Straight after the release of their debut album The Brave Don’t Run, Analiese Jackson sat down and spoke to Midnight Youth bassist Matt Warman about their newfound fame, burly mechanics and Ryan [not Bryan] Adams…
Analiese: First of all, congratulations on the release of The Brave Don’t Run! How does it feel?
Matt: It’s awesome, man. It’s almost like life is complete, you know? It’s like; if I died tomorrow then I’d be happy because I got an album. When you’re a musician, that’s all you want to do, you want to write music and release an album for people to hear, so we’re absolutely stoked that it’s finally come true.
A: It’s been a few years in the making for you guys, really, hasn’t it?
M: Yeah, it has. The actual album has been just the last year, we recorded it in New York in April and we’ve been mixing it for the last year.
A: That’s really cool. So how was recording in New York?
M: It was absolutely crazy; it was the most amazing experience of my life. Well, at the time it was, but things just keep on getting better, but we recorded in a whole lot of different studios around New York and we went to a whole lot of boroughs in New York. Like, we recorded the guitars in Queens and we did the drums in Manhattan, so we got to see the place, which was awesome. We actually got really inspired by being in the place, you know?
A: How do you think that recording in New York differed to how you would have recorded if you were over here? Do you think it would have changed the sound of your album dramatically?
M: Every song was written, well the music was written. Jeremy [the bands singer] was still working on the lyrics as we got onto the plane, but he certainly got inspired by walking down through Central Park; he was just overwhelmed by the size of everything and … a lot of his lyrics were inspired by New York City. The difference is, if we’d recorded it here, we would have been working our day jobs and every weekend we would have been going to the studio and the fact that we were flying to America, it put immense pressure on us just to work incredibly hard. Almost everyday we were working on the songs and practicing. It didn’t change the sound of our music or our album or anything…it was just a more amazing experience than, like, on a Saturday just driving into Auckland, we got it all done in one go. In New Zealand it would have taken us about 6 months just going in on the weekends to record or whatever, just trying to get away from our jobs. It was just one of those things just trying to get away and record somewhere different.
A: I was reading the album inset earlier and it talks about the CD taking the listener through “a journey through notions of joy, despair, youth, loss and hope.” Which of these elements inspires you most?
M: …that’s a hard question, man, because it’s all very inspiring. All I can say is that [on] a lot of albums, every song sounds the same and every style sounds the same. It’s a similar tempo, a similar key…we just wanted to make a really diverse album…
A: It definitely is. Who are your biggest musical influences as a band?
When were writing the album, we were listening to a lot of Ryan Adams. That’s with an R, because if you write Bryan Adams…
A: Ha-ha! That’d be so embarrassing!
M: …yeah! We were listening to Ryan Adams and an English band called Elbow …and a small, indie band called Band of Horses and we were listening to Stereophonics, that Dakota song…
A: … [Over-enthusiastically] Oh!! That’s a great song! I love that song!
M: Yeah, we reckon that was one of the greatest songs written in the past 10 years, so we thought “we’d love to have a song like this!” So it’s a whole bunch of different things…the thing that we learnt young though, while we were in school we had quite an inspirational music teacher and [on the first day] we went into our music class and everyone was separated, you know, there were the heavy-metallers, the classical violin players and the rock guys; everyone was separated and they all hated each others guts, ‘cos they all thought that their music was better than the other persons’ music and everyone was arrogant as hell. Anyway, our music teacher he came in and just laughed at us and said “Look, what you’re doing is just ridiculous, so every single day I’m going to allocate a person to bring in some of their music and you’re going to play it for the class and we’re all going to listen. You’re not allowed to talk, you have to listen to it and you’ve got to discuss it afterward” so, through the whole year, everyone just kept on bringing in their music everyday … and by the end of it everyone was listening to everything! We had the heavy metallers listening to opera music! So…he taught us that no matter what music it is, there’s always something that you can find some good in, you know? Even if its’ the most ridiculous thing in the world, like a Britney Spears song, there’s always going to be something…in that music that can influence you in some way…
A: Speaking of interesting pop music, I was on YouTube earlier this morning, as you do, and I saw a video of you guys doing a cover of Lady Gaga’s ‘Just Dance’. So, uh, what brought that on?
