Out With: Sonic Boom

For the latest installment of “Out With” we were fortunate to sit down with musician, producer, and founding member of the legendary British band Spacemen 3, Peter Kember (aka Sonic Boom). Peter invited us to his house in Sintra, where we discussed his life in Portugal, his newfound love of gardening, why he doesn’t see himself as a rockstar, and experimental treatments for mental health.

Peter is wearing our Recycled Nylon Windbreaker Charcoal and Oversized Shirt Blue Stripes.

The interview was recorded and edited for clarity.

FN: You currently live in Sintra – it’s probably the only place around the Lisbon area that gets bad weather when everywhere else is sunny. Is there, like, a homesickness factor playing into it?

SB: No, but I like the mixed thing—the weather interaction with the mountain. It is just a stunningly beautiful phenomenon. People talk about the cliché that Sintra is a microclimate, but it has probably a dozen microclimates. And when you drive over Malveira da Serra, you go through like seven different types of ecosystems on that journey. It’s stunning. Show me anywhere else in the world like it.

FN: Has your experience living here in Portugal, specifically in Sintra, influenced the type of music you do?

SB: Oh, yeah. One of the reasons I wanted to come here was that I wanted to be surrounded by nature. For the first few years, I would get up in the mornings and drive around, exploring the green tips, and seeing what I could bring back to our garden. It changed me. I never did gardening or anything like that my whole life. But then I realized what I could grow here—bananas, sugar cane, medronho, pomegranates, figs.