The past few years have given the men of The Intersphere so much to be proud of noting, “We’ve also had one of the most intense and beautiful experiences you can have in your life…we always joke that we’ve now become a real DAD band.” They also worked on their new album, ‘Wanderer,’ which drops on May 26th. We talked about the music they put so much into, social media expectations, and more like whether or not we’ll hear even more from them soon. All of that and then some in this new back-and-forth exchange.

Kendra: ‘Wanderer’ is your seventh album, including a live one from 2015. When you look back at your debut vs what you’ve produced with your 2023 release, what are you personally proud of when it comes to your growth as an artist? 

The Intersphere: Proud is perhaps the wrong expression but we are very grateful that the creativity and our connection in the band has always carried us forward to make new albums, to find new ways to express ourselves artistically. We could always find new inspirations and open doors that we could consider exciting and were the “motor” of the band. We have toured a lot and learned a lot in the last few years, so now we can incorporate all this into our new album.

Kendra: It’s also been a handful of years since you dropped a record, with ‘The Grand Delusion’ having come out in 2018. To say a lot has gone on in the world since then would be an understatement. Kendra: Did ‘Wanderer’ act as a sort of therapy when it came to writing and recording? Like it helped give you a sense of normalcy after so much of the world was not normal?

The Intersphere: Sure. ‘Wanderer’ was mostly created during the pandemic. Therefore, all the impressions of the past three years are also more or less obviously processed in it. For us, everything has changed drastically within the last five years. Not least because of private changes, we no longer live in the same city, we have families, new responsibilities, and have partly reoriented ourselves due to the pandemic. 

Normality in 2018 yielded a new reality in 2023. But we have gone through a transformation with The Intersphere, digitalized ourselves, gained more communication, more discipline but also maximum freedom in writing without limits, allowing and implementing even more influences, which has led to ‘Wanderer’ being our biggest developmental step to date compared to anything we have ever done before.

Kendra: One of the songs off the new record is “Bulletproof” and it’s about the hold social media has on us. The idea of social media and its negative effects have been very present in music, at least in the artists I’ve been talking to. Do you think that musicians are more inclined to be turned off by the idea of social media because of the pressure to always be producing content instead of creating something meaningful? 

The Intersphere: As an artist, you have to understand that one doesn’t exclude the other. I think young artists who grow up directly with social media don’t have that problem. Every artistic move offers the possibility to express themselves in the new media and that’s what bands like us have to learn. You don’t have to do everything if it doesn’t fit the band. But there is a huge difference between being guided by the pressure to be present all the time and writing some bullshit out of your brain or creating creative and meaningful content out of your artistic work on the fly…you just have to see it and get an eye and a feeling for it. But you must never fall into the trap of letting these considerations get the upper hand over your creative work. And that’s also the idea of “Bulletproof,” that you put on an invisible bulletproof cloak that keeps all the bullshit away from you and gives you the space to think freely and do meaningful things.

Kendra: You also mentioned that with social media there’s a lack of unpredictability. I couldn’t help but think of artists like Beyonce and Taylor Swift who are incredibly strategic with what and when they post online. Do you think artists like that do that because it keeps up their allure of them, or is it more because their marketing team just runs the show? 

The Intersphere: Both. Our management always says that a noise floor caused by Insta posts, for example, is good to achieve visibility and attention. In the fast pace of today’s life, you quickly disappear from the scene and the algorithms of the portals do the rest if you do not feed them continuously. The social media of many big artists are huge marketing machines, which are mainly meant to expand the brand, products are offered there, and influencing is done, so it’s not surprising that most marketing teams create posting plans and keep a close eye on the analytics. 

There’s absolutely no lack of unpredictability. The thing with unavailability and unpredictability in Bulletproof rather describes the feeling that everything is available, achievable, and feasible with a few clicks. There is nothing you are eagerly waiting for, everything is predictable, everything is possible…Buy, Travel, Information, etc..for every bullshit there is advice, forums, and supposed experts…and thus people take away the possibility to dream, to dwell, to make efforts, or to just look at what life brings and sometimes it is quite different from what you thought it would be….and that is what makes life so worth living.

Kendra: “Bulletproof” is the third single off ‘Wanderer’ along with the title track and “Down.” When the record was just about ready to go, were these the three you sort of eyed as the singles?

The Intersphere: We recorded the album in two steps…first four songs, then another nine. “Wanderer” and “Bulletproof” were the first tracks that were ready and actually, when we came out of the pandemic, we didn’t have the idea of an album. We just wanted to release some singles first…the two songs were the strongest and the most meaningful and we then decided to shoot videos for both songs. 

As it is, everything turned out differently and now the two songs are the first singles for the upcoming album. Down was one of the last songs we wrote for the album and it was immediately clear that it had to be a single, because for us the song is a real 2.0 version of The Intersphere sound, combines all the trademarks, but still shows many new approaches and influences.

Kendra: Were there any songs recorded that didn’t make the record that we may hear down the line?

The Intersphere: We recorded and produced three more songs that didn’t really fit into the world of the ‘WANDERER’ album. All great independent songs, which are partly very different from what you know from us. We are planning to release these songs, probably at the end of the year or during the tour in early 2024 to shorten the time to the next album.

Kendra: Lastly, with ‘Wanderer’ out on May 26th, what else can fans expect as we continue towards summer?

The Intersphere: We will go on tour around the release date, where some dates are already sold out…we will play support for Royal Blood..hopefully, take a few more festivals, and play a second tour block in 2024. Furthermore, our booking agency is in talks for more support in the second half of the year and otherwise, we don’t want to waste any time and start working on new songs right away.