Of Mice & Men On Tour This February…
OF MICE & MEN do not do things by halves. Whether writing immense songs, recording them to perfection or performing them with the intensity of a thousand suns in a live setting, every member of the band pours his heart and soul into every second of everything that they do. It is that relentless quality combined with incredible talent that has seen them achieve Billboard Number 1 albums, Gold records and invitations to tour with likes of Metallica, Linkin Park and Slipknot, in an 8 album career packed with highlights and triumphs.
Being it the soaring passion of Would You Still Be There, the pit inducing mayhem of Bones Exposed or the pure venom of Warpaint from the band’s latest release, Tether, every Of Mice & Men show is an unforgettable experience. Their return to Australia will be cathartic and vital after a six year absence. Hi Fi Way speaks to drummer David Valentino “Tino” Arteaga.
Not long now to the Australian tour. We’re getting down into single digits. You must be really looking forward to coming back?
Yeah, man, we’re all really, really excited in that way.
It’s been five years since the last tour, and I think that was Limp Bizkit here in Adelaide. Do you have a lot of great sort of tour memories from last time?
Absolutely. That tour was definitely a dream come true tour. Also to be able to play in such amazing places in Australia was so cool and to get to make new friends. Ocean Grove are one of my favourite bands from up there too, so that was something that was really cool to get to share those memories with those guys. It was great. We’re so fortunate to have been asked back and can’t wait to get out there and rock some shows with Dream On Dreamer and Sienna Skies.
Did you handpick those bands?
Yeah, to a certain extent, usually we’ll discuss with the promoters, who do you guys think? Then we’ll kind of give some ideas that we have too. When we heard that Dream On Dreamer reunited, we thought, oh what a great idea to be able to tour with them. We hadn’t heard of Sienna Skies yet, but their music is awesome and they great upcoming like band, so we’re super excited for that.
Definitely seems like a great fit with all three bands making for an incredible tour?
Absolutely. There’s something we love so much about the Australian music scene we’ve been fans of for so long, and we always make a joke like, there’s got to be some bit of water out there, or maybe it’s the atmospheres better for producing these amazing ideas from seemingly out of nowhere. There’s so many of our favourite bands from out there and we really respect and admire the music scene that they have out there. So, we’re just excited to get back and excited to be in a mix. We don’t get to go out there as often as we’d like, and hopefully that changes following this upcoming tour run.
Are you focusing mostly on the new album Tether?
We’re definitely doing a little bit of everything, our new album Tether just came out, but at the same time, we don’t get to get out there enough, so we want to make sure that we’re going to play all the hits, all the bangers, lots of the mosh songs, some exciting left field ones and then some stuff on the new album because we don’t get to get out that often. We feel like it’s important to pull from all of our albums and create a really memorable night for everyone.
Have you been stoked with the fan reaction so far to Tether?
Absolutely, it’s a really cool record. We feel super proud of it, and we dove into some new song landscapes and some new ideas in making the album and that excited us with the vibes we were known for. Then to be able to perform it in a live capacity and seeing the way the music resonated with the audience, that was the one thing that was missing from this record Tether and the last one Echo was we actually had hadn’t been on tour for almost four years, so we had done those albums basically in isolation and without being able to connect with our audience in the same way as we would performing live, and trying new songs out and seeing what, seeing kind of what worked. With that, it was really cool to see it all materialise once we were out on the road, this last year in October through December. Just seeing that really excited us and that’s a huge piece of what makes Of Mice & Men us is our audience and listeners and the people that come out to the shows and they make it all worth it. We’re more of excited to be able to get out there and see what Australia, see how these songs are going to connect with our Australian fan base and give them shows that they’re no going to forget.
Was it a challenging album to make?
Anytime we make an album, we’re always trying to challenge ourself, not only musically, but with our performances and with our songwriting skills. I always try and say that, and it’s a very cliche thing to say as a musician, but we never want to write the same album twice. When we’re going into something, we’re giving ourselves our own challenges of how can we elevate our songwriting? How can we elevate our musicianship? How can we elevate our performances and capture something very special for every album, because every album is for lack of a better fidelity, every album is the chapter and the story Of Mice and Men, not the book the band . It actually was a little bit easier because we’ve been self-producing these last two records on our own, and we found a really great workflow that works for us when we’re running and when we’re recording. I’m able to take things at our own time and at our own pace, as opposed to, traditionally you book out a few months of studio time, you start at the beginning of the studio time and you have to be done at the end of the studio time, whereas on this go round, we were really able to leave the sessions open until the due date of the album.
That allowed us for a much longer period of creativity to be able to help the songs along and watch them evolve from something where they start as a demo, and then we’re able to look at them a little bit longer and be able to, if there’s a drum part that I want to change, I can just go and change it. Traditionally drums are the first thing recorded from the album, and when they’re done, they’re done, you don’t get to redo them, add on to it, because there’s not a lot of time you have to continuously move forward through the rest of the process. When we’re doing it ourselves, we’re all each individually trusting our own skills that we’ve learned to be able to track these ourselves and to be able to get the takes that we want. Then in turn, I guess bust the songs up as much as possible and if new ideas come, we can just plug right into the session and keep working.
