I wanted to finish my little treatise on the background of the LDT album with some possible influences in the years before, and of course I can only talk mostly about my personal faves, well, as the main songwriter that might make sense. Although I would also like to mention that SBE drummer Thomas Vedder in particular has a very eclectic taste in music and in his own way has perhaps always been the coolest guy in the band, even if he doesn't talk much to strangers. He has this encyclopedic wisdom in him and a huge music collection. He loves English prog (Soft Machine, Gong, Steve Hillage, etc.), 70's rock and Krautrock more than the newer groups and in some ways was a little ahead of many of us.
Whereas I was also heavily influenced by the seven years with Terraplane. We had long jam tracks there too, but didn't really know what we were doing. It just kind of came together. "Singata" was actually an unrecorded Terraplane song as well! I had been a big fan of the Doors for a long time, and Oelke and I were equally big fans of Led Zeppelin. Especially the long (live) versions of "Dazed and Confused" had impressed us a lot. But also Hendrix, Black Sabbath and others played a role, for me especially the very early UFO, or Canned Heat and 70s underground groups like Josefus. In the early 2000s however we didn't know any other band in Germany that had such "crazy" long pieces (15-20 min) in their live set, except Colour Haze of course. And later I was also to discover Earthless from California, who were a step above all that in their own way, even back then! But for me it was always also important to have at least a bit of song structure and vocals.
So without rambling on too much further, here's a selection of other main influences for the "Long Distance Trip" album in particular, Mammatus again, but also Om and early Toner Low by the way, or Ancestor's "Neptune With Fire", and my all time Stonerrock-favorite Nebula. And there are also a few highlights from old groups that everyone should know, even almost 50 years after they were active. By the way, I always found it funny how from ca. 2014 on suddenly "everyone" claimed to have always been a Black Sabbath fan, etc. But maybe that was due to increased networking and social media. I can still remember very well how in the 90s and early 2000s old groups like Black Sabbath etc. weren't popular at all and many people considered 70s rock as sort of "old-fart music". Anyway, starting in 2015 I also became more and more interested in electronic music, but more on that elsewhere. Have fun with these groundbreaking tracks, on the long way to the Long Distance Trip!
