New Zealand musician Dylan Paul Ware is the brains behind the psychedelic folk rock behemoth that is The Infinity Chamber. In the first of a series of new Q&A interviews, we sent him 20 questions we felt were worth asking. Please enjoy his answers.
Q1) What would you say are your biggest inspirations, musically?
A1) My father was a rock DJ, so I was raised around music and the felted playlands of radio stations. David Gilmore’s face on the cover of Ummagumma is about as familiar to me as my own face is. But I think my world blew open upon seeing the Alan Parker film “The Wall” when I was quite young; it was then that I really beheld what music is capable of doing – changing your life and your intimate perceptions of the world. My biggest inspirations would be the careful, crafted idea-smiths and the poets – Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Leonard Cohen… It may not be “new” stuff, but art – good art – is delectably timeless, and I’m moved by songs regardless of the era in which they were born.
Q2) And outside of music? What moves you to write songs/music?
A2) Basically, I always seem to have a journal of unfinished business on the go. They seem to sit there for some time – musically more or less complete, lyrically, the idea is there, but incompletely expressed. The overall concepts themselves tend to be suggested by the guitar, by the tune, by the combinations of chords, and they come whole. What takes the time is hitting on the right way to formulate the expressions of the idea. It’s very important to me to do it right – accurately, eloquently, economically – and when it’s done right, I know it. I’m quite patient with the process, but there’s no telling when it’s going to come; my job is to be around to snare it when it does. Outside of that, oh, nature, human relationships, thoughts, those kinds of things.
Q3) Do you express yourself in any other art forms? If not, why not? Have you tried your hand at any before?
A3) Yeah, I like to devise, shoot, and edit video clips for the songs. They’re often fairly narrative pieces, essentially short silent films with soundtracks, and hopefully fit the music quite nicely. And umm, I’m also currently illustrating a short, surreal children’s book I’ve written.
Q4) What’s the biggest difference between where you live now and where you have resided previously? And how does your current environment influence you?
A4) Well, I’ve just returned “home” to New Zealand after almost 30 years travelling and living abroad – mainly in Istanbul. The differences between the places are not minor. I’m currently settling in here and still very much enjoying breathing – it’s something you really notice – oxygen is quite sweet when you haven’t had it for a while. It’s good to be back, and to dig my toes into the same soil I did when I was a child; to see the tuis, waxeyes, and the fantails (birds) again, and to smell the rimu trees. I feel like I’m reacquainting myself with the ground after many years installed in the cubicles of cities. The people are very genuinely friendly here, though a tad provincial. There’s a lot more honesty.
Q5) What do you think is your best attribute as a songwriter?
A5) A meticulous attention to lyrical form, and what I at least consider interesting subject matter. I have a good sense for fine, weird grooves.
Q6) And your biggest weakness? The thing you would most like to improve on?
A6) I’m far too reclusive, I don’t really hang out with people, and that can make finding the right earthlings to work with challenging sometimes.
Q7) What artistic achievement are you most proud of?
A7) I’d say it’s “The Lonely Gnome”, by which I mean both the song and the video clip. It’s a sort of Alice in Wonderland-type adventure, and has been screened in quite a few film festivals. As far as straight-up music is concerned, it’d be our shit-hot witchy, rock single “Get Down”, released last year.
Q8) And if you could change any event from the past, what would that be and why?
A8) There are quite a lot of things to choose from there, perhaps Mark Chapman being run over by an articulated truck on his way to the hotel might’ve been more constructive, a timely misfire of Cobain’s shiny pain-killer and some well-warranted second-thoughts, whatever the hell happened to Elliott Smith avoided, there are a few world wars we could have done without, and the accident that killed my younger brother might’ve been shelved for a bit, how about if whatever butterfly in Brazil that flapped its wing that eventually led to The Beatles breaking up quite so soon hadn’t done that in quite the way it did?
Q9) How long do you think the growth of physical formats will continue for?
A9) We’ve just released a really cool new album – The Opposite of Everything – on vinyl. What a pleasure it is to order, anticipate, and then receive it in the mail, to open a new vinyl record, carefully handle its pristine, virgin disk, pore over the liner notes and lyric sheets as it plays loud. There’s something about the tactility and the physical size of the product that is viscerally satisfying. Alas, a pleasure increasingly rare now. I’m not optimistic that the physical format will stick around for long, especially once the record-raised generations have died out. There’s a flutter of a resurgence in vinyl sales for now, but such cultural regressions tend to be short-lived, and more a matter of fad, so I’d imagine the future of music format (as well as of music itself) may entail an evolution to a phenomenon of a new order.
What if music shifts away from an aurally-focused event and into other modes of stimuli? What if the format becomes a connection directly into the neural network of the cerebral cortex that creates pulsating paroxysms of ecstasy and pain, floods and combinations of designed emotions, ideas, physical sensations, tastes, stimulation of the visual cortex, and, sure, the auditory cortex as well, in cascades of artistically engineered applications?
External silence.
There won’t be much use for physical formats as we know them then.
….and there’s my impression of Elon Musk.
Q10) How real a threat do you think AI is to creatives? Specifically musicmakers?
