Back in August, Don’t Panic released their latest album 42. For anyone who knows me, they’ll understand that my ears pricked up at the name of both the album and the band. I used to run the merchandise for the official Douglas Adams fan club, ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, and have a stupidly large collection of various editions of his books. I mean, I don’t even read Czech, Greek or Hebrew… The covers are nice, though.
But enough about me! Let’s find out a bit more about this Hitchhikers-obsessed band…
Folks, tell us a little about yourselves – where are the band from and how long have you been together? How would you describe your sound?
We’re from one of the hottest places in the known Universe, Valley Of The Sun, Phoenix Arizona, and fortunately have been making music for a little over 9 years. The “our sound” question has always been a tough one for us to nail down. We’re an ever-evolving ball of creativity, constantly trying new things. I can say we like polyrhythms, synthesizers, catchy melodies, and meaningful lyrics. That’s about as consistent as we get.
You recently took a hiatus, but have come back with a new album that dropped in August. What drew you together again after your break?
Our “hiatus” is sort of a misnomer, actually. It just sounds a lot better than “we’ve been struggling to find the right members to replace two of our irreplaceable original members”. Some of our songs are pretty complex. Finding members who can not only play them, but play them well is not an easy task. However, in that time thirty one songs were written, and over the next year we have three EPs to release, so that’s really exciting.
Many people will recognise the name of the band from Douglas Adams’ novels. And the name of the album. And the copyright message under the “Time Machine” video on YouTube. Are the whole band fans?
We love that people recognize that! The truth is, we are enormous movie buffs. HHGTTG happens to be a band favourite, though. “Time Machine” was originally released as “88 MPH” (Back To The Future), but we changed it when we realized fans were calling it “the Time Machine song”. Honestly, we try not to be too obvious, but the reference to 42 felt natural to name the album. Don’t Panic has been the meaning of our lives for the last nine years.
Given the obvious references to Douglas Adams, I was surprised not to see or hear any references in the songs. Have you done anything in the past or ever considered a Hitchhiker’s based song?
Lyrically, the majority of our songs have grown into being space themed, another obsession of ours. Originally, we planned on theming all of our albums. DOS Robot Circus, our first EP, was written about the rise and fall of a Hollywood starlet.
We are considering future releases to have a Hitchhiker’s theme, actually. It’s probably the most consistent question we get about the band name. We aren’t sure if it’s going to be just a few songs or an entire album yet, though. Our live show for the release of 42 featured audio clips from the movie between songs, though, the fans that haven’t seen the movie were left a little perplexed.
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Is there a particular scene from the “trilogy” that you think would work well if put to music?
Put to music, definitely the Infinite Improbability Drive. You never know what’s going to happen.
If each of you was a character from HHGTTG, which one would you be?
Jeffrey: Ford Prefect for me. Not sure why, I just enjoy that character.
Dylan would go for Slartibartfast. She enjoys the ocean and is obsessed with the cosmos. So a maker of planets would definitely be fitting for her.
I have to ask – the 2005 movie: thumbs up or thumbs down?
Two thumbs up! In fact the movie is what made me (Jeffrey Robens) think of the band name.
There’s still an obvious science fact / fiction overtone to many of your songs, though – “Phasers Set To Stun”, “Dark Matter”, “Time Machine”, “Drax” and so on. And your album sleeve has a DeLorean on it! Do you think your style of music fits well with a science theme?
We hope so! We all love science fiction so much and we base our compositions hoping it gets used in film!
With the album release and videos for “Time Machine” and “Conquer Divide” out, what’s next for Don’t Panic?
We are currently working on about 15+ songs that will end up being 3 EPs and then joined together into one full length album!
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