What do you call a new machine featuring men and women who’ve played with Black Cross, Lucky Pineapple and Venus Trap? Madame Machine play a record release show at Third Street Dive Friday at 10 p.m. LEO asks bassist Salena Filichia about it.
LEO: As “supergroups” go, is Madame Machine more Traveling Wilburys, Chickenfoot or Wild Flag?
Salena Filichia: Hmmm ... I don’t think that we have the egos to be in a band like Chickenfoot. For that matter, we also didn’t meet while “jamming” at Sammy Hagar’s club, Cabo Wabo, in Mexico. We aren’t necessarily poets like the guys in the Traveling Wilburys, and we haven’t, for the sake of performance, decided to change our last name to Madame or Machine — but we are old. We have a lot more keyboards than Wild Flag ... Maybe we would be like the Wild Wilburys.
LEO: What do you hate most about lyrics and/or vocals?
SF: Lyrics are one of the hardest things to come up with. I think that when you have people who aren’t necessarily the front people in their previous bands, music comes naturally, but lyrics take some work. I think anyone writing lyrics probably puts a lot of pressure on themselves to come up with something creative that doesn’t sound trite. I feel like it’s word-roulette in that, a lot of the time, you have to pick the first words that come to your head, and hope that you don’t lose everything in the music because you picked the wrong words.
LEO: Why did you want to work with local label Noise Pollution, as opposed to DIY-ing your first 7-inch?
SF: We had worked with them in the past on our previous projects. Brandon and Nathan are really great guys and are very helpful. While we were getting ready to find a place to press the records and print the sleeves, we had reached out to Brandon and Nathan for advice. We kept asking them for suggestions and contacts. In the end, we knew that they had a greater ability than we do of getting some word out there.
Learn more at facebook.com/MadameMachineBand.
Photo by Lisa Oechsli
c. 2012 LEO Weekly
