With 10 years of music under its belt and two of its members recently becoming new fathers, Mutemath is certainly a band experiencing a state of significant change.
And that’s what the new album, “Vitals”, is all about: a way of showcasing that change, that moment in time.
“There’s a lot of life and death themes (in the album),” lead singer and keyboardist Paul Meany said. “I think just where we’re at in the arc of our own lives. We have kids now, we’re saying goodbye to family members as others are coming in. We’re watching this transition happen.”
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No matter what changes the band may be encountering, however, its music philosophy has remained the same — ever since drummer Darren King and Meany began exchanging CDs over a decade ago.
“Since we started our band, I always felt that a good Mutemath song is a portrait of darkness, but it’s framed in light,” Meany said. “It’s not exactly easy to do a lot of times … but for this band, we had to find that.”
Mutemath is currently on the U.S. leg of its tour, appropriately called “Vitals Tour 2016.” On Sunday, the band brings the show to Minneapolis’ First Avenue.
Meany was gracious enough to take some time to talk with me about the show, the album and a bunch more. Check out the interview below!
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So, if you had to sum it up with a few sentences, just how did Mutemath come to be?
Well, it started with Darren (King) and myself. He sent me some CDs of ideas he had been working on. I worked on them, threw some vocals on them and sent them back. So we just kind of got into a CD ping-pong match. And then over time CDs turned into emails. And that’s how we still create to this day.
What was it like getting the newest album together – and what did you want to accomplish with it?
It was important for us to take a minute and not rush it. Me and Darren had just become new fathers and needed to kinda just live some life, gather some experiences, and just write a ton of songs. And that’s what we did. It took a while to find Vitals. We wrote more songs for this record than we’ve written for the past three records combined. And we needed to do that. It was important for us to uncover something that felt alive and not like we were just phoning it in. We’ve been a band 10 years now. We just needed to let it cook. Finally, by 2015, we were mixing it and very pleased with it.
What themes stand out in the album?
There’s a lot of life and death themes. I think just where we’re at in the arc of our own lives: we have kids now, we’re saying goodbye to family members as others are coming in. We’re watching this transition happen. The Thanksgiving table is changing. In the pivot of that cycle, it was important for us to find a way to document that for ourselves. And not in a way that felt dark and depressed. We really wanted to find the light in all of this. But we had to write a lot of songs that were just kind of downers to get there. But that’s not what we wanted this record to be.
Ever since we started our band, I always felt that a good Mutemath song is a portrait of darkness, but it’s framed in light. It’s not exactly easy to do a lot of times, because you don’t feel like writing those types of songs, but for this band … we had to find that.
The song “Monument” has garnered a lot of attention with the music video featuring Charles Evans – how did that all come together? Was the song inspired by Charles or did it just fit his story well?
It just fit his story. We didn’t know Charles until after the song was written. We were talking to the producer of the video, Jordan Mattison, who’s been a friend of ours for 10 years. And as we were brainstorming music video ideas, he said “you gotta meet this guy LaLa.” Jordan is from Starkville, Mississippi, so Jordan knew of this man. And so we met him, perfect, so we were honored to tell his story through our song.
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[Note: One of my musician buddies, JT of Teddy Holidays (a huge Mutemath fan), asked the following four questions]
*How do you manage to make such complex sounds in a live setting with just four people? Is somebody cuing samples? Do you ever have to use backing tracks?
Yes. Absolutely. All the above — samples, backing tracks. We try to perform and recreate as much as we can live and even create more than what’s on the record, but yeah we have a foundation of backing tracks.
*Is your songwriting more of an individual or collaborative process? And does it happen mostly in the studio or at home, like on a piano?
All of the above, it’s not a fun answer. We implore all of it. It usually starts with Darren making an instrumental track and then I’ll sing on it and we’ll see if we got anything that feels right. But everybody is writing on their own and bringing their ideas to the table. And it usually takes all of that to fill out an album.
*Do you care one iota about the coolness or lack thereof of playing the keytar?
(Laughs) Good question. Apparently not. We’ve been doing that for 10 years now. It was little trickier in the beginning, wondering if we were going to take that step, it’s kind of a commitment. But then you get over it pretty quick.
*Are there songs that just don’t work live?