Whereas in the past, we don’t really touch the producer’s session because it’s their session. We’re trusting them basically manning the boards to be able to create it. This time around, we were doing it ourselves, so, it didn’t come without its challenges though, you can’t just go in and make an album without a certain level of skill set and understanding the programs that are being used and frequencies and all that stuff. Thankfully as a unit, we’re able to pick each other’s brains and get all that and because we’ve worked with some of the greatest rock and metal producers of the twenty-first century, we couldn’t have done it without their coaching through the years. We try and sometimes quote them or something like that, like we’re a drummer doing this, or maybe we should speed this up or think about what so and so would say about this? Let’s challenge that and try and make the best music possible, we all really feel like it paid off. We’re super proud of Tether and the fact that we were able to do it ourselves was a huge accomplishment for us.
Is this the way for future albums?
I think so. I think as time goes on, who better to be most involved with Of Mice and Men than Of Mice and Men? I think there’s a bit of a fallacy when growing up we thought, oh, the band is working with this producer, and that’s why it sounds that way. That is true to a certain extent, but what we’ve learned is really, the producer is a coach and it’s not necessarily a writing member of the band who is writing music. We write the music, we are writing the lyrics, we’re writing everything that the producer is more of a coach who’s coaching us to get the best takes, who’s challenging ideas and asking if this really the best thing that you can be doing for this song? Is this part serving the song and doing the song justice? Or can we write something better? I think with having that knowledge, we’re able to establish a new blueprint and like I said, workflow is super solid when we’re working this way and everyone gets to bring their own ideas. We work together to be able to bring those together and to have four producers instead of one producer, everyone in the band is working together and producing this music as opposed to allowing the reins to a different producer. Not that it was a bad thing, but I do think moving forward we have learned a new way to get ideas out and to be able to record our ideas. I think that is only going to continue to elevate with time.
We’ve already started writing new music too, so that’s a really exciting thing. Utilising this workflow that we have in this era with file sharing and Zoom we’re able to connect through the different programs and through technology to be able to make things happen. Then when we get together and we jump through ideas and get in the real thick bit, we’re really able to come up with something amazing. At first it came out of necessity because all the studios were closed when the world shut down, but then we adapted and shifted. We were able to create something and set up a new workflow that works from anywhere in the world.
Do you think you will focusing more on singles and EP’s? Do you still believe in the concept of an album?
We do love albums and I think traditionally, like as a metal band, that will always be a thing. But I know that music consumption, I can see it statistically through the back end of our Spotify or Apple Music. Statistically, people listen to songs, they’re not as much listening to albums anymore. I think with the way music industry is going and the way that popular music has hyper-focused things the consumption of music on singles as opposed to albums, every artist from, I just read something about Ariana Grande and your massive, massive pop stars that create popular music where metal music is not as popular as any of that stuff. When you see the way that these streaming platforms are hyper fixating on singles and hyper fixating on play listing and stuff like that, I think there’s absolutely no problem in adapting the way that music is released for the modern era.
I think whatever that means in the next five years or ten years or whatever, I think we’re always going to be able to try and continue with having some full thought while still maintaining the artistic integrity of when we create an album. It’s an album, it’s meant to be listened to front to back. Like I said, statistically speaking and looking at the numbers, people aren’t listening to it that way and that’s not for us to decide, we can’t force people listen to an album front to and truly go on the emotional roller coaster that we had crafted. I think it’s important to have strong pillars that are singles, that are songs that are singular, that allow people to, an audience to latch on. If you’re not moving forward with the times you’re going to get left behind and not that we’re ever concerned about being left behind, we know that metal music and alternative music is its own entity and is something special to us. That’s why we liked it so much. It wasn’t popular, it wasn’t part of the pop culture. It was something that resonated with us through this lyrical content, through its musical content and I think as long as those things are ultimately what the focus is, the lyrics and the music, I think no matter how the music landscape shifts in the next five to ten years, as long as there’s music with substance and music with meaning, that we’ll be able to figure out how to release things. We enjoyed doing the EP’s for Echo, that was super cool and we enjoyed doing the full album for Tether. It’s just cool to be able to try different things and to be able to move with the landscape and adjust and do new things.
We’ve been a band for over ten years. We’ve released our eighth album, we’re working on our ninth album. Bands don’t get that far in the modern age, you know what I mean? The fact that we’re here and we’re able to create music and thankfully most importantly, because of the fans who are still listening, that we’re able to continue to do this. We feel like it’s our responsibility to not only continue to be forward thinking, but always make music that is important and make music that means something and has more depth than what can be taken for face value. There’s level to our music and that’s something densely layered and I feel like that’s something that we’ll always do no matter what the climate is for how to release music or whatever.
Interview By Rob Lyon
Catch Of Mice And Men on the following dates with Dream On Dreamer and Sienna Skies, tickets from The Phoenix…
