Interview with Sarah Bourland from LA's Space Waves
There is a plethora of excellent bands and projects and musicians in every genre on Bandcamp. One of those is a LA's project Space Waves. Oscillating around psychodelic shoegaze, dreamy pop and a bit of experimentation it has been active since 2008.
I had a pleasure to talk with Sarah Bourland who plays bass and is a founding member of Space Waves.
1.There is a moment in almost every musician's creative life that is and will be remembered as some sort of critical point when you move towards some area that you are able to express yourself. An inspiration that makes you think: I might want to try it and do it. What was it for you?
I'm not really sure. I was always drawn to music. My earliest memory of a moment like this was probably when I was around 5 or 6. We had one of those Casio keyboards with some built-in drum pads, and I really enjoyed playing with that. Although I recently found a photo of myself as a toddler playing an ocarina, so maybe that was my first instrument. I always liked that ocarina but didn't remember having it so young. Around age 5 was also when I heard The Beatles. Maybe I'd heard them before and forgot, but I remember being in the car and they were on the radio and I asked my parents who they were; I just loved their music. They were my first favorite band. The Beach Boys were probably my other favorite at a young age. My mom has told me that I'd fall asleep listening to some sort of Fisher Price music toy, not sure if it was the record player, but I remember having one of those. We also had an accordian that I tried playing until it was unfortunately sold at a garage sale. My sister played violin and flute too for a bit, which also made me want to play them. I tried violin first but I didn't like it. I switched to flute and that stuck--that began around age 8 and continued through high school. I also played in a steel drum band at my high school. However that was all just learning the basics really. The formation of this band was certainly when I began expressing myself in more ways than I had before. My time in college when I worked as music director of the radio station and interned at record labels was probably important too, and other bands that I formed or tried to form but didn't really get anywhere with. Some things just stay with you, like I remember my grandma complimenting my flute playing. She said something about how it's such a nice-sounding instrument. The random little encouragements from people along the way also helped; maybe we'd play a show with a few people attending and one of them would tell me to keep going. Finding other creative people and supporting each other was nice in the earlier stages of this band.
2. How did you start your relationship with your instrument and compositions?
Bass guitar is my main instrument in this band. I started playing it around 2005 when I formed a different band with my friend. We both interned at the record label Pehr in Hollywood. I also played steel drum and melodica in that group, and my other friend would play bass on those songs. That was the first group where I'd create my own parts, but I only did that on the steel drum. My friend was the main songwriter in that group, and he taught me bass. Other than a Music Theory class in high school where I composed a song, I didn't start writing my own songs until Space Waves formed in 2008. A lot of that was really a surprise for me. Like at the time I hadn't played my bass in over a year, and I never thought I'd sing my own songs as I was always shy about singing.
3. You are active in Space Waves - how did it start and what lies ahead?
Yes, it is my only band. It began in 2008. I'm from Southern California and lived there up until I was about 24. I wanted to try living somewhere else and ended up in San Francisco. I was only there a year and a half, and while I brought my bass with me, I lent it to my housemate the whole time I lived there and never played it. Then I ended up moving to Portland, Oregon. This is where it feels like fate stepped in as I met my future husband while searching for housing. Of course at the time I didn't know, but he seemed like a nice guy and had a cool record collection. So we were just normal housemates for awhile, but since I didn't know many people in Portland and we got along, we spent a lot of time together. He had this recording/music setup in the upstairs part of the house, and he played guitar, and he encouraged me to play my bass again. I really loved listening to him play guitar. So we'd jam on songs by artists that we both liked, like The Cure and Mazzy Star. I should bring up my more spiritual side here too, specifically meditating, as there were parallels there with when I started to write my own songs. They seem to come out of my more meditative moments, or I'll get in a certain headspace and start hearing songs. I'll either hear the bass line or vocal part in my head, or I'll come up with a bass part that I like. I have weird rules, like I have to remember the song without any recording aids for a while. I figure it's easy enough to come up with something that sounds cool in the moment, but if I can't remember it the next day or beyond then it's not worth constructing a whole song around. With one of our songs I was playing the bass part for almost 5 years before I came up with the vocals. But I digress, so seemingly out of nowhere in 2008 I wrote the 3 songs that appear on our first EP, meaning I came up with the bass lines and vocal parts. I really don't think I would have started writing these songs if I didn't have my musical partner with me to record and work on them, and he encouraged me to sing as well. I basically have zero technical skills, so my husband is really the one that brings the songs to life with the engineering. So long story short, we moved around a lot and ended up back in SoCal. I'm skipping a lot between how it started and what lies ahead, but as for the future we are still planning on releasing albums. We have somewhere between 20 and 30 new songs we're working on now. We just released our 8th album On & On in May 2025. Our 9th album Cosmic Cat will be the next one, and we'll have at least one more album after that. Music is basically therapy for us, and a dedicated hobby.
