{"id":7603,"date":"2025-12-23T16:22:39","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T16:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/a-mazzy-star-interview-theres-happiness-but-theres-also-torture-67963\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T16:22:39","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T16:22:39","slug":"a-mazzy-star-interview-theres-happiness-but-theres-also-torture-67963","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/a-mazzy-star-interview-theres-happiness-but-theres-also-torture-67963\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the wistful, haunting brilliance of Mazzy Star: \u201cWe\u2019re not so concerned about the outside world\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Originally published in Uncut Take 197 [October 2013], <\/em><\/strong>late night heroes David Roback and Hope Sandoval talked us through their slow-motion career, from The Rain Parade and Opal to “Fade Into You”…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Originally published in Uncut Take 197 [October 2013], <\/em><\/strong>late night heroes David Roback and Hope Sandoval talked us through their slow-motion career, from The Rain Parade and Opal to \u201cFade Into You\u201d\u2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cDavid wasn\u2019t that easy to know\u201d<\/h2>\n

Steve Wynn remembers an unexpected phone call he received one day in 1991, from David Roback, the guitarist and co-founder of Mazzy Star. As Wynn remembers it, Roback said to him, \u201cI\u2019ve been thinking, I want to do some sort intense, jammy band like Cream or something like that, and I\u2019d like to do it with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wynn had long admired Roback, and readily agreed. \u201cBut I think my instant enthusiasm took him aback,\u201d says Wynn. \u201cHe said, \u2018I mean, just in theory, maybe some day, not right away, maybe down the line, I just want to see what you thought about.\u2019 So I said, \u2018Hey, it sounds really fun, I\u2019d love to play with you so give me a call when you\u2019re ready.\u2019 That was the last time I spoke to David Roback.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wynn has known Roback for 30 years, from the earliest days of their careers among the Paisley Underground movement, when Wynn was frontman for the Dream Syndicate and Roback the co-singer and guitarist with the Rain Parade. \u201cOf all the people in that scene, I\u2019ve stayed close to just about everybody in one way or another over the years,\u201d claims Wynn. \u201cBut David, he wasn\u2019t that easy to know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never really stopped\u201d<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s tempting to ask, does anyone really know David Roback? Along with Hope Sandoval, his creative partner in Mazzy Star, Roback comes across as elusive, often cryptic. Questions about the length of time it\u2019s taken to record Mazzy Star\u2019s new album Seasons Of Your Day \u2013 released a full 17 years after its predecessor \u2013 aren\u2019t answered as fully as you\u2019d like. Asked, for instance, what the first song was that they recorded for the album, Roback replies: \u201cWell, we really weren\u2019t working on Seasons Of Your Day as it exists now, we were just recording various things. We never really stopped. We just kept writing and recording.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such is the degree of mystery Mazzy Star seem to cultivate around their work that one musician contacted for this article wasn\u2019t even aware that his contribution to Seasons Of Your Day had been used; not surprising, perhaps, as he recorded it nearly 25 years ago. Meanwhile, Roback and Sandoval\u2019s interviews with Uncut are conducted via Skype, peppered with awkward pauses and elliptical responses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not your normal rock \u2018n roll people,\u201d explains Geoff Travis, whose label Rough Trade distributed Mazzy Star\u2019s 1990 debut, She Hangs Brightly. \u201cI think they really do live in their own worlds. It\u2019s a very typical musician thing in a way, in that they\u2019re so obsessed with music and doing what they do, that it kind of removes them slightly from normal social mores.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDifficult and emotional\u201d<\/h2>\n

Looking back over a quarter of a century of Mazzy Star, I ask Sandoval what\u2019s she most proud of.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud of the music, and I\u2019m proud of our friendship,\u201d she replies after a typical hesitation. And when is she at her happiest? Is it when she\u2019s writing songs? Or in the studio? Or after a record is completed?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy with all of the different aspects of it,\u201d she replies instantly, her voice taking on an unexpected urgency. \u201cBut I\u2019m also miserable with all of the aspects. They\u2019re nice, they\u2019re gratifying, but at the same time they can be difficult and emotional. Every phase, there\u2019s happiness in it, there\u2019s enjoyment in it, but there\u2019s also torture.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Roback has been refining a melancholy strand of American Gothic \u2013 steering a course between third-album Velvet Underground and The Doors of \u201cThe End \u2013 since the late Seventies. He grew up in Brentwood, on the west side of Los Angeles. \u201cThere was constantly music on the radio,\u201d he remembers. \u201cThe Beatles made a strong impression on me. The Doors. Love. Bands like that. I just thought they were speaking from a world I really wanted to be part of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid was setting out the vision for the band\u201d<\/h2>\n

