My Vitriol




"We went from playing small gigs to recording an album"




"we do play a good little tune, definately"




"the crowd reaction has been great throughout the whole tour"




"the Foo Fighters are a great band so we would rather be compared to them than
S Club 7"

Interview with My Vitriol

How do you feel your success has evolved over the past year?

That is rather hard to gauge because we are still doing it! We have went from playing small gigs to recording an album and going on tours. This could be about as much as it gets for us or maybe it is going to go on to bigger things. It is just hard to say if our success is peaking at the moment.

Have you found this difficult and has it changed you in any way?

Yes of course we do find it very difficult at times. There are times when you hardly get any sleep or get to see your other half much...but it is an opportunity that is not to be missed if that is what you want to to. We have changed musically a little bit, but this has not been a bad thing.

How long did it take to record the album?

We got about seven weeks actual recording but we would have liked to spend a little bit longer on it to be honest. There was a lot of touring and playing festivals and this got in between the album schedule so we felt that it probably was a little bit rushed towards the end! Describe your music... We would describe our music as melodic. As much as we like interesting sounds, soundtracks and noise capes, we do play a good little tune definately.

Being an un-manufactured band, have you found it difficult to get airplay on the radio?

Yeah of course - if you have not got a lot of money behind you - there is no backhanders! The way we got played on the radio was by sending a really shit demo to Steve Lamaq at Radio One - he loved it and it got played every day for a week.

How did you get signed to Infectious Records?

It all kicked off from the airplay on Steve Lamaq. There was a few of the showcase gigs which are really horrible and nervewracking. There is all the music industry bosses sitting on the sofa with their clipboards making you feel very nervous.

Guitar/musical influences?

We are very much into Sonic Youth but there is a lot of music that inspires us which is anything from The Cure to Kevin Sheilds, My Bloody Valentine and Primal Scream.

What about the Foo Fighters - there is quite a lot of similarity in your songs..

Oh - ha ha! I don't know, people always interpret something! We love Nirvana and Dave Grohl is an excellent drummer. Yeah the Foo Fighters are a great band so we would rather be compared to them than S Club 7! Ha ha!

How are you enjoying touring with Feeder?

It is great - they are very relaxed and we get on well with them. The crowd reaction has been great throughout the whole tour and we still have nine dates left with them.

Have you played any gigs in Europe?

We did one date in Paris two weeks ago for press and industry as opposed to fans - which it would be because no one has heard of us - but we are doing ten dates in Europe throughout the summer.

Festivals?

Some of the European dates are going to be festivals and we are also playing at the Reading and Leeds festivals here, if the cows get better! And of course we are billed for T In The Park too.

Finally what are your plans for the future and where would you like to be in 3 years?

We can't say what we could be doing in three years - we just want to live for the moment as opposed to three years from now. We have all the dates through summer to contend with and then our own tour in October which we will be looking forward to.

Toploader




"you suddenly realise that people actually like us"



" we know everyone's buying tickets to see us so we're really chuffed"



"It's really hard to gauge how you're doing and it was a relief to get (the album) out"



"it's like being in the army"



"We need to kind of relax and everyone's got to kind of chill out in one way or another"



"You think of little landmarks you know, like a first gig in London"

Interview with Ryknow from Mudvayne

The album's great - where do some of your influences come from?

One of the main influences for the album would be the Stanley Cubrick movie '2001'. The soundtrack for the movie is excellent. I bought the C.D and listened to it and we were influenced by some of the artists and the music on it. We drew some of the influences from it and and we liked how it portrayed life, life's process and how life came to be and maybe how things will come to be in the future.

How would you describe your style of music?

I would describe it as Mudvayne.

All your make up, is that all for the stage show?

Sure, yeah we brought that on as part of an anti-identification thing simply to bring us together in part of a stage show and it also separates the audience from me as this person on stage and each one of us individually as ourselves on stage. It's not necessarily me all the time when it is me on stage, it's just our separatism.

What does it resemble - what are you symbolising?

Anything!!!

How do you feel about the comparisons to Slipknot?

I think that the comparisons are not very well grounded. In that I mean that most of the comparisons that are being made are saying that we've drawn influences from them like we're a second generation Slipkot but the funny thing is we've never heard of them and they've never heard of us. We didn't even know who they were before this album came out. The main association we have with Slipknot is that their record producer Shawn Grant was at our showcase and he was one of the reasons we got signed. The main influence that we have from them is that they showed us how to tour and taught us how to be a family on tour and they showed us the ropes. They took us under their wing a little bit and that's great.

Do you have any punk influences?

You know we all listen to so many different things it's hard to pinpoint one thing. First we all listened to old skool stuff and some of the speed metal stuff but we all listen to a huge amount of other things as well.

Your music has been described as Mathmetal - what exactly is that?

Well that was kind of a joke you know for a lack of description for a band. We were asked what we could describe ourselves as - we said mathemetal as a joke but at the same time it is very true to the point because we're very thoughtful and create themes in our music sometimes with the intent of drawing the listener in.

What sort of a following do you have from a younger audience?

I would say our main audience is probably fourteen year old males and as an average number. it's funny when you see older people in the audience because you think all the music appeals to the younger generation, lyrically, content wise and numerically. It contains a lot of adult content for some of these fourteen and fifteen year old kids. You know they've never had sex before, they've never had kids before and love by experience so they can't begin to understand all the things that all of us have gone through. In a band you bring all this baggage with you. It's nice to think you have a lot of people in the audience because I think that they can appreciate you in the lyrical content and the themes or what the songs are about in more ways than the younger generation. Not that we don't appreciate our younger fans it's just that they might not understand the lyrical content just like when I was listening to music when I was young and I didn't really understand the lyrical content, but later on when I listened to the songs I was like 'Oh that's what they meant! You know that's what they're saying."

Who writes the songs?

We all write the songs.

What's your main ambition as a band?

Our main ambition at the moment is for the album to do well and to give it to as many people as possible. That's how we market ourselves as a live band as opposed to press, T.V and radio we like to show people in performances what we have. Just to really show people what we can do.

How is the album doing?

I don't know. I don't know the figures yet but I've heard it's doing quite well all over Europe.

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