We live and breathe music.
Interview with AW co-owner Matt McDonough (MjDawn, miKroNaught, Mudvayne)
I found this interview with Matt recently - he talks about all things Mudvayne, growing up in central Illinois, as well as AtmoWorks, MjDawn, and miKroNaught.
http://www.blufftontoday.com/node/27546
Interview with Mudvayne
By JoeFabietz - March 5, 2009 - 2:19pm
The heavy metal quartet Mudvayne will be rocking the Shoreline Ballroom on Tuesday, March 10.
We sat down with Matthew McDonough, drummer from the band, during a recent interview. Here's the entire interview:
TD: We’re from a small town and from what I understand, Peoria (Ill.) isn’t quite known for being a music haven. What advice do you give small-town bands trying to escape that small-town atmosphere?
MM: Peoria is a farming community, blue-collar kind of town. Growing up there’s not a lot to do. I remember being a kid, I escaped into my imagination and playing music…that was a recreation and something to do to take up my time and also to fill the empty spaces.
Other than cartoons and movies, I didn’t have all the video games and stuff; following your imagination can be a powerful thing. I think that kind of environment was really a great place for my band to start from. It made us very impassioned about the music we were making.
TD: Where’s home now for you?
MM: I live in Wisconsin.
TD: No L.A. or New York for you?
MM: No, that’s not really my vibe. I love New York, but growing up in a small, mid-size town…that was for me.
TD: On the album For the People, By the People you covered Police’s “King of Pain.” Who came up with the idea to cover that song?
MM: It’s a pretty historic story for Mudvayne. Actually, we covered the song in, like, late ’98 — before we were ever signed. We had actually recorded it and demoed it and we had submitted it to another record label other than the one we’re with now along with other demo songs when we were trying to get signed. It was one of those things where that demo, had kind of lingered and hung out with us for years and years and years and years until the idea for By The People, For The People (2007; the band’s fourth album) came up. It kind of reared its head again. We had an opportunity to re-record it so we did. As far as who decided to actually do it, I don’t know; so I guess I might as well say me.
TD: Do you guys incorporate any other cover songs or is that sort of taboo for you?
MM: No. Oh, no, no. The thing is, it (recording the Police’s “King of Pain”) probably never would have happened on the By the People, For the People if it hadn’t been something that we’d done so long ago. It was really seminal for the band, but as far as (performing covers) it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. I can’t really play anything other than what I play. The idea of me trying to cover another band’s music is really an invitation to catastrophe.
TD: On Lost and Found (2005, the band’s third album) you guys took off the makeup for the music and promotion videos, have you returned to that?
MM: We’ve been wearing makeup on this tour and we wore makeup on the tour for Lost and Found. So I would caution anyone to make any assumptions about what we do as far as videos and visual aspects. Unfortunately, when you see a photograph, it’s really taken out of any linear time and context. All through The End of Things to Come (2002, the band’s second album) and even now, you’ll seen photos of us from L.D. 50 (2000, the band’s debut album) and if people aren’t really open-minded or aren’t following what the band is doing they’re going fall into conclusions. I was looking at a flyer for a show that we did a couple of days ago and it had press photos from The End of All Things to Come (2002) — photos that were taken six years ago. I had a flock of long hair down my back in the photo, which, I haven’t had long hair since ’05. My point is, I would caution anyone to really make any of those kinds of assumptions. When we did photos of ourselves with makeup on and when we did photos of ourselves dressed up like Girls Scouts or when we took photos without makeup on, those were just moments that the band was experiencing when we were just following our intuition and just being real with ourselves in that moment.
TD: Do any of those stereotypes seem to follow the band?
MM: Yeah, absolutely — Of course. We live in a fast-food culture that is very cursory in the way that they relate to their artists and people, like I said, they see a photo, they draw lots of assumptions and there you go.
