Astro began a cosmic voyage to the center of the Earth. This quartette from Chile makes music for outer space with their feet deep rooted into the ground.

Maybe it was chance, maybe it was mere well planed opportunism what drew the Astro kids together. “One of the beautiful things about Astro is that we were born in the middle of the snow”, recalls Andrés, “or at least, almost in the snow. I’ve got myself invited to a ski weekend in Antillaca, with everything paid, in exchange of some shows. I called Octa to join me and, since we had nothing to play, we made a coulple of songs (‘Hongo atomic’, ‘Maestro distorción’ and ‘Ea dem’, among others) in less than a week. Months later the dynamic duo, Lego and Zeta, came along and made us grow exponentially. On August 2009, Astro was a beating chronosphere of raw power”.

These humble beginnings set the course for the long journey that awaits the band. And a merry journey it will be if they keep on pushing their subspace keyboard-hippish guitar combo towards new limits.  We’ll  sing along Andrés, moving from slow burning tempo of Drogas magicas, through the more melodic, trippy shades of “Hongo Atomic” and to the hyper energetic joyride of “Ea dem”.

This year should ready itself, as Astro’s debut album begins its launch countdown in march, as soon as they complete the recording. The band is also a planning a video directed by Oscar Wakeman, near a lake filled with deer and mouflons. It seems as if the eco-friendly aliens from Chile are ready to become celestial bodies for this year’s night sky.



Please, tell us a little bit about yourselves.

A lot of great people is collaborating with us and we love them deeply, but we’re four musicians. Octavio is always with his head up in the clouds, thinking about his true love (Catalina), traveling to see her and love her happily ever after. Zeta (aka Zero) is the revival of the 80’s in the flesh; maybe the best way to describe him is as a “lightning strike”. Lego has big moustaches and no frontiers; he abuses rhythms and the remixes in the best possible way. Lastly, me, Andrés. I live in a giant imaginative bubble, surrounded by little forest friends that will, in some time, turn into song.

What was the song that helped you define your sound?

I don’t think we could be defined by just one song. For us, the taste of each song mutates through time. As we change, so does the music that we do. It’s not like we lose the control of our sound, though.  Once I felt like a certain song was setting us in a certain direction, but then you realize that said direction represented just two or three other songs. Then, another song would come along to represent a bunch more. For example, our EP can be divided among the songs that follow "Maestro Distorción" and the ones that follow "Mono Tropical".

How much does the closeness to the ocean give to your ideas?

Well... not much. (Laughs). Chile has a huge sea, but it also has a long mountain range filled with lakes and waterfalls that flow like nectar from a spring. Nowadays we’re more in touch with the mountains than with the sea. The forests and their critters just get to us. Nevertheless, we’re doing something nice for the sea: we’re collaborating with an ONG that launched a documentary to promote the protection of three ecosystems in grave peril. It feels nice to be helping in something bigger than yourself.

The song “Drogas Mágicas” (Magic Drugs) has a certain aroma of palo santo. Have you ever had a shamanic experience?

All of us together? Not yet. But I think that each one of us has had some on their own. Nevertheless, that songs speaks of a lot of things, but drugs. It’s Astro’s only love song. It’s about that girl that you put on a pedestal. That girl that you thought was huge, ginormous , and that drugged your mind only because you were making a fool out of yourself, for her. Drugs in that song are a mix of love and stupidity. We’re a pretty healthy band, actually. We don’t like to abuse and I think all of us are a little scared of drinks and psychedelic potions that plague the parties. We try to sober up to play live. Well, a couple of vodka shots never hurt anyone.

If you had a spaceship and could go anywhere, what place (fictional or factual) would be your destination?

Last December, on National Geographic, they had an article called “Distant Worlds”. With some unbelievable techniques and technologies, the guys on NASA found 373 exoplanets (planets on other solar systems). Some were even like 10.000 light years away. Astronomers are crazy people. And that’s just a little portion of our galaxy, that harbors more than billions of stars (many of them potential suns, like ours, with their own planetary systems). And according to them, there are billions, or maybe trillions, of galaxies in the universe! Do the math. With so many possible turistical spots, where would you go? Of course, we would love to visit Silverhawks’ space station, or Marvin the Martian secret base.



Ok, now a question that devides the masses: Voltron, Albegas or Mazinger?

(Laughs). Sorry, but I choose Robotech!!

Many of your lyrics speak about friends, how much does the people that hang out with you influence your songs?

A lot. Almost all of our lyrics speak about friends. In fact, it is difficult to write them without mentioning the word. They speak about funny situations, that can be real, imaginative or a swift mix of both. It’s great to be writing the lyrics and getting lost on crazy details, like communions with God or dances with deer, swimming around corals  or trapped in the snow. When you reach that point, even nature and supernatural beings feel like your friends.

You mention Genesis and Yes a lot. How do you experience the mix between the sounds from the old vanguards and the post-vanguardists style of the Myspace era?

It’s a pretty happy experience. Vintage stuff is always nice. The synthesizers and the knobs are something essential to our music. For our upcoming album we found a Roland’s Juno 6 and squeezed it until the last drop came out. But I feel like your question can be asked about many other disciplines, today. We see it in photography, films and visual arts in general. In music, we start a song with an analog base, then we add some digital production, we upload it to the web and voilá! But it is true that without Genesis or Yes non of this could have been possible.

Speaking about the upcoming album, which images would describe it better?

Deer running and dancing. Trips around India, with a little basket. There’s a lot of Caribbean and corals and colorful fishes. Many animals of any kind communing in spirit with us. The closure of difference between men and wood critters. There won’t be more machines, nor space flights. But there will be many people flying. This time, we’ll all be flying and doing stunts.

Text by Oscar Gomez Poviña @ VNFOLD - Photos by Diego Maldonado for VNFOLD