A10) AI-generated music won’t ever supply what gives music its magic. Music is not just sound – it is one of humanity’s greatest wonders because it moves with deliberation, inspiration, insight, and the distilled nectar of lived experience. Every great piece of music carries the fingerprint of a life lived: joy, sorrow, confusion, rebellion, and longing translated into rhythm and tone. AI, no matter how advanced, is a mechanical emulation of this – a skilled mimic at best. It may produce something that sounds right, just as a placebo may outwardly resemble medicine, but the difference lies in the long-term effect. One heals. One does not.
We’re already seeing the early waves of what will soon be a flood. Fighting it may feel like shouting into a storm; debates, resistance, and well-reasoned pleas will do little to stop a tide fed by novelty, convenience, and corporate calculation. The cost, however, won’t be immediate. It’ll be subtle, creeping. Music will become more efficient, more tailored – and infinitely more hollow. It’ll be a body without a soul, a husk animated by algorithms, lacking the spirit that once made it a vessel of human truth.
The real cost will be cultural, and most won’t even see it passing. We rarely recognise what we’ve lost until long after it’s gone. But to those who have lived inside music, to the lovers of its mysteries, its risks, its magic – to the ones who find in music something sacred – the heartbreak will be real. Watching what was once an art of genius, struggle, and transcendence slowly dilute into homoeopathic mimicry won’t be a technical concern. It’ll be a tragedy.
I’m sorry to say, but it seems to me that AI profiteers flooding the music scene are cultural poachers – no better than whalers harpooning the last leviathans or loggers razing rainforests for a quick buck. They strip-mine the art form, choking it with synthetic sludge while real musicians are driven to the margins. Once the habitats of genuine creativity are sufficiently poisoned, it’ll be no small task to undo the damage – and where life once thrived, there will only be algorithmic wasteland.
Q11) Which modern musicians do you admire?
A11) Jesse Welles is a powerhouse, obviously straight out of the Dylan handbook, but he’s doing a damned fine job of it. I honestly pay little attention to whether musicians are “modern” or not. I don’t think modernity is a metric that matters in art; if anything, bypassing time is one of its integral objectives.
Q12) Do you have any artistic goals for the future?
A12) Yeah, I’m working at getting a band together here at the moment; on the hunt to complete a good crew – then it’ll be gigs and recording the next album soonish with any luck! I have a load of good new songs written, ready and waiting.
Q13) What do you think is the largest obstacle in the way of you achieving them?
A13) New Zealand is a small island village in many ways, and it’s just hard to get the numbers to get much happening. There definitely are some very cool bands around, but the nation’s music press seems quite preoccupied with receiving payola for anything in the way of coverage. The government arts department does support acts, but what they fund tends to bear the stamp of government funding, if you know what I mean. The main obstacle – as well as the main enablers – to getting anything done in the arts is, as it ever was, other people.
Q14) How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard it?
A14) I would say The Infinity Chamber’s a fusion of psychedelic folk, grungy rock, and poetic outsider music. It’s grounded in the storytelling and raw intimacy of folk, soaked in the distortion and emotional urgency of grunge, and spun through a lens of surreal, philosophical introspection. I think of it as psychedelic grunge-folk, or perhaps existential forest rock – it’s music for those who feel most alive between the cracks of things; outsider songs for outsider souls.
Q15) What do you enjoy most about creating music?
A15) Actually, I just really love being in the studio, the smell of the circuitry and the acoustic foam; the whole process of laying down tracks and building the song up layer upon layer, piece by piece; feeling it come fluently into something whole and alive. There’s a tension there, and a womb-like atmosphere of pregnant collaborative creativity. A happy exhaustion.
Q16) If you could give one piece of advice to a younger you, what would it be?
A16) Don’t spend too much time trying to make a connection with others – the right ones will be around – let things and people go – trust in the process and trust in yourself.
Q17) And if you could give some advice to aspiring up-and-coming musicians, what would that be?
A17) Listen to life’s listeners, and hit the road – travelling removes cataracts. Be the art.
Q18) What does your creative process typically look like?
A18) Strike a chord that resonates, that leads to another chord, and a conceptual idea slips in. Then it’s the fairly simple matter of working out the tune, along with any corollary ideas. Then spend the next three days to an entire decade devising the lyrical progression and refining just how what is to be said is said. This generally involves a lot of serial thinking, struggle, sleeplessness, time, and contractions, but once it decides to come, it comes rapidly, so I have to be there. There are two other significant stages of creativity involved, and that is during the recording, where it becomes clear how things are going to work, and not uncommonly, the song develops new and unexpected directions due to the vagaries of equipment, people, and precipitation. Finally, during the mixing process, this is often more time-consuming and intense than many people would imagine, and a lot of creativity comes into play as each sound is meticulously sculpted and couched, and the song carefully assumes its final form.
Q19) What’s your favourite album of all time and why?
A19) Yeow!! Abbey Road – from the teeth of The Dark Side of the Moon, The Sounds of Silence, Master of Puppets, and The Downward Spiral. Why? The music is just too good not to be. It’s like a bustling, whirling, florid explosion of talent and fun and cleverness and cool. Everything about it is apex.
Q20) What’s next for you?
A20) Successfully getting my band together and back into a studio. We’ve just released this new album – The Opposite of Everything – on vinyl as well as on all the standard digital formats and platforms, so I’ve got to deal with publicity for that, and I’d also like to work on a few more music videos soon. That, and settling into the new country!
Written by Kinda Grizzly