TD: There was an incident with Burger King; I don’t know if you guys were involved with that, allegedly they stole the mask persona from Slipknot to sell their products. You guy have a song on your new album (2008, The New Game) called “Have it Your Way. I was wondering if that had any similarity there.
MM: I’m not aware, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. But I encourage anybody to draw their assumption, outside of telling people to be cautious about drawing assumptions, I encourage anyone to delve into our music and into our lyrics and create their own relationship to it. Let it speak to them. I’m sure that if the story that you’re saying is what really happened…well, it’s kind of a tragedy.
TD: Last year, you released Frequency Response (McDonough’s first solo album under the name MjDawn), any future plans to continue with that?
MM: Yeah, absolutely. I’m a part owner/ operator of Atmo Works, the label that I released it on, so I’m involved with all of the artists that we’re releasing. We have weekly releases set up through May right now. It’s really crazy how busy we are, but my next project is coming out in two weeks. I have another project that I do with a very good friend of mine called MikroNaught, but it’s more industrial, dance-oriented with some kind of IDM (intelligent dance music) overtones. It’s a lot more accessible than some of my solo stuff. But I’m continuously working on my own projects on the side and with Atmo Works. It’s a daily passion of mine.
TD: I’d love to get some insight into your early influences. What was the first album you ever bough?
MM: Wow, good question. I think the first album I bought would have been Freeze Frame by the Jay Geils Band.
TD: Can we detect any of them in your music today?
MM: Absolutely, I’ve always been a pop music fan and I think that aesthetic shows through in all of Mudvayne’s work. I think it’s very obvious with the fact that we’re on our third No. 1 single. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with greeting people’s acceptance of your music and I always enjoyed pop music simple for its ability to cross through different people, different genders and races and everything else. And I think that’s something that’s very special about music when it can speak to so many different types of people.
TD: Any guilty pleasure albums that you don’t like to openly admit?
MM: We were rocking a little Discotech in the front lounge last week and I broke out some Billy Ocean, some Vanilla Ice and Milli Vanili.
TD: All great artists.
MM: Yeah. Actually, we just Youtubed Eddie Murphy last night — his single Party All the Time (www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5LX16zia2k). The funny thing is, I was reading about it; he actually had a follow up album to that one. He actually put out two records. Maybe I have misinformation on it, but it just seems so amazing to me.
TD: Rick James wrote that song, didn’t he?
MM: Absolutely, he produced it and is in the video and singing with him. Oh yeah, he’s rocking the console in it in the studio — shooting live stock footage of Eddie Murphy in the studio singing. It’s amazingly convincing.
TD: Where’s the strangest place you’ve ever heard your music being played? Elevators? Restaurants?
MM: I pulled up to a gas station just to fill up my car and you know how the pumps will have those AM radio kind of things and “Death Blooms” was playing. My first thought was my mom could be here, my mom could pull and she’d have to stand here for 35, 40 seconds listening to “Death Blooms” while she pumps gas into her car. Some of those have mute buttons, though. When they start talking to you I always hit the mute button.
TD: Speaking of your mom, I hear you come from a musical family.
MM: Yeah, my dad still sings in the church choir. He’s a schooled, trained vocalist. My mom has always played piano. I don’t know how much she’s really into it now. I have an uncle who plays drums and was a direct influence on me becoming a drummer. I remember seeing his drum kits when I was 4 and 5 years old, as long as I can remember. I had great grandfathers who were all self-taught, blue-grass style southern guitar players. My grandfather also was a self-schooled musician, like me. I’ve never had any lessons. My grandmother was the same way, self-taught piano player.
TD: What else do you play, beside drums?
MM: Well, I obviously do some electronic stuff. I mess around on the keyboards, but basically I’m more of a button pusher.
TD: How can you describe your fan base? Do you get recognized in public?