M: [laughs] Oh man, well, we played at Summer Jam tour with The Veronicas and P-Money and them and we thought at the time, you know, we didn’t have an album out and everyone just knew the one song, they just knew The Letter, and we’re like “oh man, we gotta play something for these kids…we gotta play something that they’re all gonna know!” Doing covers, we want to do a Bob Dylan cover, you know? That’s the kind of stuff that we jam but we’ve gotta do something that these guys will love, so we decided to do our own version of Lady Gaga’s Just Dance, and it actually ended up being really, really fun!…Jeremy was the most reluctant to sing it, he didn’t want to have anything to do with it and then he learnt the lyrics a couple of days before we went on tour…
A: …It looked as though you guys were having a good time in the video, although the filming was a bit dodgy. I think it was off someone’s camera phone or something…
M: …but that’s cool, man. It’s cool that they filmed it and put it up there!
A: Yeah, totally. So, you mentioned your single, The Letter, which was released last year to wide acclaim in New Zealand and it climbed up the charts to the Top 40…how did that feel?
M: That was crazy, man, ‘cos we’d never experienced radio play…before that the highlights we’d had as a bad were like supporting big acts and just playing a few good gigs where there’d be lots of people…all of a sudden, we were getting our song played on the radio, we couldn’t believe it! But the fact that it got added to every station, that was even more amazing. We’d thought: “Oh, you know, maybe we could get on …something”, but we got played on The Edge and ZM and even The Rock! A couple of months later, we got played on Classic Hits!
A: Ahhh, you know you’re a success when you’ve made Classic Hits…
M: Haha, Exactly, so we’re like “Oh My God!” So we have these 14 year olds who are listening to The Edge and then we got all the oldies listening to Classic Hits liking us. And then we got Uni students coming to our shows. Even, like builders and stuff, man. You know, these builders who like Led Zeppelin and stuff, they’re coming up to us, and talking to us… it’s really weird! Like, I had to get a WOF for my car, because we were going to Hamilton the next day to play with OpShop, and I needed to get it done, so I go to this place, and the guy, just an absolute wanker, is telling me, he’s like: “nah, I can’t do it man, I’m totally booked up” and I’m like “Oh, please, can you do it?” He’s like “Nah, booked up”. I’m all: “Please man, seriously, can you do it? I gotta get to a sound check and I gotta get to that sound check at 3.” He goes: “Oh, what band are you in?” and I was like: “Oh, Midnight Youth”. So this 40 year old dude, he’s got oil dripping down him, and he looks at me and goes “Ohhh, Mate! The Letter is one of my favourite songs!” so straight away he goes and reverses the car he’s been working on and drives mine up and like does it in 5 minutes! See, that’s crazy, you know! Men like this shouldn’t like our music [laughs]!
A: Any other brushes with over-zealous fans?
M: Oh no, I’m cool, man; I just stay in the back!
A: So, in what could possibly be the lamest question ever, if you got a letter in the mail, what would you want to be in it?
M: Oh my God! Man, I dunno. I could say money; I don’t have any, but that’s ridiculous…it would have to be something that made me feel nice, you know? When you get a letter, you don’t want one saying like “your credit card is maxxed out”…
A: …or like the IRD, ay?
M: …yeah, or like the IRD or a notice of redundancy or something. So it would have to be something nice, I think…I’ve never really thought about it, ‘cos all the letters I do get are horrible letters, actually…
A: Really?
M: Yeah…I get nice emails, sometimes, but letters I guess are all just the bank ones…maybe just like, a postcard or something? I dunno…
A: Alright, so it’s time for my final question. Usually at the end of an interview I get people to plug their albums, so why should people buy your album as opposed to someone else’s?
M: …It’s such a weird thing, I was struggling, man, ‘cos I went to go see if the album was actually in the stores on Monday and Bob Dylan’s new album came out at the same time so I didn’t know whether I wanted to buy my own album or buy Bob Dylan’s ! But I think people should buy the album because …it’s something that’s new and fresh coming out in New Zealand and I think that everyone will like it!
Midnight Youth’s The Brave Don’t Run is in stores April 27th.