Interview with The Black Lemons Band

We recently had conversation with The Black Lemons band.

Twist Online : First Tell us a little about the starting of The Black Lemons.
The Black Lemons : I’d been recording in my bedroom studio, for years and missed playing with others. I got on Craigslist and found Jay. Jay was originally playing bass, and I was on keyboards. When the guitar player quit Jay slid over and we picked up a bass player. Shortly after we hooked up with Scot sax on drums, the bass player quit. Now here’s where it clicked. I had recorded and produced our first record. The recorded versions of the songs were stuck in my head and I couldn’t get away from trying to reproduce the record live. Jay, a drummer, and I had tried playing as a three piece, but it just didn’t fly. Scot’s style of playing, has a lot of swing to it, and that has proven to be the missing link. That gave us the glimpse of what we had to do to get to where the sound meshed. I moved over to bass and Jay reworked his style to cover more ground and everything started clicking from there.

Twist Online : Why you chose the name “The Black Lemons” is there any reason or influence behind it?

The Black Lemons : The truth is we had argued so long about the name, that we just grabbed cool sounding words out a of hat until we hit on something we could tolerate. It has really grown on us. People like the name, and there is actually a black lemon. It is a middle eastern spice made from dried limes.

Twist Online : Tell us about your latest Song “You’re Never Gonna Have Enough Money” ?
The Black Lemons : The song is an homage to David Bowie. We’re all big Bowie fans in the band, and the song was a bit of an experiment. I was trying to see how many elements of different Bowie songs I could fuse together and still come up with something that didn’t just come off as a straight up rip off. I’m really happy with it.
I rarely write anything that isn’t in some way a comment on social norms, and ‘Money’ is right in that ballpark. I have a friend that likes the saying, “I always wanted more, but when I got more, I found out it was only some.” I think that really speaks to how our culture feels about money. We’ve been sold a message that says that money will set us free, and fulfill all our dreams. In the end, the desire for money often just enslaves us, and makes us forget what is really important to us. So, if you need to be released from that bondage, please feel free to send me all of the money you don’t need. I’ll figure out a way to deal with the burden, so you won’t have to. I’m generous like that.


Twist Online : Do you work according to plans to achieve your goals?
The Black Lemons : Yes and no. I do tend to be a planner, but I think it’s a waste not leave some room in whatever plans you have. At least enough room to take advantage of whatever happy accidents might happen around you. As a producer, I have to fight with myself to not control every aspect of the recording process. I’m amazed how many cool things happen when I let go of how I think things should be and focus instead on how they could be.

Twist Online : what’s type of music do you like ?
The Black Lemons : I like a lot of different kinds of music. Pop, punk, metal, jazz, it mostly depends on where my head is at. Peter, Paul and Mary, Black Sabbath, Julie Tippetts, Abba, those are just a few artists off the top of my head. See what I mean.

Twist Online : They say you are influenced by ’70s and ’80s Musicians, Is it true?
The Black Lemons : Well, I think the previous list would certainly support that claim. We grew up in the ’70s, and one of the things we all especially like about the era, is the amount of variety that was on the radio. A typical top 40 list, would have Patti Label right next to Aerosmith, followed by Jackson Browne. All of that stuff gets stirred up in our mix and comes out in all kinds of unexpected ways.

Twist Online : Any new music you are working on? When it will be released?
The Black Lemons : We’ve always got our ears cocked to see if we can’t pick up on something that will inspire us. Right now we’re focused on promoting our latest EP, “You’re Never Gonna Have Enough Money”. I’ve been feeling the itch to write, so we’ll get something new started before very long.

Twist Online : Are you on Social Media? Your fans would love to follow you.
The Black Lemons : And we’d love for them to follow us. We make music to be heard. Without listeners it’s not nearly as fun!

They can follow us on Our Website: theblacklemons.com
or on Twitter: @blklmns  we are also on facebook(weartheblacklemons) and Instagram (@theblacklemonsband)
For now that about covers it, but you can always check the webpage to find out what we’re up to.