Explosions' music has often been tarred with the 'post rock' brush - I've even seen your last album advertised in Camden, London as "The American Mogwai!" (which I think was intended as a good thing). How do you feel about such genre-tags - do they frustrate you at all?

ms: I think at first this frustrated us, but not so much any more. The example you gave is a good one--we would see our name advertised on posters all over Europe as "sounds like GY!BE/Mogwai" or "Texas post-rock, like Mogwai".... I think it's probably obvious that we don't want to be just like those bands or seen as just like them, but in a strange way this can also be helpful. For example, in Europe we are complete nobodies. We had never done a tour over there and you can't even find our album in most places. The only way anybody could hear about us in many places is through word of mouth or over the internet. So in these places kids would see the posters and since they liked Mogwai or Godspeed or post-rock, they would come to our shows. And then they'd talk to us afterwards and say; "I had never heard of you, but I enjoyed the show." So that kid would never have come to our show if it weren't for the comparison or genre tag.

The whole 'post rock sound' of instrumental bands like yours appears to have been pushed closer and closer to the mainstream in the last couple of years, with artists such as Sigur Ros and to some extent Godspeed You! Black Emperor breaking through to a wider audience through touring with mainstream-accepted "art" bands like Radiohead & Sonic Youth, and inclusion on soundtracks for films such as Cameron Crowe's "Vanilla Sky" and Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later". Do you have any concerns about its growing influence, and the effect that mainstream exposure & exploitation could have on it, a decade on from the collapse of so-called 'grunge'?

ms: I'm not sure I have much to say about this.... I guess I was maybe a bit surprised at how popular Godspeed and Sigur Ros and Mogwai have become, but I don't think it's a bad thing or anything, not by any means. Maybe it's harder to keep control of the situation than I think (we haven't experienced much of it), but it doesn't seem like it would be that hard for a so-called post-rock band to deal with some measure of success. A band like us is not going to be in many magazines or on MTV, which is where most bands seem to go downhill (changing their sound, dumbing down their music, etc.). But anyway, to answer your question, I personally have no concerns about this type of music having more acceptance. For one thing, I don't think about it much. For another thing, it doesn't really seem like it could get much bigger. Since most bands that fall into this category have no vocals, they're only going to "go" so far. At least that's my guess. So be it.

I presume that a band of Explosions' stature, despite your ever-burgeoning profile, means that you guys have to hold down jobs when you're not touring (incessantly). What kind of work are you involved in? And how the hell do you get that time off to do your (much appreciated) tours?

ms: Munaf and Michael both work in video stores (different ones), Chris is looking for a job (he's worked for the last couple of years at a bookstore), and I do copyediting of college textbooks. The way we get time off from our jobs is that we simply quit them (and then find new jobs when we get back from tour). It's not the easiest life, but I don't really see any way around it at this point in our lives.

Now that you've returned to Midland intact, what are your plans once you've managed to stand the sight of one another again? When are you planning on venturing into a recording studio again, and what results can we expect?

ms: We actually have moved back to Austin (well, I'm in Dallas right now for the holidays and I won't be moving back to Austin until next week). So at this very moment in time, we're not even playing together. It's a nice rest after the touring, but we all want to play again. I have no idea what you can expect, because we don't know. Our goal is a new record. We have a number of completed songs, and we want another one or two. We'll start playing again in Austin right after the New Year, and when we record depends on how well it goes when we start playing again. We've said in a couple interviews that we think this album will have a more romantic feel and sound, but I think that's because a couple of the stories for the songs somehow revolve around love and relationships. Of course, several of the other stories center around death and desperation and sadness and tragedy, so there's that too.

Can you shed any light on what happened to the proposed 7" on Zeal? The project appears to have vanished into thin air...

ms: I'm afraid we still don't have a definite answer for this yet. Seems pretty sad, I think, since we've talked about doing it for about two years (we'd like to give our sincere apologies to Geert who runs Zeal, for bearing with us). We probably shouldn't have talked about it until it was done--the two songs that we wanted to do for it (a reworked "Remember Me As A Time Of Day" and a song we've had for a long time that has a name but we'll probably change the name of) have kind of been put by the wayside. We didn't think the reworked "Remember Me..." was good enough to warrant release, and we go back and forth on the other song. Right now we're just wanting to work on making the next record, and then we'll figure out if we can do something else.

Every band member has a tattoo of the angel from the sleeve of 'Those Who Tell The Truth...' on his wrist. Does this represent a permanent bond or anything special for all of you to Explosions in the Sky, or was it just that the image was good?

ms: We like to say (half-joking) that the tattoos are our wedding bands. The image means a lot to us. Even though none of us are religious, there's something about that angel and the story behind it (the angel of Mons) that really hit us. I can't really describe how great it felt when we were working on "Those who tell the truth..." It was all we cared about - we finally were able to make the songs we wanted to make. It felt like there was more to our world and the world than these terrible jobs and family problems and being broke all the time. When we would finish a song and it would be like we wanted it to be, it was the most triumphant feeling there is. We could see the angel in the sky: the hopefulness, the beauty. We just all really consider ourselves lucky to have found each other. I think perhaps our friends and families thought it was strange that we all got the same tattoo, like we had joined a street gang or something. But I've never questioned or regretted it once. It's a bit of a daily comfort to look down at it, as silly as that sounds.

But what happens if you have a 20-album career? Can we at all reasonably expect you to be become closer to the status of Tattooed Men of Rock with every new release?

ms: I'm not sure about the tattoos, but I'm pretty interested in the other part of your question. We have no idea how long this can last--whether we have two or twenty albums in us, or if we'll even be able to finish this next album to our satisfaction. The way we have worked is to always make every decision unanimously. There is no majority vote--if we're not all completely in favor of something, then we don't do it. That makes it really difficult sometimes and of course we fight. We've thrown away countless riffs or even whole songs because one of us is not blown away by it. So no matter how long we go on, I think we'll always be fairly slow songwriters. But we do know that we will only put out what means the most to us.

Finally, how's your van doing? Is she still roadworthy?

ms: Well, we're not sure. We drive it around town and it seems to be okay... but the power windows don't roll down, the odometer and speedometer don't work, the gas gauge doesn't work, and the engine makes a whirring sound when you accelerate. As much trouble as it has been, and as much money as we've had to pay to repair it, we actually really like the van. It's really comfortable. It will be hard to part with. We haven't yet decided if we'll try to take it out on the road again.

As a farewell, Mark wished to give a message to the readers:

...If there is anybody reading this who likes us, then thank you and we're sorry we are often in shambles and chaos. What I mean is that we haven't been able to release as much music as we'd like and we never update our web page and we aren't able to get everywhere we want to on tour.... but I promise we're trying to do the best we can. Also, if you haven't gotten the new Iron & Wine record, you may wish to do so because it's clearly the most beautiful thing created in several years. Thank you and best wishes for the New Year.

Explosions in the Sky
Temporary Residence

interview and live photo by Dave Stockwell
Band photo from Temporary Residence website