Sitting in the dressing rooms of the iconic Barrowlands Ballroom are three out of four of The Mysterines. Paul, Lia and Calum, having just come back from the old Barras Fruit Market, they sat down with Brig to talk about their new tunes and how they get their sound.
The Liverpool group told Brig they formed shortly after meeting at a local gig and bonding over Bob Dylan. Which makes you wonder what else influenced the distinctive gritty sound of The Mysterines?
LIA: “I think collectively, we all have so many different influences. Like George for example, loves Motown music and early 60s stuff.
“I think our influences are quite different to what we actually play. We love Radiohead, PJ Harvey, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Sparklehorse. and just loads of weird shit.”
PAUL: “As we’ve gotten older, we’ve got into different things, and we’ve kind of got into it at the same time. Because we spend so much time together, if one person gets into something, we’d all be listening to it and like it all rubs off on everyone.
“I think as we’ve been moving through our teens and into our early 20s, we went through all these different phases of listening to stuff together.”
So far, The Mysterines have released a UK top five album called Reeling and have toured with the likes of the Arctic Monkeys and Frank Carter + The Rattlesnakes.
During the tour with AM, The Mysterines played huge venues across the UK and EU, including Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park.
When asked how they felt about playing to 35,000 people, guitarist Calum said;
“The Arctic Monkeys done that for so long, playing to stadiums is kind of the norm for them. So it kind of relaxed us a little bit because they were so like calm abut it.”
LIA: “It was mad. Weirdly because there’s so many people and you’re so far away from them it kind of feels like you’re in your own little world.
“We just had like a laugh on stage together, and there’s too many people to look at, you know what I mean?”
“Just to be with them was just, I mean, the whole thing was pretty surreal, to be honest.”
-Lia
The Mysteries are also huge fans of AM themselves, saying that they were “brought up with the music”.
“Above everything, obviously they’re an amazing band, but they’re just f**kg great people and really looked out for us on the tour.” says Lia.
“It was just a bit unbelievable to be honest, playing, standing on the stage with them and The Hives.”
The band are now releasing a new album this year and have a new single Stray. which was released February 20.
The band has spoken about many various influences, but it’s interesting to know how this will affect the second album.
CALUM: “I think when we started writing for the second album it was a conscious decision to depart from that sound, and we kind of went as far away as possible, and then we’re like, oh, maybe that’s too far, and then we come back a little bit.”
LIA: “We feel more consolidated now with who we are in this new record. Not many people nail their first record in terms of what they sound like. There’s only like a handful of unbelievable debut records.”
New Single Stray was released on 20 February. When asked what this is about, Lia stated:
“It’s like a stray animal or something that’s kind of found on the side of the road and kind of left to survive on its own. It’s kind of in that world of stuff.
“It is kind of like a spectrum of behaviours that you face within yourself when you’re kind of trying to process something that’s happened to you.
“It’s a juxtaposition between loss and gain and finding yourself and then losing yourself again and being erotic and being really kind of chilled. So, it’s a polarity kind of thing really, and the connotations are like the word stray.”
The Mysterines have been going from strength to strength. There is a lot of excitement around this new album as well as the band now going on tour next Autumn. Maybe we will get a Motown tune but for now we will have to wait and see
Tickets for The Mysterines are on sale now. Dates and locations for their UK + EU tour are listed below.
The Mysterines Tour Dates
5 October – TBA, Manchester
18 October – Whelan’s, Dublin
19 October- Ulster Sports Club, Belfast
20 October – Saint Luke’s Glasgow
22 October – Rescue Rooms , Nottingham
23 October – Thekla, Bristol
24 October O2 Shephard’s Bush Empire
26 October – Olympia, Liverpool
Feature Image credit: ChuffMedia
Music Editor of Brig Newspaper. 4th year film, media and journalism student.
