INTERVIEW: James Donaldson – Temples on Mars

Previously known as AGENT, heavy prog rock outfit TEMPLES ON MARS have revamped themselves with a new-line up, new album and more. Knowing that their former name wasn’t grabbing the attention of people on digital platforms they knew it was time to make a change and get themselves out there. We spoke to front man James Donaldson about the changes, their upcoming debut, mental health in the music industry and more.

Thanks for taking the time out to talk to me for Distorted Sound, how are you doing?

James: It’s my complete pleasure, thank you and I’m good thanks!

So, you’re previously from AGENT and now you’ve re-introduced yourself as TEMPLES ON MARS with a new line-up, album and have re-invented yourselves a little bit. Can you explain the process of what went on to bring on this new project?

James: So, we realised with AGENT when we started with that that the internet, Spotify and all that wasn’t such a big factor in the music industry but now everything is online, it’s digital and when people tried to google AGENT or on Spotify and search for us it was just coming up with all sorts of stuff and it was getting really hard to stand out. As you know, everything is digital nowadays and people want to listen to music on Spotify, so we decided with the new album we didn’t want it to disappear into obscurity so we were like ‘Let’s do something about this rather than just moan about it.’ So we were thinking about a new name for a while and then we approached a few record labels who said they really liked the album but didn’t think the name stood out enough, so that was kind of the final domino, so we just decided that we needed something that stood out a bit that nobody had really used before, we did probably a month or two of tossing ideas around and came up with TEMPLES ON MARS and that’s where we are right now.

How do you think the change will get you the online presence this time round? I know that you’ve been doing a lot of promoting with your alien friend as well?

James: That’s kind of evolved, that started off as a joke idea cause we wanted to introduce the new name, so I don’t know if you’ve seen the small promo video that we’ve done for that, but it’s gone from there and now he’s got his own Instagram and comes to our shows and so on and so forth. I think the name when you google it, it comes up with one band and not multiple bands because when we had AGENT we had AGENT FRESCO, AGENT ORANGE, AGENT STEEL, it come up with lots of lingerie stuff, lots of modelling agencies and stuff, so now when you search us in Spotify we’re the only band that comes up. We’re just trying to stand out from the crowd and obviously having a three-word name now there is less chance of someone having the same words in that particular combination.

Your debut self-titled album will be out in Spring this year, can you give me a breakdown on what people can expect?

James: The album is actually supposed to be listened to from start to finish, obviously you can listen to individual tracks that’s fine but where it starts off it kind of ends, it’s a bit of a journey but it’s around 60 minutes. There’s some heavy stuff in there, some melodic catchy radio single focused in there, one track is like 8-minutes long and it starts off very heavy and then has an acoustic guitar and it’s a sort of James Bond theme style thing going on in the middle. There’s lots of different instrumentation, the songs are written to be listened to as songs but the whole thing kind of works together as well, lyrically the theme is reasonably dark, but it’s where was at, at the time of writing the record, the next record might be about unicorns, you never know.

There’s some ongoing themes on this album that are in regard to mental health issues, and you yourself aim to promote further awareness of male mental health. Do you think those songs will help that?

James: I hope so, I’ve experienced mental health causing a good friend of mine to commit suicide in recent years, so it’s something that is not talked about a lot especially in guys, everyone says suck it up and get on with it, but there’s a difference between being sad and depressed as you probably know. It’s not what I want the album to be known for only, I want it to be known for good music but there are underlying themes there definitely in the song writing based on personal experiences. If it encourages people to have a chat and talk about it, then it’s moving in the right direction.

Mental health is becoming much more talked about in the music industry, especially after the sad deaths of Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington. Do you think from a musician’s point of view that there could be more done to support mental health in the music industry with regards to pressures of listeners expectations, online abuse, turnaround of records etc.

