the mysterines
“The Mysterines are a true force to be reckoned within UK rock. Barely out of their teens, they completely sold out both their 2020 and 2021 headline tours, were selected as one of Amazon Music UK’s Ones To Watch 2022, have supported Royal Blood, The Amazons and Sea Girls on tour
The Mysterines debut album ‘Reeling’ was made under the watchful eye of acclaimed producer Catherine Marks (Wolf Alice, The Big Moon, PJ Harvey)”
Our very own Rosie Risdale sat down for a chat with the band before their sold out Birmingham show.
Who are your greatest influences?
Paul - Mine, drum wise, probably Nirvana. Like Dave Grohl, those kind of people when I first started drumming.
How did you feel about Taylor Hawkins death?
Paul - I was gutted, found out when we were about to go to bed, and only the Foo Fighters had announced it, so we googled it, because we thought that they had been hacked or something. I was refusing to believe it.
Callum - 50 man, nobody saw it coming, proper proper gutted about it, its quite a selfish thing to even say, but we were supposed to do a couple of tour dates with them in America at festivals, so its just proper gutting.
Well I’m sure if they do decide to ever come back, they’ll come back in a way that is respectful to the memory of Taylor.
How about you?
Callum - Probably Bob Dylan.
Lia - Bob Dylan for sure.
George - If we’re talking about bass playing, John Entwistle from The Who. There’s only a few finger style bassists who do rock so he’s the one that stands out to me.
How have these changed over the years with you guys being together as a band, have they changed because of lockdown?
Lia - I’d say so, I think we’ve consolidated the way we make music, and made a record we’ve wanted to achieve. We’ve definitely locked into our influences, and brought that all in a bit more, lockdown gave us that time.
Do you think since coming out of lockdown with this record, has shown that you’ve matured your sound?
Lia - Yeah, I think that the bands a bit more established.
Callum/Paul - Yeah I think that any band that has had that two years has changed you know? Time like that regardless of everything going on will always bring change. We’re not talking weeks or months, two years is a really long time.
And what about the music you listened to during lockdown? Did any of it make you think; shit yeah we’re going to keep this going..
Callum - Yeah me and Lia got sent the Fontaines DC second album before that came out, and we listened to that quite a lot. We listened to loads I guess, everyone was just sitting around and we were just finding new musicians. I know I was just on Spotify flicking through loads finding stuff I hadn’t listened to before.
Lia - I think you had more time.. to listen to people that you’d listened to for years, more records of theirs. Like Tom Waits, I’d only listened to two of his records before.
What was the writing process like for “Reeling?”
Lia - Well I had just moved out, and I wasn’t really focusing on anything else, so I had way more time to write lyrics and think about what sort of tone the record had to take on, which is obviously heavily inspired by the Tom Waits stuff I listened to. Time is the answer always.
Do you think it was different from the way you wrote the Ep’s ?
Lia - Yeah, the Ep’s were much more spontaneous, but were controlled a bit more by outside circumstances at that time, but there wasn’t much talk about producers at that time.
“I thought I could like resurrect this moth, with my hands, and it sort of started moving, I started playing the riff and it seemed like it had come back to life. But then it died”
My favourite song from the album, is “Under your Skin”, tell me a bit about that, did it have a story or anything that makes you think back to the writing/production of the song?
Lia - Well I suppose it changed quite a lot from the original, I actually wrote it when I bunked off college one time years ago. I wrote it in The Corals practice room and this really weird thing happened. This moth came and died in front of me, this is actually a true story, and I thought I could like resurrect this moth, with my hands, and it sort of started moving, I started playing the riff and it seemed like it had come back to life. But then it died. But in my head I resurrected it, so we’ll stick to that narrative. I then taped the moth into this notebook, remember when I showed it to you?
George - Yeah I do, it was quite scarring actually.
Lia - And then I wrote the lyrics under your skin around it, that’s probably the weirdest part of it, I do think about the moth when I sing the song which is super weird.
Callum - when the album came out maybe it came back alive??
Lia - well actually, found out after that it was called a crane fly, and loads of crane flies followed me around…. Not even lying I have videos.
What song do you like playing live the most, one that makes you think; hell yeah.
Lia - “Probably Under Your Skin”, but the fans would probably disagree haha
Tour dates so far, which has been the best?
Lia - Leeds.. although Hull was pretty good, even though we were really ill, it felt good.
Callum - Hull always feels good, something about the way it feels. The Hull Pull.
Lia - Yeah Leeds or Hull, Leeds had a younger crowd.
Do you think northern fans feel you more, cos that’s home turf?
No, don’t think so, I don’t think we get the north/south divide. There’s nothing really that we identify with just as a northern band you know? We don’t like eat pies and gravy haha or slap something on us that says hey we’re northern.
Callum - We obviously love where we’re from..
Lia - London is really good to us though.
Callum - Crowds can be good or bad, doesn’t matter where they’re from. Depends what they’re drinking!
What do you guys do before a show? Do you have a ritual or any superstitions?
Lia - George does this “box” miming thing, its actually quite emotional, quite moving really. It’s a metaphor, an extended metaphor.
George - I pretend to be the crane fly stuck on a wall.
Callum - We’ve been keeping up with our karate. Pauls a 5th dan now *big laughs* its a spiritual experience.
Does the size of the venue reflect on your confidence whilst playing live?
Lia - I find that the smaller the venue the more nervous I am.
George - If its a proper tiny venue its really intimidating.
Lia - Cos when we did Eden Project, with Royal Blood, I wasn’t bothered at all. It was like 8k people at that gig, because you can’t see peoples faces too much.
Callum - It’s like at big festivals, we just feel like four mates on a stage, it doesn’t feel real the crowd.
“Baby Yoda, would be a great collab, he’s an amazing artist”
If a movie or tv character listened to your music, who would it be?
Lia - Tom and Jerry, just because of the wildness in how they act, and non of them talk, so it would be like a montage, especially the confession song!
All - Baby Yoda, would be a great collab, he’s an amazing artist.
Lia - Nicki Minaj, she’d do a good verse on “Life’s a Bitch” actually.
If you were to go on a magazine cover, which publication would it be and why?
Lia - Playboy definitely.
Callum - With Paul on the front cover. Lots of nipple tassels and whipped cream, and a Nickelback album in his hand.
Where do you see yourself in a year?
Lia - Hopefully on playboy.
Paul - A year from now we’ll have the second album out.
Who have you been listening to old or new on the scene?
Lia - Fontaines DC
Callum - There’s a guy up in Liverpool who we’re friends with called Astles, he’s amazing. Big Thief too, Adrianne Lenker is an incredible song writer.
Have you got a playlist that you listen to before the gig/on the tour bus?
Callum - We have a front of house playlist that we play backstage before we go on. In the van.. we have different music on, or we just chat.
Lia - It depends on how pissed we are haha.
Drink of choice?
George - Pilzner Urquell
Lia - Ooo it changes all the time, but at the moment spiced rum, or otherwise Guinness. A good Guinness though, not a shit one. We played in Dublin and I did have to stop drinking it at one point, bit too much.
Callum/Paul - Guinness or Rum.
Finally, how was it working with Steve Gullick on your music video and promotional stuff?
Lia - He’s very talented, I have never met anyone like him, don’t think I ever will. He’s endearing and so so talented, very big in personality.
Callum - His photos are sick, best photos I’ve ever seen.
Lia - Since working with him, everyone else we work with seems to use his techniques, and reference his photos so its so cool that people see his talent.