Roback\u2019s earliest collaborators included Steven \u2013 his younger brother by three years \u2013 and Susanna Hoffs, whose family lived across the street. \u201cWe all ended up at UC Berkeley at the same time,\u201d explains Steven Roback. \u201cSusanna and David were living together and they asked me to come and play with them. That\u2019s the origin of a lot of things. It\u2019s the origin of the Rain Parade in a way, and the origin of David\u2019s focus on having a lead singer in a hypnotic, melodic context, the vision he had that ultimately ended up evolving into Clay Allison, Opal and Mazzy Star.\u201d<\/p>\n

After graduating, David Roback returned to Los Angeles, where he formed the Sidewalks with former school friend Matt Pucci, a guitarist and singer. They invited Steven Roback to join a few months later, on bass and vocals. The Sidewalks started out playing early Stones and Merseybeat covers before evolving, over a period of around six months, into the Rain Parade.<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid was key in setting out the vision for the band,\u201d admits his brother. \u201cWe all loved vintage instruments, the sounds of Richenbackers and Gretschs. We knew that they all sounded cool on their own and in context, and we put all those instruments together to see what we could get.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFloating and gentle and trippy\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cI think that there was some interesting music going on then, a lot of guitar interaction and electric organ,\u201d says David Roback. \u201cWe were just experimenting with sounds and I was writing a lot of songs back then, singing with that band.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rain Parade found themselves sharing both concert bills and artistic sensibilities (psychedelia, Nuggets, Big Star, the Velvet Underground) with a loose collection of bands on the fringes of the Los Angeles club scene during the early Eighties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Rain Parade were as Paisley as the Paisley Underground got,\u201d remembers the Dream Syndicate\u2019s Steve Wynn. \u201cOf all the bands on the scene \u2013 the Dream Syndicate, the Salvation Army, Green On Red, even the Bangs who became the Bangles \u2013 all of us were coming from a more punk rock background. But the Rain Parade weren\u2019t like that. They were happy just to be floating and gentle and trippy. Pink Floyd and the Byrds. Who didn\u2019t love that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHappy Nightmare Baby was a very electric record\u201d<\/h2>\n

Roback stayed with the Rain Parade precisely long enough to record a single \u2013 1982\u2019s \u201cWhat She\u2019s Done To Your Mind?\u201d \u2013 and an album, Emergency Third Rail Power Trip, the following year. Even before recording the album, Roback had already set in motion another musical project \u2013 Clay Allison, formed with his girlfriend and former Dream Syndicate vocalist, Kendra Smith.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the first Rain Parade tour, when we were in New York City, playing CBGBs with Green On Red,\u201d pinpoints Steven Roback. \u201cWe had a couple of days off, and David did the first Clay Allison gig with Kendra at the Pyramid Club. It was David and Kendra, kind of acoustic, and Will [Glenn, Rain Parade\u2019s keyboard player] was playing violin and I was playing piano.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clay Allison established the template for Roback\u2019s subsequent work \u2013 a kind of dreamy psych-folk. After two EPs, Clay Allison quietly morphed into Opal, who recorded two EPs, Fell From The Sun and Northern Line, and an album, 1987\u2019s Happy Nightmare Baby.<\/p>\n

\u201cHappy Nightmare Baby was a very electric record,\u201d explains David Roback. \u201cWe were very orientated towards playing live at that point. What we\u2019d been doing before that was very acoustic, and then we thought we\u2019d make it very electric, so we went from being somewhat acoustic to very electric, like Happy Nightmare Baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe beginning of the All About Eve saga!\u201d<\/h2>\n

One admirer of both Roback and Smith\u2019s work was a young music fan, Hope Sandoval, who Steve Wynn remembers \u201cused to come to Dream Syndicate soundchecks, in like \u201982, when I think she was like 14 or 15. Her mum would bring her. She couldn\u2019t come to our shows because she was too young. We talked to her and she seemed nice, but I got the feeling that she was particularly mesmerised by Kendra. The beginning of the All About Eve saga!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always loved music,\u201d begins Hope Sandoval. \u201cI grew up with older brothers and sisters who were into music, played The Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Aretha Franklin. I grew up in an area of East LA, I think it\u2019s called Maravilla area. It\u2019s Spanish. I had a project called Going Home with my good friend Sylvia Gomez, and when we met David and Kendra they knew that we had this little music thing we were doing, and they were interested in it. David asked us if we\u2019d like to go into the studio and make a record. I thought David was shy. Yeah, and sort of mysterious.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe liked each other\u2019s music\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cWhat do I think connected us? We liked each other\u2019s music. That\u2019s really what it was. We didn\u2019t really communicate a lot other than just enjoying each other\u2019s music. I was asked to do some live shows [with Opal] because Kendra didn\u2019t want to be the front person, and I think it just got really difficult for her. It was during a tour that they were doing with the Jesus And Mary Chain, so I got a call from David asking me if I would fly out to New York and finish the tour. That\u2019s what it was. That\u2019s how I started working with his band.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the creative union of Roback and Sandoval was borne out of pragmatic necessity \u2013 to finish the Jesus And Mary Chain tour \u2013 it began to take on a more solid shape in early 1988.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d gone into the studio with David\u2019s band, Opal,\u201d explains Sandoval. \u201cI wasn\u2019t writing, I was just singing the songs that he had written and it wasn\u2019t really working out for me. I don\u2019t think for him, either. And I suggested that maybe we write together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe was Mazzy Star\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cWe were performing a lot of Opal material and one day we just thought, let\u2019s just start something completely new and different, and that was Mazzy Star,\u201d continues Roback. \u201cWe started to write a lot of songs together, that\u2019s really what got us \u2013 we really got into that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked David to send me some of his guitar ideas,\u201d says Sandoval. \u201cHe sent me maybe five or seven beautiful rhythm guitar ideas. Did I have lyrics for them? No, I didn\u2019t. Usually what I do is I write my vocal melody over guitar parts and then I come up with lyrics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were experimenting\u201d<\/h2>\n

