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"We found our name pressed into a flower" Bye Beneco get strange about their new album

Joburg based Indie-folk band, Bye Beneco, released their highly anticipated debut album, Space Elephant, last week at a trippy event in Johannesburg. Besides being one of the brightest up and coming bands in South Africa, Bye Benco are a quirky bunch.

The Juice spoke to the band about the album and collaborating with comedian Bill Bailey.

So what's in a name? Where does the name Bye Beneco come from?   

We have many strange stories connected to this name but the truth is we found it pressed into a blossoming flower 

That's strange.  Space Elephant is the name of your debut album, tell us more about the making of the album.

The making of this album was very special for us - it was lots of fun. We knew what we were going in there to do, and had a solid idea of what we needed, but a lot of what we landed up with was stuff that magically occurred in studio. It really was a case of awesome mistakes and new ideas. There was a lot of transformation that we embraced in the process.

What was it like finally recording the album and, on top of that, in a studio with the talented Matthew Fink?

We were a bit nervous at first because we thought, "well, what if the album doesn't sound enough like our performances?" But we thought it was a good idea to take advantage of the means we had available to us, the recording process, and pretty much tried to layer things as much as we could in a good way. Matthew and JustMusic let us drive the process, which was important to us, but they also gave us really good direction and support.

What track did you have the most fun recording?

Space Elephant was the newest track on the list, and probably the most fun just because we were all still discovering the song whilst recording it, which was interesting, and allowed for a lot of spontaneous contribution.

If you could collaborate with any celebrity, musical or non, who would it be?

Definitely comedian Bill Bailey! We love that guy!

Maybe you can lend him one of your trademark hats! Talking of those hats, all the hipsters buy things from vintage charity. Have you ever bought anything from a charity store? 

Yeah we have. Probably one of the craziest things I bought was this crazy fleece jersey from a second hand store. It was proper mental.

Finally, for world peace, what is your favourite pokemon?     

Twerkpuff!  Is that even a pokemon? It should be!

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