There are always songs that don’t work and what we’ll do is force them to work by reworking the arrangement or figuring out a different approach live if we really want to perform that song. I remember the first time we played “Spotlight”, which is one of the more notable singles from our second record. It was a disaster the first time we played it. And we were like “oh, no and this is gonna be the single! We should have played this before we released it as a single!” (laughs) And we just kinda rolled up our sleeves and reimagined the song, and it took us a while to find the arrangement. And now it’s one of more enjoyable songs we play live. Some are harder than others to get them there.
[Now back to regular programming]
What’s your favorite song to play live?
At this point, I really enjoy “Light Up”. It’s one of the new songs of Vitals.
I’m curious, and I suppose it’s different for each band, but how big of a role do you play in the lighting of your shows?
That’s a big collaborative part of what we do. We work with a guy, Jeff Lava. We’ve worked with him since we started 10 years ago on our first tour and the production we brought out. And he this idea of florescent lights that we were gonna set up and we’d get to break them at the end of the show. And we immediately liked him (laughs). And we’ve collaborated with him since. We’ll bring ideas to him, like for this tour was Darren putting these drum triggers in these welders’ gloves and he puts them on the crowd and does a high-five solo, and they light up – and Jeff helps us pull that stuff off. Of course, the stage design. Jeff’s been a collaborator of ours from the very beginning.
I know Mutemath isn’t considered a Christian band, but you of course used to be in a Christian band, Earthsuit. And I’ve seen that you said if it “inspired anything, it was what not to do.” Could you elaborate on that?
I’m not sure what the context is of that particular thing you’re talking about, but, you know, it’s a tricky part of growing up in church and deciding you want to be a musician – and how to navigate that. For the most part, me and Darren were just youth group kids aspiring to play in a youth group band. That becomes a gateway of trying to get in front of more people, how to become a better musician and what songs to write. And I think when Darren and myself began writing together, we certainly shared an ambition to go beyond the youth group scene we grew up in but weren’t sure how. Admittedly, we probably didn’t navigate it as flawlessly as one could of (laughs) but we’re really proud of the music that we made. Over time, we began to find our voice as opposed to the ones you think you should be writing. It takes a little time.
OK, just some quick song questions: Was “Bulletproof” created for an epic video game or something? Love this instrumental song.
(Laughs) That was the last song we added to the album actually. We weren’t sure it was going to make the cut. That idea started with Roy (Mitchell-Cardenas), our bass player, he sent an instrumental track to me and I threw a vocal on it and the vocal ruined it. And sometimes that happens. Just couldn’t get the vocal right. So we thought, what if this is an instrumental? So we removed the vocal, reimagined the music a little bit and it became what it is.
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And am I hearing just a little bit of a Minneapolis sound (aka Prince) inspiration in the song “Best Of Intentions”?
Well, we weren’t thinking Prince when we wrote that song, but certainly love that sound obviously. I think we were probably pulling a little bit more from Quincy Jones-era, in the 80s. We were really enjoying that when we were exploring that song.
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So, big question: What do you want fans to get from your music?
I want people to leave our shows lit up. You know? I think about my favorite shows growing up, when you can come out of there believing that the future is bright, tomorrow is going to be better than today, those type of (laughs) cliché feelings in those moments. I mean, that’s what a show’s about, and what listening to that record’s about. That’s all we hope to do is just fuel that for the people that are generous enough to give us their ears for the 60 minutes that they’re in a room with us. So, that’s all. We want people to leave inspired — for whatever it is they do.
So, you’re playing First Ave this Sunday … how do you like it there?
Love it. It’s one of my favorite places to play. We always have a great show there.
What should fans expect?
Lots of flashing lights. And, yeah, bring earplugs if you don’t like loud music. But it should be really fun.
Last question: I see via Twitter that you’ve brought your daughter up for a sound check? Have you brought her up during a show/plan to? How does like the whole dad-is-a-musician thing?
She’s OK with it. She’s more interested in her trying to figure out how to be a musician, which I love. She’s been providing us entertainment. (laughs) Since she was 2, you know, she just likes to put on shows for people. Since we’ve been doing these sound check parties, she’s been wanting to find her sea legs, if you will, on the stage. It’s been fun and we’ve all been enjoying it. So, she’s been figuring it out and she’s my little rockstar in training. We’re starting class this year.
Took this pic of #MuteMath's @paulmeany and his daughter Amelia at a soundcheck a while back. Quite adorable. pic.twitter.com/mcdwqwdPwy
— Kyle Ryan Platz (@KylePlatz) March 28, 2016
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