The songs became Mazzy Star\u2019s debut album, 1990\u2019s She Hangs Brightly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of that record was recorded in San Francisco at a place called Hyd Street Studios,\u201d reveals Roback. \u201cWe were recording up there and a little bit in Los Angeles as well, we were back and forth between the two cities, between Berkeley and Los Angeles. We really were just experimenting with different pieces of recording, as we still do mostly. Live music in the studio.\u201d<\/p>\n

The album was released by Rough Trade \u2013 who had previously handled the UK distribution for Happy Nightmare Baby.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were sitting by the side of the pool\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cI remember the first time I met them in person,\u201d says Geoff Travis. \u201cIn Los Angeles at the Roosevelt Hotel. It\u2019s got a remarkably lifelike statue of Charlie Chaplin in the entrance, and a pool designed by David Hockney. I met David and Hope together, sitting by the side of the pool. Hope was very quiet. Probably slightly more in thrall to David at that point, than later when she exerted her own individuality. She\u2019s a really good soul, Hope. She\u2019s very queenly, in a way. I think of her as the Queen of East LA: softly spoken, but definite and intelligent and bright, lovely.<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid is a bit more of an elder statesman when it comes to music, but with immaculate musical taste. Again, he\u2019s quite quiet, speaks quite quietly, but very much alive, great sense of humour. But quite an odd individual, really, David.\u201d<\/p>\n

For all its strengths, She Hangs Brightly is best summed up by its opening track, the quietly enfolding \u201cHaleh\u201d: a definitive Mazzy Star composition characterised by gently rolling rhythms, guitar reverb and Sandoval\u2019s husky vocals. The album had been on sale for a year when Rough Trade went into receivership.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were quite different\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cWe sat down with David and Hope and we made a deal with Capitol to move them from Rough Trade to Capitol to help avoid the bankruptcy,\u201d explains Travis.<\/p>\n

To support the album, Mazzy Star toured America in 1990 supporting the Cocteau Twins. \u201cThey were quite different,\u201d remembers former Cocteaus bassist, Simon Raymonde. \u201cDavid was quite serious, quite thoughtful, didn\u2019t say an awful lot. I quite liked him. Hope was super shy. There was often a bit of tension between them. Sometimes she\u2019d just storm of stage. I didn\u2019t get the impression that she particularly enjoyed the live thing. It was never dull, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The period following She Hangs Brightly was one of transition for Mazzy Star. In 1993, they added to their line-up Jill Emery, former bassist with Hole, who remained with them until 1996. \u201cI went to their rehearsal studio,\u201d she says. \u201cEveryone was so reserved. It was quite a shock, coming from Hole, with an aggressive Courtney Love. Strangely, their quietness matched Hole\u2019s abrasiveness, just on a different level.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey sold a million copies\u201d<\/h2>\n

1993 also saw the band settle in London around the time they released their second album, So Tonight That I Might See. Continuing the soft-focus, slow motion jams of its predecessor, the album featuring the band\u2019s only hit single \u2013 a dusty, lilting ballad, \u201cFade Into You\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo their credit, Capitol worked \u2018Fade Into You\u2019 for about nine months in radio, which I\u2019ve very rarely seen in America,\u201d says Geoff Travis. \u201cThey sold a million copies of So Tonight That I Might See, which when you think about it today seems an extraordinary number.\u201d<\/p>\n

