NadaMucho.com Staff Interview: Q&A with Patrick Galactic
This is a post about Nada contributor Patrick Galactic, who’s also a musician and has a new song out called “My World Alone.”
NM: Do you really feel like you live in a world alone?
PG: In a way, sure. This is more particularly about narcissists and their inability to empathize with people’s feelings. No one can live in their world because they are the only real thing in it. Different world.
NM: That shit sounds hella deep. Did you used to watch that show A Different World when you were young? My parents got me Duane Wayne glasses and I was the shit.
PG: …I…I mean yeah, a few times…
NM: I like the spooky synths on the new track. Is this next record going to be like your “Some Girls?”
PG: The EP is going to be a little more cerebral and cinematic. There’s a lot of groove and lots of spooky shit, though, I promise. I’m bored with the traditional singer-songwriter acoustic guitar approach. It was good to me. I was good to it. But I’m seeing synths and beats now. I’ve been holed up in my home studio for a year and have been tinkering with tones and textures and re-imagining my sound.
NM: That’s good because I like you best when your music has more texture. How good is that track we premiered on Nada back in 2015?
PG: That’s some pro level clickbait there. Don’t peak too early, Kids.
NM: Tell me about releasing a single song and your strategy for sharing new music in the digital age.
PG: No one told me in the 90’s that in the future I’d need to be a musician, producer, PR rep, salesman, performer, marketing manager, SEO expert, and public spokesman in order to get noticed, but here we are. Everyone’s moving faster and people don’t care whether you release four songs or 14. They get over it in the same amount of time. So I’d rather put out smaller batches and maximize the impact of each release.
NM: Well sure. But won’t you have those songs add up to something that’s more cohesive? Are we already dropping the idea of putting out a collection of work around a certain theme or style that tell a larger story?
PG: If you listen to my last EP and my next EP (you’ll have to wait) I think they make a pretty compelling argument that an EP can be an effective standalone statement, much the way we’ve always viewed LPs. Secondly, it comes down to demand. If fans regularly told me they HAD to have a full-length, I’d figure out how to come up with the $10-20k to properly make and promote one. The next series of releases can hopefully create that demand and attract the kind of industry support that would make that possible. Because I’ve taken so long to release music in the past, fans are still getting to know me. I think they just want to see that I’m putting out new stuff.
NM: Haven’t you already become famous after we ffound out about your music in 2015 and put you on our #41for2015 list? Why are you sending us your new song? Shouldn’t we have to speak with your publicist or something?
PG: Strangely, I’m the only person from that list who isn’t bathing in money.
NM: Since we’ve taken some of your precious time away from making pretty songs to write for NadaMucho.com, I must ask you what other local acts are putting the wind in your sails lately.
PG: There’s so many. I’m really in to Spencer Carlson, The Spider Ferns, Beverly Crusher, Among Authors, MONSTERWATCH, Leava, Tres Leches, Screens, Select Level, Richie Dagger’s Crime, Black Giraffe, and Razor Clam. But I could list 50 more. There so much good music happening here right now.
NM: Now that you’re helping artists with Lo Flux Media, does it feel weird/different to write to people about your own projects? Shouldn’t this promo email have come from Kelly (Fleek, LFM owner)?
PG: Look I have a rule that I do the talking with everyone over 6’3”. For safety.
NM: Fair enough. You seem to surround yourself with a lot of smart, creative people in general.
PG: I am pretty shameless about getting my entire music community involved in what I do. If you don’t ask people for help, you won’t get any. At first, I was very shy but after I just started asking people like Ian Sides (Devils Hunt Me Down, Moon Darling), Emily Ravenscraft (e.ravenscraft), Andy Ayers (Black Giraffe), Richie Nelson (Richie Dagger’s Crime) to be involved and they said yes, I got less shy.
NM: Thanks to you and Kelly for letting Tim and me do the Downstream interview on the Lo Flux blog BTW.
PG: Well you were such good boys and kept your clean for an entire month. We just wanted to do something special for you. I’m glad that Downstream lives even though Upstream is seemingly gone. I always viewed Downstream as a positive for Upstream because it created a cultural awareness, even if it was insanely crass. Any festival that breeds a counter festival must be a big deal, right? Now that it stands alone, it’ll be interesting to see what Downstream becomes.
NM: OK pitch me on whatever comes next. A new song in four weeks? A video? What are the fans watching out for?
PG: I’m putting together a completely re-imagined live band for a big release show for the EP. I released an amazingly stupid lyric video on IGTV last week that people have insisted I do more of. So prepare for a full-on multimedia attack of strange, silly, and mostly stupid things there. I’ll be adding some archive tracks (“Futures Come & Go”, etc.) to streaming services in a few weeks, and I’ll be releasing a single from the EP in late summer with a video. Then the EP No Future to Fear drops in September. I’m working on the single after that now and then move on to recording the next EP over summer.