Once upon a time there was a band called The Plastic Day that was very, very awesome. Then leader Shin Sunho aka Green relocated to Australia, and a few years later he’d put together a new band called Hippie Death Star. I first interviewed the band in December 2014 while on tour in Korea. About a month ago the band’s first album Evolution , Ambition ... Revolution for Unification was released, providing an excellent excuse to catch up with Green again.
At the time of our first interview you were in the middle of your Psychedelic Flowers tour around Hongdae. How did you feel to be back? How did the other band members like Korea?
Ah it was an amazing time for all of us. Most of the people we met over there… they’re really nice and generous. And we made our album contract with Reggae Chicken Label during that tour.
Yeah …it was a really good time ..heaps of things happened ..can’t really remember now…but..one thing for sure.. It was super cold… December is hot summer in Australia. So … it felt colder than it really was.
What has Hippie Death Star been up to since?
Gigs / single released / tour / … not much :)
Yeah…we are all working class guys. so.. mostly working hard to survive in this world? At the same time we’ve worried about this world.
How would you like to introduce your new album?
This album is… umm… yeah this is always the hardest question.
I can’t really explain or introduce this album. But I’m sure this album’s got a message. A message about this world. What we stand for and where we are… From the shocking morden incident to historical problems that we have to sort out…
Dividing a lots of things nowadays that… we really need to get along together. Conflicts that are never-ending and hate.. Broken promises… Strangely enough our monetary system is creating a bigger gap between the rich and the poor. We are part of nature, we can’t deny, but many people haven’t really realised.
So.. the message is the one good point about this album to introduce.
Do you have any plans to tour outside of Australia?
Yeah we might have a Korea Tour when our vinyls arrive. We’ve pressed 100 copies of limited vinyl that we’re waiting for.
We’re trying to sort out something .. Canada and Japan as well. Always keen to meet new revolutionary people :)
Anna will invite us to Stockholm, Sweden, one day, I believe…
Haha, yes, if I could invite Hippie Death Star to Stockholm that’d be most awesome! While Green was still in The Plastic Day I saw him in what I still think of as the best live show ever, so I have no doubts that his new band would be able to deliver a very awesome set as well.
The album is awesome from start to finish, so if nothing else I’ll most definitely need to hunt down a copy of that vinyl when available. As promised, Hippie Death Star deliver on both the psychedelic and the groove.
Fans of The Plastic Day should not be disappointed, yet there’s much more to Hippie Death Star: “Warriors of Great Grey Squares” is a psychedelic rock/dub/reggae fusion piece that sounds so amazing and natural I find myself wondering why I’ve never heard anything of the kind before; the synth-line in “Tension and Then” makes it feel both retro and experimental at the same time; and following all the fuzziness and rather dark themes put forth for during most of the album, there’s even a feeling of hope and a hint of cheerfulness coming from closing track “Two Nine Eight”. Great stuff.