Interview with The Picturebooks about „The Major Minor Collective“

Veröffentlicht am 18. September 2021

There is this mysterious line in „Beach Seduction” with Leah from SLOTHRUST: „Ever since I was a child, I had a dream that something would come for me, that I wasn’t where I was meant to be. I used to stare out at the water, and sometimes I swear I could feel it staring back. It’s all starting to make sense now, and I think the truth is we’ve been locking eyes for longer than either of us realized.” Unfortunately, we lose feelings like this over the years when we grow up. Is there a characteristic from your childhood that you would like to keep, that has a naivity, but that is helpful for your creativity?

I cannot talk for Leah, but what I get out of it is, that we all seem to struggle with this feeling of being lonely as hell and are constantly looking for ways to fill this void. I believe that finding comfort in discomfort is the key, to accept things the way they are and take situations the way they come and go with the flow. We can’t control life. Life happens. We can try to know what we don’t want and be open for doors that might open up on the way. A lot of bands for example, often think its so important to know what they want and where they want to be, we never did that, but we knew where we didn’t want to be and all of the sudden that created so many opportunities. Right here, right now is all we got, act like it!

There are some bands that can easily switch from normal shows to streams, but I’m pretty sure that your band isn‘t one of them. How do you keep contact with your fans, that you have worldwide?

One of the coolest things we realized in this pandemic was that we are more then just a live band and we can still be a fully functioning band, without being on tour 200 days of the year. It was something that has kind of scared us in the past but made us so happy to realize that the content we´re creating on our socials and the lifestyle we´re representing is as much part of the band as much as touring is. a lot of our friends in other bands made the exact opposite realization or found out that what feared us was their truth and had to call it quits in this pandemic, which is making feel very sorry for them.

The song „Rebel” with Lzzy from HALESTORM is very empowering, what do you need to keep your inner rebel alive?

Fully accept you the way you are. Not a single person on this planet is flawless. We all suck at something, we all fuck up and that’s ok. Try to find acceptance in that. Try to find comfort in that. Comfort in the uncomfortable. Keep showing up for yourself and stop trying to be loved for things you only do be loved. Thats why self acceptance is the key to find a way to love yourself to be able to love others plus have others love you for who you really are and not a version that you made up so they like you. I don’t know, I can go on forever how important it is but I guess everyone needs to make their own experience to become their own rebel. Guess its part of the game.

„Blind Riders (feat. Lisa Alley and Ian Graham)“ is about people running after false ideals and being a part of a war that isn’t theirs. Do you think that this message is valid for all nation right now, or are you talking about a „war“?

Again I want not talk for Lisa and Ian who are great friends of ours from one of our favorite places on earth, satin, TX, but I mean, we as bands traveling this world been in the port of town where the tourists usually don’t go, where the locals hang and seeing what’s really going on behind the sights, behind the curtain gives you good view on what’s going on and I believe the problem is we´re building walls instead of bridges.

I come from a country that has seen what an actual wall does to a country and even though I’m not only talking about a real wall it is very much so the same. It’s so important, that we try to keep in touch besides our political believes or anything like that. I mean I’ve been vegetarian my entire life and a vegan for years now but imagine being veggie 20 years ago. I was aways a fall out but I learned to not care about others opinion and through that I started making connections with people I probably completely disagree with on a lot of things but found things hat we have in common. Though this connection I inspired a lot of people to try a vegan lifestyle or at least to try it out. I guess, if start to become a society that forces you to be this or that and not accept anything in between we are going the wrong direction.

The album ends with two instrumental songs, why?

The last song is „Aain and again“. An instrumental that happened at some point and Philipp and I cannot even remember ever playing it but my dad recorded us goofing around. The last song you are talking about is a song for the fans to do what ever they want with it and send it to us and we will release these versions of the song at some point or post them or something like that.