Messed!Up
There’s an indie-rock tradition that burns bright in Australia. Some of the most exciting bands that we have covered the last years are from Down Under, bands as DMA’s, British India and DZ Deathrays. And those bands share something that we appreciate much when going for a gig: they’re dedicated to have fun while performing their music.
Every once in a while, a band comes out of the gate with their best foot forward, challenging the current trend and stamping their name across the books as ones to watch, not only for great performances and music but also for hilariously fun videos. Melbourne based Mid City attempts to be in your face at all times, smelting loud and visceral indie rock, giving everything they’ve got into their frenzied performances, leaving only blood-stained instruments behind.
When the band was on the roster of Sounds Australia’s Aussie BBQ Day at the Reeperbahn Festival we hauled Ben and Joel in for an interview just before lunch the day after a late night gig at Molotow, and a rowdy afterparty.
After ordering beers and a few coffees we chat about touring Europe, a possible move from Australia in the future and their infamous videos where singer Joel exposes his different personalities.
“The wheels are in motion”
You released your debut EP “Die Waiting” this year and just arrived in Germany a few days ago to play your first gig ever in Europe, in Munich two days ago. You’re doing great at the moment?
Ben: I think it’s a lot of work left but it feels like the wheels are in motion. Just playing last night, and a couple of shows we played before that, shows that there’s people here that are interested, and there are people at home that are interested, so it’s starting to feel really good.
Joel: We have supported lots of bands in Australia too, which is good for us. You don’t want to have tickets on yourself and that kind of thing. It’s almost like we jinx it if it we would be like “Yeah, now we released an EP, now it’s going to work” as soon as it starts to go well for us. But it is really nice to feel like your music is connecting with people, a bit surreal.
Ben: We’re just starting to get into that area where we can support some bigger bands, we have a great agent in Australia who kind of started to dip our toes in that area.
Here in Germany the press label you indie rock and if you ask me I think it would work out great in the UK with that kind of sound you have. But how big is the scene in Australia?
Ben: I wouldn’t say that the indie Brit sound is something we get much of in Australia.
Joel: It’s City Calm Down and British India and that kind of stuff.
Ben: The north of Australia is more a two-piece surf rock or grungy surf rock which seems to really connect with a lot of people, but the hooky sort of British twangy sound you don’t hear much of at the moment.
Music in this age is about sticking out in the crowd of bands and you really have something unique. Your videos are hilariously fun and I love the video for “Fake Friends Forever” but also “Old Habits” and that weird old man in the “Dead Broke Blues” video. Where do you get all these ideas from?
(laughs)
Joel: I got a lot of time on my hands. It’s me and our guitarist Nick, he is a videographer. Every time we have a single coming out he and I sit down, have a couple of beers and start writing.
You have so few chances to connect with people and there’s so many bands doing this sort of thing, and I think you need to do something different and do something fun. It’s not the MTV generation anymore, and to cut through in social media you need to do something that’s striking. And make it fun too because I think it should reflect what the band is about, and we’re about engaging people in having a fucking good time at a gig, not being so self-absorbed. Being real tongue-in-cheek and always a bit creepy with the characters makes it more fun.
We talked about your characters when we walked here this morning and we’re just waiting for them to have their own comedy shows.
(laughs)
Joel: But there’s so many interesting things you can do these days in media. When they said we have a single out in November I called Nick and said “Right, what’s the next thing we’re going to do?”, but it’s a lot of pressure (laughs). I put myself under a lot of pressure to do something better the next time.
But how much of it is spontaneous? Or do you write storylines for it?
Joel: We always have a basic idea and then I do some shopping. Just like to “Fake Friends Forever”; I went to a two-dollar shop, a really cheap store, and bought a ladies turtleneck and a chain – I still have it (laughs) – and grew a really gross mustache, and it took a couple weeks to shoot the video so I had to keep this stupid mustache the whole time (laughs).
We went to this gross little beach town – I hope nobody hear this – and I think they filmed Mad Max there. A very depressive small town with the weirdest little beach (laughs), and we just had this basic idea of this crazy man who lives alone in this little town and has friends who are mannequins, and it was just like “Go for it and see what happens”. And it happened (laughs).
Personally I feel a lot of pressure doing them but that’s when the good stuff happens. With the “Old Habit” shoot we had no idea what we were going to do. I found a kimono on that day, we had some friends who came and I just made up a basic idea.
Ben: You might look at it and think it is planned out with a great storyline but a lot of the time it’s just spontaneous on the day (laughs).
Joel: But Nick is amazing with that stuff too, he’s very visual and has kind of a creepy mind (laughs). I’m already starting to think about the next one now.
People say it all the time, this shit could end tomorrow and you wanted at least have done something that was fun or something that brings people joy.
You seem to love being in the spotlight. Our photographer at your show last night told me that she loved how you always turned to the camera.
(laughs)
Joel: This is what I mean, why not bring joy and bring passion and just have a fun time; life’s too short. I don’t think enough people do that. That’s why we started the band; there weren’t enough bands, at least not for us, which bring something for the audience and not only for me, like “Here is my song, listen to my heartbreak”.
We want to be a party. I’d have the whole crowd on stage if I could and have a good time, just listen to music and party (laughs).
