Would you like to talk a bit about your background? What bands were members part of before and how did it all collide to start The Mighty Orchid King?
We’ve often described ourselves as a collective and the cast of musicians from one record to the next tends to change quite a lot. On this album we had the original trio of Jonny (vocals, drums & guitar) Martin (guitar & vocals) and Pete (trumpet & vocals). We all went to school together and back then we just jammed for about 5 years without ever making any songs. Also on this record we have Marcelo on bass and sax who has a “cinematic-rock” band called The Vone, Michael on guitar who has a “cow-fi” project called Symbol Soup, and Ian who plays cello and is in a band called Vipera. Will is our in-house engineer/wizard and also played some keys and sang some BVs on the record.
How would you present some of the main influences? What in particular influenced you by certain artists?
A few years ago we decided to perform The Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’ medley live to mark the 50th anniversary of the record. It was joyous bringing that psychedelic symphony to life and we got such a thrill out of sharing our vocal duties and trying to really jump into the crazy characters on those songs. That certainly felt like the seeds for what we ended up creating on our new record. We wanted to make something that jumps around a lot but is cohesive and segued.
More recent examples like King Gizzard’s ‘I’m In Your Mind Fuzz’ and ‘Nonagon Infinity’ were touchstones too as well as any live performance by White Denim (although we’ve long given up on coming close to their virtuosity!) We’ve been listening to a lot of Yes and are very drawn to the grand symphonic scale of their work. The Beach Boys are a constant influence from a vocal perspective but I think the sketch-like nature of some of the album was a specific nod to the ‘SMiLE’ record.
There were also bands / voices we tried to emulate on specific moments of the record to try and match the vibe of a character. We listened to a lot of The Doors throughout the composition of the record, and loved the idea of Reynard The Fox being voiced by either Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop or Mark Lanegan.
From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2022/12/the-mighty-orchid-king-interview-new-album-mycelium-music-volume-i-pinedemonium-awakes.html
