Meet Weird Owl

Ready for your daily dose of psychedelic rocking goodness? Enter Weird Owl. This NYC based band brings back all the things we love about psychedelic music. Massive reverberation, infectious melodies, and innovation is in everything they do. Give them a listen and get to know them a little better in our latest interview.

Two Truths and A Lie with Weird Owl (Answer at the bottom)

• On a trip to Stonehenge, I made psychic contact with large feminine spirits that have lived inside the rock formation for centuries.

• Hiking through rural Mexico, I came across the smoking wreckage of a crashed helicopter that contained the dead body of a sasquatch that had apparently been piloting the chopper.

• I have met British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Eagle Don Henley, but not at the same time

Would you rather…

every dog in the world be replaced by giant crabs or giant bats. Please explain your answer.

Ah, this old question. Clearly a no-win situation. The lack of dogs would be very difficult for the planet, but I suppose over time giant bats might come to be regarded with something approaching affection (at least more than giant crabs), so I suppose bats get the nod. If I was a flying insect, my answer might be different. This question makes some very speciesist assumptions.

Some questions with Weird Owl

What is your favorite candy to eat?

I don't have a favorite candy brand, but I love chocolate. Big time sweet tooth. I don't do dairy, so it would have to be dark chocolate, not milk chocolate.

How is everyone holding up during the quarantine? Has anyone left NYC?

I think we are all okay from what I can tell. Everyone is still in town doing his own thing to stay safe and sane. I have been recording some music at home, which has been a fantastic form of escape for me, especially at the peak of the crisis when you only heard the non-musical whine of sirens all day. It was so awful and heartbreaking. I think the musical outlet definitely kept me from completely going to a dark place inside. There's something to be said for little acts of creation amidst great destruction and decay.

Getting close to a year out how does it feel looking back on your 2019 release “Wet Telepathy”

I feel really good about that record. It's a good sign when you feel like your latest release is your best one. We just had to cancel a tour that would have taken us out to the Milwaukee Psych Fest, and that would have been a great time to play these songs live, so it's obviously a bummer that it didn't happen. My only regret about the album is that we didn't record more songs.

Describe your perfect day off.

It's a weird time to answer a question like this since all concept of time, work, leisure, perfection, etc. are distorted. I think it would be nice to even have the opportunity to do something completely normal like wander around the city and pop into a record store or two. Right now that feels perfect to me. I live in Brooklyn and haven't been into Manhattan in about two months. That's weird. So the perfect day is this: no one dies for 24 hours, hospital workers get a break, we can hang out with other humans and not fear that they might accidentally kill us with their pathogens. Everything else is gravy. Might even have a cold beer to drink if I am being greedy about this.

What is your favorite board game? Do you cheat?

I am not really someone who plays board games. I did a puzzle recently. It was a bird puzzle. Absolute blast. A great board game would be Risk but in the theme of the movie "Warriors" rather than a game about some kind of 19th Century imperialist conquest. Instead of a world map, it would be a map of New York City and each borough could be broken up into a few key neighborhoods. You would play as whatever gang you like the most. That is my favorite board game.

What does the future hold for Psychedelic rock in NYC?

Who even knows anything anymore? We don't even know when live music will come back or how it will come back when it does. I think the times themselves will get more psychedelic and dreamlike as more and more realities and timelines converge upon one another. We live in an absurd dimension now, and everything that ever was is sort of screeching to a halt and falling on top of everything else in some cartoonish fashion. Makes for existential oddities everywhere, so there is bound to be some interesting ways of interpreting this musically. I generally do not think of NYC as a very psychedelic place because it seems so caught up in the material world, but I wouldn't be surprised to see us come out of our current situation a little more dreamlike and watery.

What was the creative process like working with Rob Cordaretti to design your album cover?

That was pretty fun. I contacted Rob online out of the blue because I was a fan of his work. We have a friend in common, which may have helped him decide to work with us (no idea how much weight that held). I told him some of the concepts I had been working with in the songs and some of the titles, and he took it from there. His stuff is so cool, and he made us probably the best looking album cover of the year. Our label, Little Cloud Records from Portland, OR did a really sweet job with the rest of the packaging, so it was a real objet d'art when it was all said and done.

Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)

Thanks so much for taking the time to speak to me. I just want people to take care of each other and to learn how to exist in ways that are spiritually sustainable. Everyone should be working on themselves in some way which will move us all forward as a species, so I wish you all the best in your journeys and hopefully, we will see each other in some other place in time where we feel better about who we have become.

Two Truths and A Lie Key:

• Truth: On a trip to Stonehenge, I made psychic contact with large feminine spirits that have lived inside the rock formation for centuries.

• Lie: Hiking through rural Mexico, I came across the smoking wreckage of a crashed helicopter that contained the dead body of a sasquatch that had apparently been piloting the chopper.

• Truth: I have met British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Eagle Don Henley, but not at the same time