MM: I’m fortunate enough that between the frequent hair style changes and sitting behind a drum kit, very few people recognize me. I had a dude walk up to me on the bus last night and look at me and didn’t recognize me. He just met me last month and he was like “I thought your hair was blonde?” I was like, yeah, my hair was blonde two years ago, four years ago and six years ago. Our fans are pretty across the board. It’s interesting coming to one of our shows because of our metal ties, just the whole 80s influence thing we have, there’s a lot of older fans in their 40s and 50s; parents that bring their children to the shows; and obviously there’s the whole high school disgruntled, angry 14- to 18-year old boys. It’s been fun to watch how our female fan base has grown also. I think early on, obviously the makeup and the crazy music…we have intention of stereotyping women, but I think as people have been exposed to more of our radio-accessible music, and also just the variety of the band, we’re seeing that we have a lot of female listeners, too. Which I think is cool. I think heavy metal a lot of people kind of associate with angry, young teenage boys but I think there’s something to our music, maybe that pop thing that appeals to all kinds of different people.
TD: Are you surprised how your sound evolved over the years and what kind of direction do you see it heading in?
MM: You know, I can’t see where it’s going to head, mainly because of certain ways that it has evolved. We get together to write a record and we don’t have any expectations. We just start writing at the time and I don’t really pay attention to influences and, obviously, everybody has an influence and we’re changing and our band’s been together now for I don’t even know…14 years, I can’t remember anymore…and that length of time there’s going to be changes and the music is going to change. I don’t think that we’ve ever tried to formulize it. We never really tried to figure that out. We just get together and make music.
TD: So far, so good. What can we expect to see at a show down in our neck of the woods?
MM: You guys are in North Carolina, right?
TD: South Carolina, it’s all the same really.
MM: I love East Coast shows and I know that we played, Raleigh Durham and Charleston. That’s all North Carolina, right?
TD: Close enough, North Charleston, actually. You guys had a show there and that’s when the guitarist from American Head Charge passed away. I was actually at that show, it was pretty intense.
MM: Wow. Intense for everybody. I’m sure that we’ve played South Carolina, but we do so much touring that…regardless, for me it will be just another show. I’ll be there and give it 100 percent.
http://www.blufftontoday.com/node/27546
Interview with Mudvayne
By JoeFabietz - March 5, 2009 - 2:19pm
The heavy metal quartet Mudvayne will be rocking the Shoreline Ballroom on Tuesday, March 10.
We sat down with Matthew McDonough, drummer from the band, during a recent interview. Here's the entire interview:
TD: We’re from a small town and from what I understand, Peoria (Ill.) isn’t quite known for being a music haven. What advice do you give small-town bands trying to escape that small-town atmosphere?
MM: Peoria is a farming community, blue-collar kind of town. Growing up there’s not a lot to do. I remember being a kid, I escaped into my imagination and playing music…that was a recreation and something to do to take up my time and also to fill the empty spaces.
Other than cartoons and movies, I didn’t have all the video games and stuff; following your imagination can be a powerful thing. I think that kind of environment was really a great place for my band to start from. It made us very impassioned about the music we were making.
TD: Where’s home now for you?
MM: I live in Wisconsin.
TD: No L.A. or New York for you?
MM: No, that’s not really my vibe. I love New York, but growing up in a small, mid-size town…that was for me.
TD: On the album For the People, By the People you covered Police’s “King of Pain.” Who came up with the idea to cover that song?
MM: It’s a pretty historic story for Mudvayne. Actually, we covered the song in, like, late ’98 — before we were ever signed. We had actually recorded it and demoed it and we had submitted it to another record label other than the one we’re with now along with other demo songs when we were trying to get signed. It was one of those things where that demo, had kind of lingered and hung out with us for years and years and years and years until the idea for By The People, For The People (2007; the band’s fourth album) came up. It kind of reared its head again. We had an opportunity to re-record it so we did. As far as who decided to actually do it, I don’t know; so I guess I might as well say me.
TD: Do you guys incorporate any other cover songs or is that sort of taboo for you?
