Austin’s Bright Light Social Hour is the next big thing in psych-rock. As they get ready to drop their LP Space Is Still the Place on Frenchkiss Records and go on a national tour, vocalist/bassist Jack O'Brien talks to MySpace about the idea of a “future South,” the philosophy behind their latest album, and how it relates to their big, spacey sound — a soundtrack for floating up in space if there ever was one.

The band came up with the idea of a “future South” after touring around the United States. On the road, instead of staying in hotels, the Bright Light Social Hour stayed with residents of the cities they visited, and witnessed the various struggles Americans went through. The idea, the band said, is that  “‘Future South’ is both an aesthetic and political statement. We’re taking forms and influences from soul, blues, and gritty southern music and ushering them forward. The idea evinces the south can be a vibrant egalitarian place.”

Hometown: Austin, Texas

Current residence: Austin, Texas

Where does the name Bright Light Social Hour come from?

We started the band in college, and our [vocalist/guitarist] Curtis Roush was studying Indian activist Arundhati Roy who described an activist’s job as shining a bright light into the dark corners of society. We really loved that and since the beginning were very centered on community and gathering.

Who are your biggest musical influences?

Cosmos, Sun Ra

If someone was visiting you in Austin who'd never been before, where would you take them?

Laguna Gloria, it’s this beautiful, hidden little art school and museum compound surrounding in quiet canals feeding from the river, and there’s peacocks everywhere.

Talk about the concept of the Future South. How did that come about?

We all struggle, and we all put up barriers, between each other, between sectors of our culture. In the southern part of the country we’re outwardly so warm, inviting, loving, yet many of us maintain a lot of this pronounced separation on a deeper level. It’s such a beautiful part of the world and we dream of a day where we can step out of the shadow of the past. And go to space, together.

What did you learn from staying with people instead of hotels while touring?

We were totally floored by peoples’ ability to be so warm and giving, often in the midst of deep personal struggle. It really was humbling.

Why call it “Future South”? There are a lot of other places—such as the Midwest, or the rust belt, or the Pacific Northwest, which have the same kind of egalitarian aesthetic and also seem like welcoming places for young artists.

Yea totally! Struggle and heartiness are super-ubiquitous and beautiful human qualities. I think they just struck as being most immediate in the South, and so tied to history, like you can feel the past still lingering in the air. Birmingham, Memphis, Savannah, those are all places where you can still taste historical tension just driving down the streets. And really it’s so beautiful. But I think it was exactly that, driving around city streets in our van, a group of strangers looking out the tinted windows in places that were so warm and welcoming yet so complicated and wondering what kind of welcome we’d be given.

Which specific geographies in the South really struck you and inspired you? Why?

As far as geography, we live and record on a lake on the outskirts of Austin. Since the terrible drought a few years ago it’s been less than half-full, with all this exposed craggy limestone that was all once under water, like a post-apocalyptic mediterranean asteroid. I think that had a really huge influence on our sound, desolate, spacey, a place with a big past and a big future but a very difficult present. And Curtis and I drove out this summer to West Texas, Marfa and Terlingua, out in the desert and chisos mountains far south of the highway, after finishing the record. That desolate, otherworldly landscape struck us as the exact backdrop we were trying to make with the sounds on the record. I never thought anything like that could exist anywhere on earth. It felt like another planet.

What was it like working with producer Chris Coady, who’s produced bands such as Beach House, TV On The Radio and Future Islands?

So good! He had this little basement studio in the lower east side in Manhattan, and we sat there and mixed the record with him from noon to midnight for two weeks straight. And he was so hilarious and warm but so intense when it came to laying down his magic, like he was just pulling brilliant sounds and effects and layers straight out of another dimension. It was really incredible watching him work.

Pre-order the Bright Light Social Hour's new album, Space Is Still the Place, on iTunes now.