Explosions in the Sky
8pm, Auditorium Shores Stage
Explosions in the Sky haven’t performed in eight months.
“This might be the longest we’ve gone without playing a show since the band started,” realizes the Austin quartet’s drummer, Chris Hrasky.
Having already crisscrossed the globe several times, released five successful albums, scored a film, played Lollapalooza, curated All Tomorrow’s Parties, and thoroughly explored a distinctive and influential instrumental form of fireworks, EITS have done most everything an indie rock band can do, including opening for Fugazi, and now find themselves at a creative crossroads.
“The first four records, it was all us playing live in a room. That’s how all the songs were written, and that’s how they were recorded,” says Hrasky. “And the last couple of months, we’ve been trying different ways of doing things, where a song doesn’t necessarily have to be able to be duplicated live for it to stand as a song.”
It’s hard for him to say what the group is looking for or if it will find it. “Even though we’ve been doing this for a long time, we always feel like we’re starting over from scratch,” he explains. “And it takes us a long time to get our confidence back. We’re like, ‘Do we even know what we’re doing?’
“I think we’re very comfortable right now with the idea that we’re just not sure what it is we want to come up with, and we’re just kind of looking around at the moment.”
This article appears in March 20 • 2009.