07/18/08
Text: Bryan Hood
The Mae Shi are usually not the first band that comes to mind, when one thinks of downtown Los Angeles' Smell scene. It's a shame too, considering that they might be one of the most exciting and unique of the loose collective. But hopefully their latest album, HLLLYH, will change that.
The LP is a frantic ride through different perspectives of a theoretical apocalypse, told in noisy, shambling, and—maybe above all else—jubilant strokes. It's the kind of music kids dream of. Well, only if they are fun-loving, a little screwed up, and into the dark and twisted aspects of the Bible.
Anthem recently got a chance to sit down in a circle with the Mae Shi's Brad Breek, Jeff Byron, Jacob Cooper, Jonathan Gray, and Bill Gray, before setting off on a national tour in support of the album.
What has the fan reception for your HLLLYH, been like so far?
John: They hate it.
Bill: Eh.
Jacob: They're awfully confused.
Brad: I don't think that they're that confused at all. I've seen MySpace comments saying, "Your new singer's voice is annoying." And then there's people who are like, "I love it!" Most people seem to like it better.
Well, for those who have had negative reactions, what's been the reason?
Bill: Too many choruses.
Jacob: Americans are adverse to change.
Bill: I think most people seem to have liked it, but maybe the people who hate it don't talk to us anymore.
Jacob: I think it's mainly content related because a lot of people don't really get what it's about. I don't know—there are a lot of assumptions made before they really look into it?
What is the album about?
Jacob: The end of the world.
Jeff: It's about life through religious/philosophical/our eyes.
Bill: It's a religious and anti-religious album—at the same time!
Brad: A lot of it is about taking religious ideas and trying to look at them through a non-religious lense. Like the song "Pwnd" is supposed to be about the Book of Revelations, but if it was written by a science fiction writer. Kind of reinventing some of the stories, stuff like that. But there's not a specific narrative that runs through the whole record. The central thing is about God and the apocalypse, but there's no specific story. It's taking those ideas and using them as inspiration.
Bill: It's not a concept record but there's a theme.
Jacob: I think there are just a lot of people that know what the bible is and what you can take from it. But there are also a lot of people who don't know what it's about.
Jeff: There are a lot of crazy stories in the Bible and it seems like everyone's got opinions about it.
Brad: They're fun topics and they resonate with everyone, even if you're not a Christian.
Bill: Especially if you're not a Christian.
Brad: There have been several comments that are like, "Why are you guys so preachy all of a sudden and shit?" But they're misunderstanding what we're preaching about.
Jeff: It's funny because our previous albums sound preachier. To me they do.
Do you feel a lot of the negative reaction has been a result of misunderstandings then?
Brad: Yeah. Actually there haven't been that many negative comments, to be honest. Not to sound cocky, (laughs) but most people are way into it. I don't feel like there's been too much of a backlash from old fans.
Bill: I think most people get it. It's not really that hard to get. We're not the first band to do it and we probably won't be the last.
Jeff: Well, people often read way too much into meanings too. Or they often do. The song "Young Marks" on the album sounds incredibly religious—and it might be to someone in this band—but the person who wrote that song was basing it off a movie that he saw.
Jacob: Yeah some people thing it's an anti-war anthem, when in fact its just based off of a movie.
Brad: And that's another thing that's awesome about writing that kind of stuff, there's so many different readings of it. There's a lot of fertile territory. Anyone can put whatever they want to into the meaning of the song and take something different out of it.
Bill: It's really fun to interpret it and talk about people's different interpretations including our own. It's one of my favorite parts of this band.
Was there any time when you sat down and thought to yourselves that this was the type of album you wanted to make?
Jeff: We've never asked ourselves that, but there was a certain point when we realized we had to finish it.
John: There was a certain point when there was a theme sticking out. We started kind of running with that.
So songs first and then a theme eventually came through...
John: Probably about two-thirds of the songs were written and then the theme kind of poked its head out. And then the last one-third of the songs were finished up. And then we pooped it all out and started all over again with all the same songs. Finally the album came.
Lyrically do you guys all contribute?
Brad: Usually it's like one or two people per song. One person takes a song as their project and finishes it. Sometimes the lyrics come in first. Our old bassist Tim was way into lyrics. John is, too.
Jeff: The only thing I added to the lyric process was if I said I didn't want to sing something. Because I can't really write lyrics.
In terms of the finished product, how long did that take you to record?
Jeff: At least a year.
Jacob: Some of the songs are like, two years old, and some are just a couple months old. Some were written years ago with other members of the band, and then rejuvenated.
Brad: It's like a continuous process. There was no going to the studio process. It's like, alright we recorded some guitars and we recorded some drums. We did a lot of condensed work in the studio. But it was all just continuous work. We don't even know how to go into the studio and record an album. It would sound horrible.
Jeff: We really don't. It's something we want to try and do because it would be funny.
Brad: We think we're going to be forced to do it on our next record (laughs).
You guys will be touring a lot in support of the new album. What has it been like playing the songs off of this record?
Jeff: Since our song writing process doesn't necessarily start with us all together in one room, sometimes we have to learn how to play our songs live and how we're going to present them.
Brad: That's one of the cool things about the new live lineup [Breek doesn't tour with the band]. When you get new people in they have certain interest in songs we never learned how to play before, so those songs start to come to life in a live setting. There are songs that they're playing now that we never played right before, and they're awesome. It didn't even seem like those songs could be awesome before.
So after this album, what's next for the Mae Shi?
John: Touring and regurgitating old songs.
Brad: Trying to work on a new record, but it's going really slow. Maybe when they're done touring.
John: We're hoping for another theme to poke it's head out so that we can have another reason to finish a record (laughs).
