Colour Haze

INTERVIEW - COLOUR HAZE - 2026 - ICIT WEBZINE:

 

                             Photo by: Tomcat

 

Greetings and snowy wishes from Stockholm. First of all, how are you doing in the beginning of 2026?

Greetings from once-used-to-be-snowy Bavaria. We are busy working on our new music to present it on our tour with My Sleeping Karma in April which is exciting.

 

If we counted correctly you will celebrate 32 years as a band in 2026. What milestones can you recall and tell us about from all of these long years in the service of music?

Sorry, but this question is somewhat to unspecific to find an answer out of the blue ; )

 

To be totally honest with you...we absolutely love live recordings and attending live concerts. You have released a couple of official live recordings during the years. We are especially intrigued by your LP entitled "Live, Vol. 2 - Duna Jam 2007". What are your recollections from that live recording? Also, do you have any plans in repressing it on LP again as the original pressing seem to be sold out on your Bandcamp?

Well, only the CD is sold out, the DLP is still in stock. Just order it from our site directly! : ) The recording ran just by the way but the concerts themselves were for sure one of the milestones you have been asking for above. Especially to play inside the ancient Tempio Di Antas was an absolutely one-off which intrigued us to go down to Duna Jam with all our gear on instant. And as we saw that there was hardly any gear for the other bands we shared ours to make the shows of the other bands possible as well. This started our long story with Duna Jam. Our crew and bassist Mario are still involved. The show at the temple was tricky. First of all we were so awestruck and a bit too excited and then for a great part of ”Peace, Brothers & Sisters!” the generator for the light went down and we had to play on in absolute blackness of night – not our best performance... The show on the beach went way more relaxed then – as you can hear on the record. Especially the improvisation on ”Elektrohasch” with the spontaneous vocals by Bo of On Trial was something to behold.

 

Speaking of your live recordings...one of our best friends from Germany, Mr.Spacebandit (Rudi), from the Bielefeld area sadly passed away in the early 2026. He was one of your most dedicated fans. He taped many of your concerts and he was the reason that we got into your excellent mind expanding music in the first place. It´s been a ride of soon 20 years listening to some wonderful live tapes by Colour Haze. If we might ask you...do you remember Rudi? How do you look at the live taping scene in Germany? Do you embrace it or not?

Sad to hear Rudi passed away. We had an occasional contact by email.  Otherwise I have to admit I don’t think about live tapers too much. For me a concert is done after we played it and I don’t want to listen to it again, it’s something for the moment. Some people used to send me Cds of all their recordings which was very thoughtful and nice but unfortunately just became a big pile of stuff collecting dust. Anyway the dedication and love people have for music is something wonderful and we are grateful if people find our concerts worth to be captured. Tapers are always welcome at Colour Haze shows.

 

As the years went by for Colour Haze, it seemed that you naturally progressed and incorporated new elements into your nice pot of music. Most bands dislike to be dubbed with genres like "psych", "stoner", "progressive rock", "space rock" and such. If you would describe in your own words what you´d like your listeners to feel when they listen to your music...what would your take be and why so?

I run a record label and have to make a living from the record sales so any tag which helps to bring a record to listeners is ok for me. It’s just a sticker, nothing to feel affected or limited by as an artist. It’s a strange idea to see myself in a position though to give any advise or direction what to feel etc. to listeners. That’s entirely up to the listeners for themselves and nothing one should interfere with. When composing I have to be an antenna to let themes come up that are worthy, catchy, energizing, whatever. When performing I’m just the transmitter, the servant to transport that music to the listener. I humbly hope to do something in this role that brings a little joy and good energies. We attempt to make a positive, soothing contribution to our world, to the life of people - as small as this contribution might be. Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth much, right? But we can only make an offer, if and how you dig into that is up to you.

 

Lets speak a bit about your vocals...when you sing is that your natural and unedited voice that we hear? I mean it sounds very natural and raw without any effects. Can you tell us a bit about your vocals and how you use your voice when you add words to your music?

Well as our studio-albums are all recorded analogue since 2004 there is no digital cheating on any instrument. Listening to music I want to hear artists, real people playing with all their brilliance as well as their shortcommings and mishaps, rather than a digitally polished version of the 100% perfect reproduction of a possible idea. I don’t know why many musicians think they need to edit their recordings to such a dead spot today. Real communication demands us to be real. There is no point in hiding behind what you might think is your ideal version. It’s very lonely behind any avatar.