James: Yeah, I think it doesn’t matter which stage you are in the industry, it’s exactly as you said, there’s always some factors going on. Say if someone’s career has taken off then, as you said you can get online abuse or you’re expected to be that person 24/7. But even with bands like us we’re kind of struggling a bit, we haven’t hit it big time and we’re fitting everything around our other lives, it’s quite a lot of pressure, quite demanding, you’ve got your normal job or whatever and someone says ‘We need the promo for the show now!’ so you’re constantly stressed, constantly running round and you might play some bad shows, you might have a promoter not pay you or something, all these little things add up and even at this level in the industry it can be quite unfulfilling and it might have been your dream for years and years and the reality is quite grim. I can see how many musicians struggle and how many musicians can be affected mentally, it’s not an easy road to choose. It’s really hard to give up because music is like an addiction, it’s like a drug, you want to do that and that’s what you need. It’s a pretty hard path to choose.

Aside from mental health, TEMPLES ON MARS is inspired by ancient hieroglyphs, created with the help of extra-terrestrials. What initially sparked the inspiration to link your band to life away from planet Earth?

James: It’s something that people have been talking about for years and it’s actually quite current at the moment. I know there’s a programme, it’s called Earth-gate or Mars-gate or something, intermediate space station between Earth and Mars, there’s the guy Elon Musk who is talking back sending people to Mars, what was a fantasy is now becoming a reality. On the back of that you’ve got all the conspiracy theorists who are saying people are already on mars or aliens are already on mars, you can go on YouTube and there’s videos where people are zooming in on Mars saying there’s structures on there and there is a temple on there. It’s a juicy and relevant subject past and present for humans and people on Earth in general. It’s also acknowledging the fact that Earth is, yes, we do mental health, but we also do environmental stuff as well and humans are slowly destroying the planet and maybe it’s time to start thinking further afield and if we don’t want to do that how are we going to take care of where we live right now.

What would you do as a band to make yourselves be more environmentally friendly then and inspire others in the music industry?

James: That’s a tough one! transport, unfortunately especially in the UK is often by van so it’s petrol or diesel. Even basic stuff, entry level stuff, bands go through lots of water bottles, use one water bottle refill it, all of these processes start with basic small stuff, it compounds over time, that’s one thing I would suggest, don’t buy too many plastic water bottles. That’s one thing that is a real problem at the moment, in the oceans I think there’s something like 16 million plastic water bottles that are disposed of every day, we don’t need to.

When I watched Blue Planet, I was absolutely sobbing my heart out seeing all of that.

James: When you see the reality and the scale, it’s daunting and depressing. A lot of people don’t do any awareness as well, they just think someone else is going to pick something up for them.

Is that something you’d like to use TEMPLES ON MARS, bringing to light environmental issues as well?

James: Again, it’s not the thing, we want to be known as a band but it’s something we do care about. It’s not something we don’t think about, we’re not just roaming around the planet trying to destroy as much as we can before we all die but we would like to leave a nicer place for our children or the children of our friends.

You’ve just played your first show as TEMPLES ON MARS in London, how did that go down for you?

James: That was cool, it was quite a packed venue, we played some songs from the new album and they seemed to be well received. The feedback was good from the audience, our manager and the other bands so I think as a first show you could ask for much more.

Did Tom enjoy it?

James: If you check his Instagram, he was watching from the back and apparently, he got a haircut just before he went.

Made himself smart then!

James: Yes, he was very smart.

You’ve signed with Primordial Records as well! How did that come around for you?

James: Okay so we finished the album, basically we funded the main record ourselves, but we obviously wanted to make it as strong as possible so it took some time, about a year to get it right and then we didn’t feel we were doing it justice releasing it ourselves so we shopped around a few labels, and to our surprise we had some very strong feedback which is great and we were offered distribution deals with other record labels but we kind of wanted someone that was going to work with us and put their own money where their mouth is, as the saying goes. So Primordial out of all of them, Alex the owner we felt as a band we got on with him really well and he shares our vision, he wants a long-term relationship, he doesn’t want a quick buck of a band looking to release a record and it was the natural and right choice in terms of the genre and the industry he moves in. We’re really happy with the result and we feel we’ve made the right choice.

Well, that’s it from me, thank you so much for talking to Distorted Sound!

James: It’s been my absolute pleasure, thank you.

TEMPLES ON MARS self-titled debut is due out April 6 via Primordial Records

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