Metal Army caught up with Sacha Dunable of INTRONAUT while the band was on tour as direct support for ANIMALS AS LEADERS. We chatted with Sacha about life on the road, writing new songs, indispensable gear, his various side projects and other topics.

INTRONAUT spent their summer opening for ANIMALS AS LEADERS.

MAA: How is the tour going so far?

SD: The tour is going great. All the shows have been packed with lots of enthusiastic kids, all the bands are great. So we couldn’t be happier.

MAA: I have seen you several times since Valley of Smoke has came out and every show has its own unique vibe. Is that predetermined or spontaneous?

SD: Yeah, it’s usually predetermined especially on these support tours you’re working with a pretty strict time restriction and so it’s always a pretty well rehearsed set. We do the same thing pretty much every night, but yeah I mean the last couple times we’ve been through here it’s been different so we’ve had different time restrictions so sometimes we’ve been able to, kinda let loose and play more songs. Play some of our more adventurous songs just because were a little more relaxed.

MAA: Valley of Smoke is almost a year old. Looking back on it now did you accomplish everything on it you hoped to ?

SD: Yeah, I think so. I mean at this point we are already starting to write new riffs and stuff. When that happens you get excited about the new stuff and automatically the last record just doesn’t really excite you as much anymore, but I still think it was our best record up until then and definitely a good progression for us. I still love the record I’m really proud of it, but I’m just already kinda getting antsy to work on new stuff.

MAA: Do you have one piece of gear for the road that you can’t live without?

SD: I don’t know. I guess… what I would need? I would need a delay pedal. Other than that, you can just give me any kind of crappy guitar or gear and I can make it work. I wouldn’t be happy about it, but I could make it work.

Sacha's side project GRAVITON saw the release of Massless this spring on Translation Loss Records.

MAA: Would you to talk about the GRAVITON record?

SD: Yeah, it’s just a record that I do with my two friends Derek (Donely) and Darin (Tombascio), who have their own band called NATIONAL SUNDAY LAW, which actually is no more because one of the guys moved away. Yeah, I mean, they’re just old friends and have a home studio, the drummer Derek does and so we would just get together. I mean this is what I do, I just make music when I’m at home and we’re not touring or whatever. We did a lot of it while INTRONAUT was writing and recording Valley of Smoke, just whenever I wasn’t doing that, we would just be in there cranking shit out. It took us a year to finish, but we’re pretty happy with it. I’m not ashamed of it or anything. It was a fun record to make and obviously we were doing it ourselves so there’s things that if I could go back and change a couple of things, I definitely would. It was a super causal thing. The fact that Translation Loss even put it out was kind of unexpected. We weren’t even expecting that, it was supposed be just be a pretty casual thing. But that band is pretty much done now. I mean we might do something, with technology nowadays you can make anything happen with people living all over the country, or the world. I actually have a new project going with Derek from that band on drums along with Charles Elliot from ABYSMAL DAWN, Derek (Rydquist) the now former singer of THE FACELESS doing a total slow doom metal thing. We’re still working on a name for the band, but we finished the record and that should be coming out pretty soon I think too.

INTRONAUT. Not pictured: Dave Timnick, Katy Perry fan.

MAA: What kind of music do you listen to on the road? Anything out of the ordinary?

SD: What have we been listening too? Dave (Timnick) has been doing a lot of the driving on this tour and Dave s to just flip through the radio. That’s what he does for five hours straight. He’ll just flip through the radio, stop on a song and sing along to it. That’s just how he rolls, so there’s been a lot of that. The last actual record I think we listened to was, well, the last record that anybodies ever heard of would probably be, THE FLAMING LIPS covering Dark Side of the Moon, that record. I think Dave got annoyed with it after two songs and put the radio back on. We’ve heard a lot of KATY PERRY on the radio, nationwide.

MAA: Well, at least she’s visually pleasing!

SD: Yeah, visually pleasing. Actually it’s visually pleasing watching Dave sing those songs! (Laughs)

MAA: After this tour wraps up what else does INTRONAUT have on tap for the rest of 2011?

SD: We’re going back to Europe in October and then maybe some more U.S. touring after that. Just the whole waiting to hear about stuff thing. If we don’t do another U.S. tour this year, which I hope doesn’t happen, but if that’s the case we’ll probably start working on some new material, slowly but surely.

(Thanks to Sacha Dunable, Century Media Records and Danny Graf.)

By Keith (Keefy) Chachkes