We got the band together when we were pretty young. Me and Ricardo (guitar) have known each other since we were 4 years old, and we grew up together, basically listening to the same music, and sharing interests. Probably Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin got us going at first, but then we started to explore under the radar bands from the 70’s, like Captain Beyond or Sir Lord Baltimore, which have killer tunes. Kyuss was definitely a big influence, as were a lot of more modern psych acts, Earthless being at the top.

In Barcelos, our hometown in Portugal, there have always been a lot of bands, and maybe because of the boredom of those teen years, we thought we could have a band too. We played with a few people for fun, but when we met Senra (drums), things got serious and we started to rehearse songs and made a structure out of those jams. We never thought we would go out and play live, we were just having fun.

What does the name “Black Bombaim” refer to in the context of the band name?

Well, the first time we got a booked gig, at an old bar (which later got closed due to intense drug trafficking at the premises), we didn’t have a name. We had to get a name to do the posters so our friends could come see us play… and we suck at names. But there was this Mão Morta song (a very good cult portuguese band) that talked about a guy’s adventure in Amsterdam, strolling around the Red Light District, catching sex shows and smoking hash. In the song he refers to Black Bombaim as the hash he was smoking, which is supposed to be mixed with opium or something. It seemed rad at the time.

Were you in any other bands?

I played bass for like a year in a band called Indignu, before Black Bombaim got serious and started to play more often shows. Ricardo and Senra also play in this garage rock n’ roll band called ALTO!. Check ’em out here: http://alto1.bandcamp.com/

In 2009 you released your first EP.

We recorded the EP early 2008 (it always takes us about a year to release the stuff we record) and we were recently down to a three piece, as one guitarist left the band. We made the songs planning on 2 guitars, and then we had to arrange them for one guitar only. We spent about a week in the study, most of the time getting hammered. Strange thing was when it was released, we were already playing most of the stuff from “SAST”, so we never thought it really like a example of our sound, but much more like a promoting tool, and a way to get some(not really many) Euros.

Saturdays and Space Travels album was recently released and it’s absolutely mind blowing. Impressive jams with fuzzy guitars, groovy bass and insane drumming.

Well, after we got comfortable as a trio, we started to connect our songs and playing it like one song only, with more psychedelic elements than the EP, but never forgetting the “heaviness” factor. We are all vinyl lovers and the idea was always releasing this as a 12” record. So we went to the studio and recorded it live (except for a guitar track doing some crazy delay shit on side A), and wanted the meanest, baddest, dirty ugly sound on it. It’s cool how people appreciate the record even more when the volume is way up high. That’s an achievement for us!