Spacemen 3

United Kingdom, 1982–1991

English band formed in Rugby in 1982, working with sustained two-chord drones and minimal changes. Their stated method, 'taking drugs to make music to take drugs to', was printed on a release.

MusicRoots documents 5 artists who influenced Spacemen 3 and 4 artists Spacemen 3 influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Spacemen 3?

• The Stooges — Spacemen 3 covered the Stooges and preached their two-chord gospel — Kember and Pierce named them core scripture.
• The Velvet Underground — The VU's drone hymns were the other testament — 'What Goes On' lived in their set as devotion.
• La Monte Young — Sonic Boom has cited La Monte Young's eternal drones as the minimalist theory behind the band's sustained-tone practice.
• Suicide — Suicide's minimal, hypnotic machine pulse and menace were a template for Spacemen 3's drone — Sonic Boom later worked in the same minimal-electronic vein.
• Silver Apples — Silver Apples' oscillator-driven repetition prefigured Spacemen 3's hypnotic, drone-based psychedelia.

Which artists did Spacemen 3 influence?

• The Telescopes — The Telescopes rose in Spacemen 3's immediate wake — the drone-and-violence template of Taste is documented lineage.
• Chapterhouse — Chapterhouse rose from the same Reading orbit, supporting Spacemen 3 on early tours — the drone apprenticeship in their dance-gauze.
• MGMT — MGMT enlisted Spacemen 3's Sonic Boom to produce Congratulations, channelling that band's drone-psych into their sound.
• The War on Drugs — The drone underneath. What keeps the Americana from being nostalgia is the repetition — a chord held and pushed rather than resolved.