Øresund Space Collective and Dr. Space both talk with us about their array of releases and further plans, giving a great amount of detail about both acts, find out all about it below.
1. Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.
Dr Space- My musical history is quite long. My name is Scott Heller (Aka Dr Space). I currently have two bands and my solo music projects. My main band is Øresund Space Collective (DK/SE/PT). I also have a duo in Portugal called Doctors of Space and release solo music under Dr Space or Dr Space´s Alien Planet Trip. I also collaborate with a number of artists and bands around the world. Øresund Space Collective (ØSC) have been going for almost 20 years and have had 110 people play in the collective. The collective
was based in Denmark and is active with musicians throughout Scandinavia. It has members from lots of different bands in this part of the world.
Doctors of Space is a duo of Martin Weaver (Guitar, bass, drum machines) and myself on Synthesizers. Martin played guitar and sang in the underground cult band called Wicked Lady (1968-1972) as well as the Prog band, Dark. We play space rock and electronic music.
2. What’s the origin of the band’s name?
ØSC, comes from that the band was formed with members from Mantric Muse (Denmark) and Bland Bladen (Sweden) and we used to travel across the Øresund bridge between the different band
rehearsal rooms. Doctors of Space, the name came from the fact that we are both doctors (PhD) and play spaced out music.
3. Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there? Are there any local bands you could recommend?
ØSC were primarily based in Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden but I moved to Portugal 7 years ago and still lead the band. The music scene in CPH is very dynamic and there are a lot of creative musicians and a very active scene but space rock, psych rock is not as prevalent as it used to be.
Doctors of Space are based out in the mountains of Portugal and there is nothing much going on except what you make happen around you and with the creative people that do exist. There are a lot of cool bands in Portugal like Saturnia, Madmess, Travo, It was the Elf, Astrodome, and others.
4. How would you describe your style?
ØSC is all improvised Space Rock, Prog Rock, etc… jam music but spaced out. A bit of world music, heavy rock, jazz. We have a very diverse catalog over our 44 albums that we have released. Doctors of Space started off as a psychedelic space rock band with heavy guitar riffs but more recently, we have been only electronic with not as much guitar.
5. What have you released so far and what can someone expect from your works?
ØSC has released 32 studio albums and 12 live albums since 2006. Our latest album on Lasers Edge is called Orgone Unicorn. Doctors of Space has released 5 studio albums and 6 volumes of our Astral Sessions CDs. Our latest studio album, Adventures in the Deep Dark Seas of Sound was released in May.
6. Do you have any new music in the works?
ØSC, we will soon have a new live DVD and another studio album is planned for early 2025. Also, a CD only released, Relaxing in the Himalayas, will be out on vinyl in November. Doctors of Space, we have a new double CD out in November called Wisdom of Clowns.
7. How about playing shows and touring, have anything planned out?
ØSC will have a 20th anniversary show in Copenhagen, Denmark in April 11-12th, 2025. It is going to be a very special event with 4 sets of music with four different band line ups from over the 20 years. It will all be recorded and filmed as well. We also plan a tour in Sept 2025 and will play the Spaceboat in Hamburg in May 2025. Doctors of Space, we rarely play live but are hoping to play a show in an old Roman amphitheater this year. We will see.
8. What plans do you have for the future as a band?
ØSC, we have a huge archive of music and meet in the studio every year to see how we can progress our sound and this will continue as far as I can see. We will probably play less shows as it has proven difficult to finance and earn any money or even break even. Doctors of Space, who knows. I suspect, we will continue to make lots more studio music but you never know…
9. Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
ØSC and Doctors of Space are on all the streaming platforms (Spotify, Amazon, Itunes) but the best place and way to support us is on BANDCAMP;
http://oresundspacecollective.bandcamp.com
http://doctorsofspace.bandcamp.com
http://oresundspacecollective.com
http://drspace1.bandcamp.com
10. What is it you’d like a listener to remember the most when hearing your music for the first time?
I just hope they say, wow, that was cool and new or different or be totally tripped out or what the fuck….. Music is so subjective and our songs are really long in both groups so you have to be into and really have the ability to just disappear into the music or you might not get what we are doing at all. Thanks for this opportunity…. Dr Space.