you into a different warped element of psychedelia. It’s fun, exciting and refreshing to hear something so progressive.

So, 2016 has looked a pretty promising year so far for Wax Machine, what have you got planned from here on in?
Freddie: Well, we’ve recently released ‘Gustav Ghostcat’ which is probably our most forward thinking, playful release so far. It takes on a division down the middle where the spooky sound progresses into a jazzed up latin groove. We’ve got some tunes in the pipeline, the next being ‘Living With a Wizard’ which we’re currently making a video for. We’re also excited to release our eight minute magnum opus later this year [laughter]. It’s something we’ve had for a long time and always messed about with live – there’s a lot of room to jam on there.

Do you have a solid EP release planned or do you see them just being singles?
Lauro: The plan initially was to release it as an EP but, yeah, that kind of dwindled because it was such a long process. We never really liked the idea of waiting around because we just wanted to release them as and when we write them.

Freddie: Yeah, it becomes kind of counter-productive because we just pointlessly sit on songs rather than release them when they are ready. We find it becomes stagnant after a while when they are just sitting around. We like writing and therefore we like sharing them, just keep the process sweet and simple.

Okay, so when you come round to writing these songs, what process do you take?
Lauro: Well, generally me and Freddie come up with ideas individually and then natural selection takes it course.

Freddie: Yeah we’ll put together a melody or chord progression and then we’d jam it out with the band in the rehearsals, that’s when it really comes alive! Later in the studio we’ll take advantage of multi-tracking and production techniques to push ideas even further.

Lauro: I find it very important to be playful with the creative process, ridiculous ideas often sound the best. I think we like using funny clichés and referencing a lot of music. It’s pointless to seek originality; everything comes from somewhere, when you play something you like you will naturally put your own twist on it.

I take it you two have been writing together for a while then?
Lauro: Yeah, I first played with Freddie about two years ago at an all-night jam our friend Max put together at Studio 284. It was an awesome space that unfortunately got shut down because the building was deemed unstable. It was down on the seafront, do you know where I mean? A few days later Freddie came over to my old flat and had a go at singing, I was blown away.

Freddie: [Laughs] I’d actually forgotten how it all started, but that’s right, we just started to write some songs and that’s when we figured we might want a full band. We were lucky to be joined by such talented friends who happened to be on the same page.

So back to your single releases, you mentioned you had a new video coming out soon. I’ve always got the sense from your videos that there’s a lot of time and effort that goes into them, are they something you focus on?
Lauro: [Laughter] No, not really to be honest! They are always very DIY. I’m no good at it, we just film it and then I’ll put it on Final Cut and mess around with effects and get fiendish with it.

Freddie: We’ve always approached it in a creative and instinctive way. Lauro’s done most of the editing so far but I’m looking forward to co-directing and editing ‘Living With a Wizard’ with him and the rest of the band.

I saw you played Lewes Psychedelic Festival last weekend, how did you find that?
Lauro: Yeah, last Saturday. It was fun, we were on first but it was nice opening. ZOFFF were mind-blowing. We only had a short set but the whole thing was great. Chris from Innerstrings put it on with Melting Vinyl, I couldn’t think of anyone better to have curated the event. Chris was kind enough to put me on the Liverpool Psych Fest guestlist last year!

Ah, cool! Did you enjoy it?
Lauro: Yeah, it was great. His lights were genius as usual, and I discovered some good bands.

Freddie: I’ve never been, I’d love to go this year, the line up looks great.

Have you ventured out of Brighton yet with Wax Machine?
Freddie: Yeah, we’ve headed up to London a few times. We’re looking to head further afield but it’s just been hard up until now.

Lauro: Playing in London is interesting. We’ve had a few shows there but it’s just a good opportunity to meet new people.

Freddie: It’s nice getting out of Brighton from time to time.

For sure! Are you both from Brighton initially then?
Lauro: Well, I’m Brazilian but –

Freddie: Yeah, well, kind of. I moved down here to Lewes from London when I was four.

And, do you feel that your environments growing up have influenced your music?
Lauro: For me, being from Sao Paulo has influenced our music here and there, be it through arrangement choices or just the tropicalia vibe in songs.

Freddie: Likewise, growing up in Lewes meant that I could just step out into the countryside. I was just starting to write my own songs, listening to Dylan and The Beatles for inspiration and experimenting with the whole process. There’s something about the countryside that gives you more time and space to develop ideas.

Right, so whereabouts do your influences come from in general?
Freddie: [Laughter] Right, yeah, erm, do you want to take this one Lauro? It’s a tricky one.

Lauro: So yeah, like I mentioned earlier there’s a lot of 60s and 70s psychedelia of course but we also listen to jazz, funk, reggae, country, surf, afro-beat, tropicalia… it comes from everything really.

Freddie: It's eclectic for sure. Like Os Mutantes’ sound has been a big influence for us, their experimental tongue in cheek attitude is something we’ve always wanted to retain in our music. Similarly, Foxygen do a good job of not taking themselves too seriously – we caught them last year when they played at Komedia, it was an incredible show. I’ll let you get on with the interview now because we could go on forever [laughs].

So how do you see yourselves fitting within the Brighton music scene on the whole then?
Freddie: Yeah, I think it’s good. We’ve met a lot of great bands and promoters. Strange Cages are close friends of ours; we were playing with them the other week. We really get on with them, they’re ace guys. There’s never a shortage of good gigs going on in Brighton.

What gigs do you have coming up in Brighton then? I saw you were playing the Moonlight Collective show next week at The Prince Albert.
Lauro: Yeah I’m looking forward to that. Moonlight Collective are good friends. They actually booked us for a show of theirs last year. I’d only met them before at our show with Tuval and then it turned out their flat backed onto mine when I lived up near Dyke Road Park. I was walking to Tesco one day and we just found each other, weirdly.

Do you put a lot of care and thought into your live shows as well then?
Freddie: Yeah, I mean a lot of the actual performance is impromptu – each set is unique. We show up and play for as long as we can, basically until we get asked to come off [laughs]. We were fortunate enough to get a great last minute headline at Brighton Electric. It was sad because Strange Cages had to pull out due to illness, but we were honored to follow Clever Thing and Projector who played some killer sets. It was a bittersweet moment. Nevertheless, it worked well for us, we played all our songs and then got asked to come back on. We had no idea what to play so we just jammed. It was a total freakout; everyone in the crowd was getting into it.

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