MM: No. Oh, no, no. The thing is, it (recording the Police’s “King of Pain”) probably never would have happened on the By the People, For the People if it hadn’t been something that we’d done so long ago. It was really seminal for the band, but as far as (performing covers) it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. I can’t really play anything other than what I play. The idea of me trying to cover another band’s music is really an invitation to catastrophe.
TD: On Lost and Found (2005, the band’s third album) you guys took off the makeup for the music and promotion videos, have you returned to that?
MM: We’ve been wearing makeup on this tour and we wore makeup on the tour for Lost and Found. So I would caution anyone to make any assumptions about what we do as far as videos and visual aspects. Unfortunately, when you see a photograph, it’s really taken out of any linear time and context. All through The End of Things to Come (2002, the band’s second album) and even now, you’ll seen photos of us from L.D. 50 (2000, the band’s debut album) and if people aren’t really open-minded or aren’t following what the band is doing they’re going fall into conclusions. I was looking at a flyer for a show that we did a couple of days ago and it had press photos from The End of All Things to Come (2002) — photos that were taken six years ago. I had a flock of long hair down my back in the photo, which, I haven’t had long hair since ’05. My point is, I would caution anyone to really make any of those kinds of assumptions. When we did photos of ourselves with makeup on and when we did photos of ourselves dressed up like Girls Scouts or when we took photos without makeup on, those were just moments that the band was experiencing when we were just following our intuition and just being real with ourselves in that moment.
TD: Do any of those stereotypes seem to follow the band?
MM: Yeah, absolutely — Of course. We live in a fast-food culture that is very cursory in the way that they relate to their artists and people, like I said, they see a photo, they draw lots of assumptions and there you go.
TD: There was an incident with Burger King; I don’t know if you guys were involved with that, allegedly they stole the mask persona from Slipknot to sell their products. You guy have a song on your new album (2008, The New Game) called “Have it Your Way. I was wondering if that had any similarity there.
MM: I’m not aware, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. But I encourage anybody to draw their assumption, outside of telling people to be cautious about drawing assumptions, I encourage anyone to delve into our music and into our lyrics and create their own relationship to it. Let it speak to them. I’m sure that if the story that you’re saying is what really happened…well, it’s kind of a tragedy.
TD: Last year, you released Frequency Response (McDonough’s first solo album under the name MjDawn), any future plans to continue with that?
MM: Yeah, absolutely. I’m a part owner/ operator of Atmo Works, the label that I released it on, so I’m involved with all of the artists that we’re releasing. We have weekly releases set up through May right now. It’s really crazy how busy we are, but my next project is coming out in two weeks. I have another project that I do with a very good friend of mine called MikroNaught, but it’s more industrial, dance-oriented with some kind of IDM (intelligent dance music) overtones. It’s a lot more accessible than some of my solo stuff. But I’m continuously working on my own projects on the side and with Atmo Works. It’s a daily passion of mine.
TD: I’d love to get some insight into your early influences. What was the first album you ever bough?
MM: Wow, good question. I think the first album I bought would have been Freeze Frame by the Jay Geils Band.
TD: Can we detect any of them in your music today?
MM: Absolutely, I’ve always been a pop music fan and I think that aesthetic shows through in all of Mudvayne’s work. I think it’s very obvious with the fact that we’re on our third No. 1 single. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with greeting people’s acceptance of your music and I always enjoyed pop music simple for its ability to cross through different people, different genders and races and everything else. And I think that’s something that’s very special about music when it can speak to so many different types of people.
TD: Any guilty pleasure albums that you don’t like to openly admit?
MM: We were rocking a little Discotech in the front lounge last week and I broke out some Billy Ocean, some Vanilla Ice and Milli Vanili.
TD: All great artists.
MM: Yeah. Actually, we just Youtubed Eddie Murphy last night — his single Party All the Time (www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5LX16zia2k). The funny thing is, I was reading about it; he actually had a follow up album to that one. He actually put out two records. Maybe I have misinformation on it, but it just seems so amazing to me.
