BLACK HOLE CARAVAN - Heavy Doom Rock with Melody!

Interview conducted with Sylvester.
Since starting in 2009, the band has accomplished quite a bit, especially on the live circuit. It seems you guys always have something lined up. Has it been a slow pace to get to this point?

Yeah, it took some time getting things off the ground, making time to practice and all that. We all have jobs, kids, significant others, etc.. Family comes first and we work around that to do what we do. It works for the most part, haha!

Over time you’ve had multiple line-up changes. Do you feel the current is your strongest?

Well, it's the strongest to date in my opinion. Everyone is on the same page, all working together to make things sound good. We don't fight very often, we're all adults over 30 and have been in other bands before so we know how to approach things in a way that is productive as opposed to fighting and bickering and bringing on a lot of unnecessary negativity.

The first time I heard your band you definitely had a classic stoner rock/doom sound. Now it seems to have evolved more into a commercial, but still heavy sound. Your thoughts?

I think the classic/stoner metal elements are still there, we've just added some more influences and streamlined things a bit. More focus on writing good, heavy, catchy songs. Of course we still have our longer, more epic songs and always working on more. We just try to mix things up and write songs that we want to hear.

Talking with you guys it seems that your personal tastes range from Seattle rock to black metal. How does that factor in with your song writing?

We try to take a little bit of this and that and make it all work together to craft good songs. When you have a band where every member is influenced by the same bands/genres, it tends to sound like it. They kinda paint themselves into a corner. It would be like cooking with the same ingredients every time, you end up getting bored with it no matter how much you like that combination of ingredients. So we bring it all in so to speak. Chase is very influenced by Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, and more mainstream stuff while Dave and myself are into classic doom/stoner metal like Sleep, Cathedral, Solitude Aeturnus, etc..T Bone and I both love old school death metal and Kevin is into all kinds of classic and modern metal. Overall we're rock and metal fans and there's bands that we all share a love for and bands that maybe only guy in the group likes. But it all gets thrown into the pot and we work on writing songs that we all want to play and hopefully people will enjoy hearing.

 

I must commend you for the great self promotion that is being done for your band. You have a nice website, cool logos/band art, and merchandise. With free social media available, most bands abandon the idea of paying for a website. With all that being said, it gives the impression that you guys take this serious. What goes into getting your name out to the masses?

Mostly just playing shows and getting in front of an audience and putting on the best live show that we can. And we're all very accessible whether it be in person or social media, always happy to talk to people that enjoy what they hear from us. Having some cool merch and a good website always helps as well. And again, we try to write the best songs we can and present them in a way that people will dig them and seek us out. It's always nice to go from constantly seeking out shows to being sought out to play shows. Another thing important to us is getting out there and actually supporting our local scene. We all try to get out there to shows and support our fellow bands, buying and wearing their merch on stage and in public, and all that kinda stuff whenever possible.

I really like your t-shirt designs. Who creates the artwork?

The first design we had was acquired from a British guy whose name escapes me at the moment, and the second design (our current shirt) was put together by our vocalist, Chase West. That same design will be on some drink koozies soon as well.

 

With all the live shows, do you plan in the future to venture outside of Texas?

Hopefully! We're working on possibly doing some road trips this year. Touring/travelling is a difficult things as we all have solid jobs and responsibilities at home. We definitely enjoy playing live though, so hopefully we'll be able to spread our disease qzs

a little farther out of Houston soon!

I saw a cool video for the new song Here There Be Death. That song is a great example of your evolving direction. It is definitely heavy-doom, but with an Alice in Chains influence. When can we expect an official release?

We're actually going back in the studio in February to record a few more songs and an E.P. should see the light of day by the summer if all goes well. Ready to unleash some new stuff upon the world!

Thanks for the interview. I now give the final word to you.

Thanks for helping to get the word out there and thanks to our fans and anyone willing to give us a listen! Hopefully people out there enjoy hearing our songs as much as we enjoy writing and playing them! Stay metal and support your local scene!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-Hole-Caravan/148472156008