From interesting female vocal influences, martial arts and the most touching electronic love song; Tom Lugo explains the inner workings of Philadelphia dark noisepop duo ShiShi.
Bliss is an interesting concept when made into an album. Bliss about finding someone and spending you life with that person. It could be a sense of contentment when you have finally found what you are looking for. And it is a personal thing. This is the subject of this interview as Tom Lugo of Shishi finally opens up his ideas behind the creation of Eternal Bliss, a full length album by Philadelphia based duo of husband and wife Tom and Jaimie Lugo.
What’s the inspiration behind the title Eternal Bliss?
What’s the inspiration behind the title Eternal Bliss? It’s a line in our song Bliss featured on the album. Being married for quite sometime and sharing our lives together is eternal bliss.
I swear the tracks off this album would fit well in the TV series The Walking Dead because of the doom and gloom style. But the songs are also beautiful. It’s like holding the most fragrant black rose. Who are Jamie Lugo’s vocal influences?
Shirley Mason, Gwen Stephanie, Debbie Harry are the influences for her vocal stylings for this record.
Kung fu music
Anything for You is my personal favorite because of the lyrics and the melody. What’s the story behind this song?
I wrote the song for Jamie, it’s how I feel towards her. Many of the songs are about our lives and situations we have lived through.
I love Shirley Manson and the band Gabage and the rest of the female vocalists you mentioned and I guess that’s one of the reasons why I like your sound. Will there be an official music video soon?
Yeah, I love Shirley, Debbie, Gwen, Jamie as well…lol We have 3 videos out so far. One for Anything for you, our daughter is the model in the video:
We have a video for Season of the Bitch which features our daughter:
A video for the song Bliss:
Hopefully we’ll be shooting another one soon.
You mentioned you’ve been playing live.Is this something to do with promoting Eternal Bliss. Do you plan of releasing a live album too?
Well, I play live some of my other projects (Panophonic, Under the wire, Stellarscope) but we have not had the opportunity to perform under ShiShi. Hopefully by the end of the summer or sometime in the fall we’ll have some live gigs happening. So, we’ll have to see about a live album.
Tom Lugo and Martial Arts…can you expound on this a bit and how to you reconcile the two: music and martial arts.
Tom at Integrated Kung Fu Training Sessions at UUCDC
I have been an martial artist all my life, it is not what I do but part of who I am just like music. in order to become proficient in martial arts you have to be patience, humble, grounded, and persistent all qualities that transferable to being a musician and artist.
Where can listeners buy your songs(that means all of the side projects as well).
The album is currently on sale (Release date 06/11/2013) at bandcamp for $6 http://pateticorecordings.bandcamp.com/album/eternal-bliss . The release will it will be available on CD through Amazon and Reverbnation in the next couple of weeks as well as through all major download retailers like Itunes, Rhapsody, Napster, etc.
How do you see 2013 opening up to your music? Plans?
With an over saturated music market it is hard to get your music heard, so our hopes are to gain a solid following of fans and continue to write and record more music. We also have plans of playing out but that most likely will not happen until later on this year.
What are your top 7 albums this month?
The new MBV
The KVB- IMMATERIAL VISIONS
Ummagma/Virta Split EP
Imagine Dragons- Night Visions
A*Star/Blindness split
A Place To Bury Strangers- Worship
Justin Timberlake ‑ The 20/20 Experience
Shishi:
Jamie – Vocals
Tom – everything else
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