Mini-Intervew with Apollo 18

Apollo18 (아폴로18)
Yesterday SXSW announced another round of bands for the festival and this time they included Apollo 18 (must say I’m both surprised and happy to see Indieful ROK quoted). The band also aspires to do a bit of touring while out of the country – check here if you think there’s anything you could do to help out – and thus have been keeping very busy lately. In spite of all the preparations, the band’s guitarist, Hyun-seok, kindly answered a few questions for Indieful ROK:

How are you preparing for SXSW in March?
We’re so busy with preparations for our SXSW appearance and American tour right now. We’ve been practicing a lot to tighten up our live show for SXSW. This will be our first time performing in North America and there will be people from all around the world in Austin, Texas for SXSW so we really want to do a great job and make a strong impression.

We’re also discussing making a compilation CD with songs from our Red, Blue, and Violet albums to take with us on the American tour. We’re thinking of different ways to promote Apollo 18 and our SXSW showcase both before the festival and when we arrive in Austin, Texas. We are considering making a few hundred Apollo 18 iPhone covers to hand out to people at SXSW.

Going to the United States is expensive and we’re working really hard to save money for the tour. We have just scheduled a Seoul “US Tour Fundraiser” concert in February to help pay for our trip to the United States. It’s going to take place at Live Club Ssam in Hongdae on February 26. The lineup includes us, Vassline, Art of Parties, Tobacco Juice, Hanumpa, SmackSoft, and Eshe & Navah. It will be a really great night. If you’re in Seoul on February 26, please come!

What will you offer the people that come to see you? What kind of reactions are you hoping to trigger?
We aren’t K-pop stars. We’re going to play loud, crazy, and dirty rock ‘n’ roll concerts. We hope people can feel our energy and passion. We love making music and we want people all over the world to experience Apollo 18.

What else do you plan on doing while overseas?
We’re going to eat a lot of American food! Dae-inn and Sang-yun are excited because I suggested we eat hamburgers everyday during the tour to save money. I’m not sure if that will be very healthy for us, though.

SXSW is a huge event and there is going to be so much great music. Last year around 2,000 acts from 50 countries played. We hope to watch a lot of bands and make new friends with musicians and music industry people from other parts of the world. We want to meet lots of music fans as well, and can hopefully find some new international drinking buddies.

We’re planning to play some concerts in other US cities after SXSW. Our tour schedule is still being made, but it will be finalized soon. We’re a little nervous about the tour, but we think it is going to be so much fun to see new places and hang out with new people. We want to start performing abroad more regularly, so SXSW and our American tour will be a great learning experience for us.

Is there any new material on the way?
We’re slowly beginning to write new songs. We have been playing a few new tracks live. People seem to really like them. We plan to record our next full-length after our American tour. We hope to release it at the end of the spring or the beginning of the summer.

Fantastic news about new material and album, I’d say! At least one of those new songs have made it onto YouTube: [Live,HD] APOLLO 18 – New Song(no titled) Nov 26, 2010 @Club DGBD (two months later the song still doesn’t have a title). (From the same evening here’s a clip where they took on the theme from Calmi Cuori Appassionati) Rumor has it the artwork for that live DVD is finished an looks really good, though it remains uncertain when exactly the DVD will be released.

If you happen to be in Seoul on February 26, do consider showing your support for Apollo 18 at Ssam! Of course I’d say Apollo 18 alone is enough to make it worthwhile, but I also saw Vassline perform extremely well on that very stage a few months ago. The other bands unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to catch live myself yet, but I have seen both Eshe & Navah put on lovely bellydancing performances before so I’m sure it will indeed be a really great night.

4 Comments Mini-Intervew with Apollo 18

  1. Kaz

    I really want them to come to Canada. ;-; Galaxy Express and Vidulgi Oouoo are not enough! I would buy that compilation fo’ sho’.

    Reply

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