If it can be considered a barometer of the song\u2019s success in the mainstream, \u201cFade Into You\u201d has appeared in no less than five separate episodes of the CSI franchises. There are countless other appearances in films and TV shows \u2013 most recently, it\u2019s been covered by J Mascis \u2013 but perhaps the song\u2019s most incongruous appearance is in Paul Verhoven\u2019s sci-fi shoot-em-up, Starship Troopers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not so concerned about the outside world\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not our film, you know,\u201d says Roback with a dry laugh. \u201cIncredibly violent. Quite a contradiction in a way. But it was interesting. People play your music in a bar. It\u2019s not uncommon to hear your music in any context, or anybody\u2019s music for that matter you could be walking down the street or you could, you know, be at a funeral, and somebody\u2019s driving by playing the Beach Boys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Characteristically, the question of how they\u2019d follow-up a hit single and million-selling album never particularly seemed to concern Roback or Sandoval.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not so concerned about the outside world,\u201d explains Roback. \u201cIt\u2019s a very internal process that we\u2019re involved in. The outside world is really not on our minds, in so far as the music is concerned. We\u2019re really doing it in our own world for ourselves. We\u2019re engaged in the stories of each individual song. It is its own world unto itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were working on other things\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cI was always working with David,\u201d says Hope Sandoval, as she looks back on the years between Mazzy Star\u2019s third album, Among My Swan, and Seasons Of Your Day. \u201cI think we thought maybe we\u2019d release something, but we weren\u2019t really so preoccupied with it. We were working on other things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Certainly, Sandoval has kept the highest profile since Among My Swan, contributing vocals to songs by the Jesus And Mary Chain, the Chemical Brothers, Death In Vegas, Massive Attack and Bert Jansch, and running a successful second band \u2013 Hope Sandoval And The Warm Inventions, with My Bloody Valentine drummer, Colm \u00d3 C\u00edos\u00f3ig.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m lucky, I\u2019m very, very lucky,\u201d she says. \u201cI work with some of the most amazing artists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone asked me if we were perfectionists\u201d<\/h2>\n

Roback, meanwhile, produced tracks for Beth Orton in the late Nineties and relocated to Norway, where he became involved with Norwegian artists and musicians including Mari Boine, Helga Sten and Guri Dahl, making experimental music for films and installations. He also acted \u2013 as himself \u2013 in Olivier Assayas\u2019 film, Clean, for which he wrote four songs sung in the film by actress Maggie Cheung. Meanwhile, he and Sandoval continued working on Mazzy Star material. \u201cShe would come to Norway, or we would work in London, or we\u2019d work in California,\u201d he explains. \u201cWe really weren\u2019t working on Seasons Of Your Day as it exists now, we were just recording various things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sandoval is quick to echo Roback: \u201cWe didn\u2019t record songs for Seasons Of Your Day, we titled the collection of songs after one of the songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the studio, I\u2019m usually playing guitar or keyboards,\u201d continues Roback. \u201cWe like to get a live version we like. That\u2019s what really appeals to us. Someone asked me recently if we were perfectionists, and I think perfection in music is really a dull thing, the imperfections of music are what give it character. Live, things happen in the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t quite sure what he was doing\u201d<\/h2>\n

Among the musicians credited on Seasons Of Your Day are longstanding collaborators drummer Keith Mitchell and keyboard player Suki Ewers \u2013 both Opal veterans \u2013 and the band\u2019s old friend, Bert Jansch. Reinforcing how long Roback and Sandoval have been working on these songs, Rain Parade keyboard player Will Glenn is also credited on the album: he died in 2001. Steven McCarthy believes his credit on the album stems from a session he played with the band in the early Nineties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey asked me to bring my steel guitar down,\u201d he remembers. \u201cSo for maybe an afternoon, I did some demos. David gave me a cassette tape with that and then said, \u2018Will you come and do some more recording with us later, we\u2019re going into a real studio.\u2019 I went and the only thing I can remember him saying to me was, \u2018Can you do it like you did on the demo.\u2019 I do recall David seeming like he didn\u2019t know who I was, which was kind of confusing to me because we had played quite a bit. So I wasn\u2019t quite sure what he was doing. It\u2019s one of those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hope Sandoval, meanwhile, is already looking beyond Seasons Of Your Day. \u201cWe\u2019re planning to start touring around November in the US and we\u2019ll come out to Europe and do a few shows,\u201d she explains. \u201cI\u2019m excited about it. I\u2019m looking forward to getting together with everybody and playing some of the old songs, and having dinner and wine, catching up with everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

And her aversion of singing live?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hasn\u2019t changed. It\u2019s difficult, but it\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n

And are there more unreleased songs?<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, yeah. There\u2019s loads of songs,\u201d she confirms.<\/p>\n

Will we ever hear them?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d she says after a pause. \u201cProbably. Once our families inherit everything after we\u2019re dead and gone, I\u2019m sure people will hear everything\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post Inside the wistful, haunting brilliance of Mazzy Star: \u201cWe\u2019re not so concerned about the outside world\u201d<\/a> appeared first on UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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