4. What are your inspirations when it comes to style and creative process in Space Waves? Music wise and beyond.
We have many influences, both together and separately, but maybe I'll just focus on the mutual ones. The earlier influences for my husband and me, the music we discovered we both liked, include bands like Galaxie 500, The Cure, Mazzy Star, Yo La Tengo, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Cocteau Twins, Jesus and Mary Chain, and many more. Since we are going on 17 years together, there are other genres and bands we both enjoy, more recently we've been enjoying bossa nova, and a lot of newer bands as well. Beyond music I'm not sure we have a style, maybe sort of beach goth hippie.
5. How are the musical interactions between you and others in the band?
The recording process has become the priority lately. When we formed, for a while it was sorta equal between writing, recording and playing out shows, but now our focus is on writing and recording. We have a process now where Kelley and I will record demos at home and send them to our drummer and second guitarist, for them to learn and work on in their own time. Then when they are ready we can have a practice or recording session. It's like a hybrid long-distance/local band. We don't have to all be in a room together to work out our different parts, but we're all close enough in proximity where we can meet up when need be. This seems to be working well for now, which I'm so thankful for. Our recent album On & On is our third with drummer Brandon Werts, and I'm just amazed with his drumming and contributions. It is our first album with guitarist Phil Cobb, and again I just love what he does. Both those guys are active in other bands and projects that play out and record, so I think it works out that this is a lower commitment.
6. How do you feel in an ever changing world of musical distribution? How difficult is it at the moment to promote your own music?
I find it difficult in some ways, but fun in others. Basically I just try my best and try not to stress out about it. We are not very extroverted so I think we sorta prefer less attention anyway, but I guess we want a little attention. I always hope the music can find people who will appreciate it, but when you're one band of fifty million it seems like asking a lot. Right now I'm excited that vinyl production has gotten to the point where we can get a run of 100 records with full color jackets and color vinyl. We did that with On & On. I really want to do that with our 5th album Delusion Days as well, and all of the others that we haven't made vinyl for. The problem then is that we have a lot of copies, and we're not the type of band that will instantly sell out of even only 100 copies. So it can feel a bit tedious to try and promote. We're in stock in some Long Beach shops (Third Eye, Fingerprints and Toxic Toast). I want to try and get them into record shops in Los Angeles too but haven't had time yet. But yeah, we don't have distribution or anything, and limited means of promoting--no label and no promo budget. Also, shipping costs have gotten so high, I'm sure we could sell a few LPs to people in Europe but no one there has ordered the new vinyl because the shipping is probably more than the record.
7. Plans for the future?
I mentioned we have a lot of songs and future albums in the works (Cosmic Cat and beyond). I want to make more music videos too, but that is another thing that I struggle with, and feels like I need divine timing or inspiration even to make little reels. We are really excited for our new songs though, and hope we can get better at reaching listeners. Kelley has one called "Eleutheromania" that is really cool, and if you're like me and didn't know that word, it refers to a love of freedom. Maybe I should leave our bandcamp link here too: https://spacewaves.bandcamp.com/ All of our releases are on there. We're on streaming services too, but not all our albums are up on those. We haven't played shows out since 2019, and I'm not sure if that will change or not. We're currently working on getting a better practice setup at home. We have played a little over 150 shows in our time together. We used to dream of touring more, going overseas and all that, but the realities of living got in the way, and I guess we leaned into our homebody sides more. So for now we're a stay-at-home band but maybe if we ever start socializing again we can try getting back into playing out.
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