And you obviously put a lot of passion in it what I could see yesterday. Quite many new bands don’t take much risks on stage and it becomes dull.
Joel: I really feel that you need to put yourself out there and take some risks. A lot of time in life you need to make the first move. Even if it looks stupid when we go crazy and it looks like we play for 80 000 people when it’s just a hundred, why the fuck not? I hope it sparks joy for people; I don’t try to be an arrogant dickhead, just be relaxed and have fun.
Undecided future: “A long flight to keep coming back and forth”
Australia has the disadvantage of distance, almost like being an isolated (huge) island far from where most bands’ fans reside – in Europe and North America – and you don’t really want to do that trip back and forth to Australia too many times because it’s expensive and time consuming. It’s even expensive to tour at home because of the huge distances between cities. When you tally up the price of transportation, equipment, production, crew and accommodation, the total cost of a tour can quickly spiral out of control – and that’s just on home turf.
Europe has the advantage of having a major city to play every hundred kilometer, allowing for intense touring schedules and cheap costs for transport between cities. As Australian popular culture historically is intertwined with the British culture, thus also American culture, what works on the Australian scene often finds an audience and becomes popular in the UK (and Germany!) as well.
Many bands bear witness of musical greatness in the UK and Europe such as Nick Cave, AC/DC, Midnight Oil and Kylie Minogue but also more contemporary bands as DMA’s, who have a huge fan base in Manchester, Tame Impala and Wolfmother. Considering the massive fan response in Europe, is it possible that Mid City will relocate in the future as well?
After some very successful singles and the EP I just have to ask if there’s a debut album in the works? Or will there be another EP instead?
Ben: That’s undecided. We’ve got songs in the bank and we’re going to write some more songs when we’re back home, but we know one thing, that there’s going to be a single in November. My gut feeling says it’s going to be an EP but it might be an album as we sort of leave that up to our manager to guide us.
Joel: Seeing how it goes on this tour and what the response is and what people are ready for will lead to the next step. We’ve been going really quickly from releasing one EP in April and then another single in August and another one in November.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what the best way to go about things is these days. Releasing an album is not what it used to be when you toured for eighteen months. Maybe it’s better for us and more sustainable to keep little presents for people a couple of times a year, and release six tracks once every six months to sort of keeping the flow.
That’s kind of interesting thoughts and we heard it quite many times from new bands that it is a better strategy for keeping your fans happy. But the problem is to get media to pick up singles. As I understand it they mostly do reviews albums.
Ben: It’s similar in Australia. EP’s can still get a little bit of press but it’s all about albums, they get a lot more. But it sort of feels like that if you can hit it with a single rather than release everything at once you can tour a month and sort of playing around that.
Joel: But lucky for us we don’t have to make those decisions (laughs). Management just tell us what to do.
And then back to Europe for touring or doing Australia first? What I understand from other Australian bands is that it’s also very expensive to tour Australia because of the distances. I mean, on the map it doesn’t look like it’s far between Melbourne and Sydney but it’s not like you commute between those cities.
Joel: No, it’s like nine hours (laughs). Australia is very few people spread over massive distances. To tour and make it viable there you need to play a certain sort of music and if you’re part of the scene, the thing that’s popular at the time, it’s possible.
We find that there’s not many bands like us in Australia, playing the sort of music we like to make, big hooky guitars and choruses and that sort of surf rock thing. A lot female-fronted great electronica stuff works out at home, if you’re part of what’s going on. The other thing is if you were to play a lot of regional shows, like small towns, but they are into a certain sort of music and maybe not always ours.
Here [Europe] you can drive three hours and there’s another big city and then it’s another big city, and you can always find an audience.
Other Australian bands we had for interviews say that they have to move out of Australia if they want to live off what they do. Have you started to think about as well although you’re not really there yet with a debut album?
Joel: We don’t want to jinx anything but even the reception we’ve had with the EP and the interest we’ve had over in Europe has been really encouraging. There’s lots of people coming to the shows and it’s viable, and there’s so many more festivals you can play here.
I’m just going to say that it is a long flight to keep coming back (laughs).
If we get back to you in three years how far have you come?
Joel: Stadiums! (laughs) Why not!?
Like I said before, we started the band because we weren’t feeling what we wanted to feel as punters watching bands, and I want to see that more. If we could be playing to thousands of people doing that, and thousands of people feeling free to let go, feeling like they were involved with the band rather than spectators being on the other side of the fence, then it will be all joy.
I think music needs to be shared more like that. In Western culture we keep music very exclusive and it has to be this cool thing.
I was in Croatia once and just walked pass this doorway and there was a long table going on of a big family celebration and everyone had a guitar, everyone was singing along; lots of instruments and a real sense of bonding and unity and just joy for music, like it didn’t matter if you could sing that well, you were just involved.
Going back to what I said; we’re sometimes too exclusive in our rock thing like “This is my thing that I do and I’m an artist”. Like being in a bubble.
But in three years you said? If we can have lots of people feeling that message, that would be three years of life well spent.
Photographer, interview: ©Teresa Enhiak Nanni
Photographer, live: ©Julia Schwendner
Photo gallery
Mid City pages
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