Technically speaking of course the vocals see eq, compression, room and reverb in the mix and sometimes I use further effects to enhance the expression. No need to say I want my vocals to sound good and enjoyable. In our music the vocals are rarely in the center of a composition but mostly are adding to the general harmonies and lines of the piece. I saw myself for a very long time as guitarist and composer and didn’t really connect with my singing. In that way I composed melodies for a singer and only for the necessity took over that role then myself. Just in the recent years I learned to ”be” the singer. Now that way singing became much easier for me and you’ll hopefully hear some fruits of this development on our upcoming album.

 

Speaking more about your lyrics a bit...what inspires you when you add lyrics to your songs and jams?

First of all: you won’t hear ”jams” from us ; ) Improvisation is key in a compositional process to me and on few occasions we leave a field, a passage for improvisation in our songs but for my taste ”jamming” in public is somewhat disrespecting the audience and the music.

I always find the vocal-lines at first and later I have to form sentences that fit them. Apart few exceptions I decided for the english language as I want to communicate with the whole world and not just a German audience. But this way I don’t have all the inbetween-tones of a language on display. So using a language in a general way I have to talk about general things. I’m very concerned about the world as a whole and try to cover that in a compassionate, uplifitng way – not just complaining how bad everything is. You could say my lyrics are always in tension between insights from my Sadhana and outsights on the outer world.

My lyrics are on display on our webpage. I hope the newer are not so bad.

 

What has been the most unlikely inspiration to one of your songs? Was it conscious or unconscious? if so, how did it appear?

Unless I sit down to dedicately compose a theme there is hardly any ”outer” inspiration. New music suddenly appears in play. My job is to lay out a field in which this can happen and in case to recognize a good theme, pick it up, polish and work on it to make it something worthy to spend time listening to. Laying out such field is rather by decision to set up a certain landscape of consciousness then being under direct impression of any worldly things. Music is all about the connection to your subtle body.

 

Why do you think that music with long passages always have been around since the 60´s, 70´s and all the way up to these modern days? Is it a special state of mind, that people feel and reach when they listen to long jams and songs?

We want to be entertained by music. And there are many ways of it. Dedicated listening and getting immersed into a long piece of music, a long story to unfold is one of these ways. And it can be an especially enriching and satisfying one. Music with long passages therefore is not just around since the 60’s or 70’s but for thousands of years already, think of Indian classical music or to put it to the max: Wagners Ring...

 

If we understand it correctly...you have among all concerts also played in India? How was that experience as a musician and as a human being? Did it make you feel more humble and content?

It made me feel discontent that I wasn’t able to play well that night – I guess simply because the jet-lag numbed my brain and lamed my fingers. And to see a perfect set of the Manganiar Seduction, maybe the best show I ever witnessed, at that festival was very humbling. (And to hear how well just every artist was mixed at this festival should have been very humbling to the  majority of western live-soundtechs ; )

Of course playing in India was one of the most impressive journeys we had in our career. But to feel more humble and content, to expand your consciousness and being, you don’t need to travel the outer world. You can get there right here and now within yourself. I always recommend to meditate every day but also shutting off your smart phone etc. for a week or any other thing that gets one back into ”presence” would do wonders already : ) ...

 

Looking ahead for 2026...what plans do you have for Colour Haze?

2026 holds a special challenge for us. We want to get out the new music we have been working on the recent years. This time by playing only new material on our upcoming European tour in April before we have anything of it recorded. Thankfully our friends of My Sleeping Karma agreed that we play first as we want to try this for many reasons but feel very unasure about it as well. At first because it always takes many shows to get the performance of a song to the always safe side. And this is all new material on instant. Additionally it’s four big 15 - 20 minutes pieces, all structured entirely linear. It’s still Colour Haze, but comes a bit different. I have no idea if people can dig into the stuff on instant. I never worked so hard on arrangement and composition before and I hope the riffs and melodies are all among the better ones of ours. But with all this work I’m somehow beyond these songs now so I don’t have any clue if they are worth a good reaction. Anyway after always playing a ”best off”-set, under constant evolution of always replacing an old song by a new one of course, I felt the necessity once to be ”all new” on stage. And now...uiuiui… : )

For May studio is booked to record the basic tracks – again live to tape. I hope to have the new album out in autumn.

 

Last question for this time. Do you have any reflections especially for your Scandinavian readers and listeners?

Well there is so much great music coming from Scandinavia, so many great artists and bands – but the live-music scene seems not to be as vivid as in other countries. You should go out to see bands playing live more often!

 

We wish you all the best for 2026 and hope to catch one of your concerts in the near future. Take care, stay safe and healthy and keep on rocking in the free World!

Thanks alot & my Best Wishes to you and to you dear readers as well! Let’s all keep on rocking to free the world!