With the growing multitude of space and time traveling llama-themed bands these days, it’s becoming near impossible to distinguish one from the next. Thankfully, Moncton-based psychedelic rockers Nebullama have laid that concern to rest by releasing their own theme song, “Nebullama.”
“Its the first song we ever wrote,” says Alex Tremblay, the band’s drummer. “We liked the idea of a benevolent space/time traveling llama, so we wrote a song about. We never recorded it though and eventually decided to add it within the album, which then became really about the character ‘The Nebullama'”
And while the song is everything you’d expect for an interstellar dromedary of mystery, it’s the video itself that’s doing all of the time travelling. They’ve gone right back to your childhood to sort out the origin story for that action figure from the bottom of your toy drawer – the one that looks like it came out of an episode of Voltron, but you could never quite place.
“We made the video ourselves with public domain footage from an 1980’s anime knock-off movie,” laughs Tremblay.
The video borrows footage from “”Protectors of Universe” (1983) & “Raiders of Galaxy” (1982), both of which were produced produced by Joseph Lai.
“I was able to edit two movies from the same producer. In the narrative of the album, “The Nebullama” is a time and space traveling entity,” says Tremblay. “So, its kinda fits with the space theme, and through the album there’s a struggle and everything, so it works through that too. But mainly, it looks cool and it was kinda goofy, which we all liked.
“I checked in the copyright catalogue of the US and its not there, and it was public domain on archive.org. I had to make sure, but because of the embargo in South Korea at the time, they were just ripping off a bunch of stuff.”
Tremblay assures us that, despite the character’s appearance as a large robot in the films, Nebullama is, in fact, not only a space/time travelling llama, but a shapeshifter as well.
The song will be appearing as part of the band’s debut LP, which is expected to be released in Spring 2020. While the band are not currently touring, they say they’re planning a small series of release shows around the Maritimes, but are currently preparing themselves by hibernating for the winter.