by marcs77Scene's veterans THE LILLINGTONS are not just your average punk rock band. They may have not reinvented the wheel, music-wise -actually you can clearly and easily pick what the main influences behind their sound are- but the Wyoming based four-piece has released some very fine buzzy punk pop-tinged music jam-packed with lotta sci-fi, UFO, outtaspace, spy movie, weird and mystery imagery and tales –recently, they wrote also some stuff more centered around secret societies, astrology, and the occult.
Known by many for their ‘99s opus “Death By Television”, the band went on indeterminate hiatus, because of members other music related commitments, in 2006, after the release of their record “The Too Late Show” to return this year in the stores with a brand new full-length effort, out through Fat Wreck Chords on Oct. 13th, 2017.
It’s taken 11 years to get to listen to the new material that makes up “Stella Sapiente” but we do believe it’s really worth the long wait –and, in my book, the addition of new-wave sounds, they threw in the mix, gave a new unexpected dimension and value to a few new songs.
Thanks to Vanessa at FAT we’ve got Kody Templeman (voice / guitar) answer a bunch of questions about the new album, HP Lovecraft, song titles on insects and the Lillingtons’ whereabouts.
gan: It’s been a long time since your last studio full-length release. What you guys have been up to over this time-frame? Living your life, playing in other bands, involved in other projects…?
A: Yeah, I’ve been playing in Teenage Bottlerocket and keeping quite busy with them. Tim had another band called Stabbed in Back for a while, and Alex plays with Grey Area every now and then. Other than that we’ve been busy working day jobs and living our lives.
gan: Let’s talk about your latest fatigue “Stella Sapiente”. How this new secretly planned and recorded album came to life? And how the fans reception have been so far?
A: Cory and I had been sitting on a few Lillingtons songs that we had written and in the fall of 2016 we both had some free time on our hands and decided to go a different route with what we had been doing. We wanted to do something different and darker and incorporate some elements that we had been wanting to do for a while. So we decided to put the songs we already had written on a 7” which ended up being the Project 313 EP we did with Red Scare and started writing a new album from scratch. All the songs came pretty quickly and we had most of the album written by March 2017. We sent demos to Fat and got the green light to book studio time.
gan: What does the title “Stella Sapiente” stand for?
A: It means “wisdom of the stars”. We thought it was appropriate because quite a few of the songs mention stars and are kind of tied together that way.
gan: I love the title “Insect Nightmares”…
A; Nice! yeah that was a title I had been sitting on for a while. I kind of ripped it off from the band Insect Warfare who are a great band and their name really paints a fucked up picture. I hate insects! Fucking HATE em!
gan: You have a song titled “Cult Of Dagon” and you’ve always been into Sci-Fi, espionage, intrigues and mystery stuff . Are you possibly into HP Lovercraft?
A: Yes, very much! He was one of the pioneers of great horror literature in my book. He creates such an atmosphere by not revealing too much. There are some magic circles that believe the stuff that he wrote was real and that he was a conduit for it. Kenneth Grant was one of the big advocates of Lovecraft and introduced some of his mythos into occult practices. I also really like Stephen King and he credits Lovecraft for a lot of his inspiration.
gan: What’s your personal pick off “Stella Sapiente”?
A: It’s hard to pick one for me. It’s probably a 3 way tie between Knights Templar, Dagon, and Drawing Down the Stars.
gan: Listening to the opening track “Golden down Knights Templar” or a song like “Night Vision” I feel kinda new wave influences. Any bands from that era you can count as an influence to your sound?
A: Yeah definitely. I’ve been a big fan of The Cure for a long time. I like the “Warsaw” Joy Division era and there are some really good, dark Depeche mode songs out there. My older sister had all that shit growing up so I was always exposed to it when I was young.
gan: The band promo shot Fat Wreck got circulating shows all you guys wearing a black hoodie with a pentagram on it. Isn’t this symbol a bit abused among the punk, rock and metal scene?A: Yes it is! It’s way overused. We use it for different reasons than just shock value. But yes, it’s way over used.
gan: How did Fat Wreck Chords manage to hook you up?
A: They’ve been kind of interested in the band since we did Death By Television. Mike passed on that record and then decided he wanted to do it but we had already promised to release it with Ben and John at Panic Button. When they (Panic Button) dissolved the label Toby from Red Scare bought the rights for the 2 albums we released with them and so we just continued to work with him to keep all our stuff in one place. He’s been a good friend for a long while.
gan: As far as touring goes, do you anything planned already? Are coming to Europe (and hopefully Italy)?
A; We’re planning some tours now. We will be coming to Europe for the first time ever in June and I really hope we hit Italy cause I think we would do really well there. If we don’t we will definitely be back to play there later in the year.
gan: Thank you very much for releasing “Stella Sapiente” and taking some time out to answer our questions. Do you wanna add something before we wrap this up?
A; Nope, I think you covered all the bases.
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