The Mavis’s

Celebrating the twenty year anniversary of their award winning and chart topping album Pink Pills, The Mavis’s are hitting the road to play a limited run of shows to celebrate. Featuring songs spanning all three albums of their career, original members Matt, Beki and Nik will be touring together for the first time in over fifteen years. Best known for their chart topping single Cry, The Mavis’s were staples on the radio and the TV in the 90s with songs such as Thunder, Lever, Puberty Song and Naughty Boy. I caught up with Matt from the band ahead of the show in Adelaide.

Congratulations, it’s awesome news that The Mavis’s are going to go on tour again.
Cool, thank you very much. It’s coming together well. Opportunity came up, so I thought I’m going to do it otherwise I might regret it.

Was it always the intention of doing a tour regardless of whether it was a twenty-year anniversary or not?
We always talk about it but because two of the main members live in America, it’s just hard to make things happen in that way but we all stay in touch, so we thought, Bek and I did a duo gig in January and it went really well, just the two of us. Good turnout! Great vibe so we thought let’s just make it, do a proper tour. It so happened it was the twentieth anniversary and then we got a gig in Brisbane, a very small gig and we based it around that. It’s come together.

Has there been a lot of pressure from fans as well asking you to do one more tour?
It’s kind of surprising to us because we’re sort of distanced from it and the Facebook page getS a lot of interest, when we put something up there were genuine good vibes coming from fans, so it’s really surprised us. It’s nice so, it egged us on to do it.

What were the rehearsals like or have you not reconvened just yet?
No, not yet. More of a of sketch out at home by ourselves really. We’re going to have to come together really last minute to blast it in the rehearsal studio and then go on tour.

From a personal perspective, have you missed touring with The Mavis’s?
Yeah, I have missed it. I really enjoy touring. I’d just do it all the time if I could, I’ve done tours and stuff with other bands but there’s that special connection that we have. I.m looking forward to that.

Do you think at the end of the tour you’ll probably reflect, enjoy and savour it a little bit more because the future is unknown at this stage?
It was always one of our goals that we’re going to do this, we’re going to take it one step further. It’s just all about celebrating music now, so just enjoying the music, even enjoying listening to it. Like I didn’t really listen to our music at all and I didn’t want to listen to it but I’ve started listening to it again loud and I think it’s really cool.

Are there any plans to re-release the album on CD or maybe some sort of tour vinyl or seven inch to mark the occasion more so for those who might have just discovered The Mavis’s, or can no longer track down your albums?
We were really hoping to get something happening with a vinyl release and it was nearly something happening, but Warners who own the masters were just not rushing it through. Yeah, but maybe something in the future, but we’re going to put our special tour release together of rarities that people can buy at the shows. The CD has demos of stuff that people haven’t heard.
Some songs people will know, early versions and some songs that we have played live but we never got around to recording. About eleven tracks we’ve got compiled.

Pink Pills was like a massive moment in time. What stands out most for you from that period of time?
I still remember all the TV performances and things like that. I think that was always really cool, to see the best of Australian bands playing on things like that. I’ve only just watched some of those clips. Becky and I have both been emailing these clips back and forth and re-watching them. It was kind of funny. Funny looking back on it but it was kind of nerve wracking at the time because we weren’t used to television or anything, we weren’t trained in television, we were just a pop band, so to be on national television where we grew up with that was really nerve-wracking at the time, but fun.

Do you get nostalgic or does it start bringing back a lot of memories now especially going back over the back catalogue and rehearsing these songs? Does it bring your mind back to some really good times?
Yeah, I just smile and laugh. I’ve just discovered all of these archives of stuff that people around us such as friends, management, parents’ is all archived along with photos and there’s a lot of home videos and stuff like that. So that’s always a bit daunting to look through so, I’d like to compile it in some way, maybe even make a documentary of some kind. It would also answer a few questions of things that were really good and things that weren’t so good.

What’s the future beyond the tour? Is the door slightly ajar that you might do another tour at some point or maybe even try recording some new music? Is there any future plans?
When we have a little group chat maybe there’s life in the old girl yet. We always joke about that. It’s one of our sayings but we’ve got seven songs that I have written which I think is a Mavis’s song. So yeah, we’re definitely keeping the door ajar. We just want to see how this tour goes and get in to the reality of it first. Just physically do it and see what happens. Take it from there but no expectations. Enjoy the music!

Interview by Rob Lyon

Catch The Mavis’s on the following dates…