TD: Rick James wrote that song, didn’t he?
MM: Absolutely, he produced it and is in the video and singing with him. Oh yeah, he’s rocking the console in it in the studio — shooting live stock footage of Eddie Murphy in the studio singing. It’s amazingly convincing.
TD: Where’s the strangest place you’ve ever heard your music being played? Elevators? Restaurants?
MM: I pulled up to a gas station just to fill up my car and you know how the pumps will have those AM radio kind of things and “Death Blooms” was playing. My first thought was my mom could be here, my mom could pull and she’d have to stand here for 35, 40 seconds listening to “Death Blooms” while she pumps gas into her car. Some of those have mute buttons, though. When they start talking to you I always hit the mute button.
TD: Speaking of your mom, I hear you come from a musical family.
MM: Yeah, my dad still sings in the church choir. He’s a schooled, trained vocalist. My mom has always played piano. I don’t know how much she’s really into it now. I have an uncle who plays drums and was a direct influence on me becoming a drummer. I remember seeing his drum kits when I was 4 and 5 years old, as long as I can remember. I had great grandfathers who were all self-taught, blue-grass style southern guitar players. My grandfather also was a self-schooled musician, like me. I’ve never had any lessons. My grandmother was the same way, self-taught piano player.
TD: What else do you play, beside drums?
MM: Well, I obviously do some electronic stuff. I mess around on the keyboards, but basically I’m more of a button pusher.
TD: How can you describe your fan base? Do you get recognized in public?
MM: I’m fortunate enough that between the frequent hair style changes and sitting behind a drum kit, very few people recognize me. I had a dude walk up to me on the bus last night and look at me and didn’t recognize me. He just met me last month and he was like “I thought your hair was blonde?” I was like, yeah, my hair was blonde two years ago, four years ago and six years ago. Our fans are pretty across the board. It’s interesting coming to one of our shows because of our metal ties, just the whole 80s influence thing we have, there’s a lot of older fans in their 40s and 50s; parents that bring their children to the shows; and obviously there’s the whole high school disgruntled, angry 14- to 18-year old boys. It’s been fun to watch how our female fan base has grown also. I think early on, obviously the makeup and the crazy music…we have intention of stereotyping women, but I think as people have been exposed to more of our radio-accessible music, and also just the variety of the band, we’re seeing that we have a lot of female listeners, too. Which I think is cool. I think heavy metal a lot of people kind of associate with angry, young teenage boys but I think there’s something to our music, maybe that pop thing that appeals to all kinds of different people.
TD: Are you surprised how your sound evolved over the years and what kind of direction do you see it heading in?
MM: You know, I can’t see where it’s going to head, mainly because of certain ways that it has evolved. We get together to write a record and we don’t have any expectations. We just start writing at the time and I don’t really pay attention to influences and, obviously, everybody has an influence and we’re changing and our band’s been together now for I don’t even know…14 years, I can’t remember anymore…and that length of time there’s going to be changes and the music is going to change. I don’t think that we’ve ever tried to formulize it. We never really tried to figure that out. We just get together and make music.
TD: So far, so good. What can we expect to see at a show down in our neck of the woods?
MM: You guys are in North Carolina, right?
TD: South Carolina, it’s all the same really.
MM: I love East Coast shows and I know that we played, Raleigh Durham and Charleston. That’s all North Carolina, right?
TD: Close enough, North Charleston, actually. You guys had a show there and that’s when the guitarist from American Head Charge passed away. I was actually at that show, it was pretty intense.
MM: Wow. Intense for everybody. I’m sure that we’ve played South Carolina, but we do so much touring that…regardless, for me it will be just another show. I’ll be there and give it 100 percent.
Add a Comment
About
Recent Releases...
Hover over album cover for Artist / Title. Click to view in our store.
© 2009 Created by John Koch-Northrup on Ning. Create Your Own Social Network
You need to be a member of AtmoWorks to add comments!
Join this social network