Memphis May Fire On Tour With Atreyu
Joining ATREYU on this epic outing is another of the OGs and flag bearers of Metalcore, Texan Titans, MEMPHIS MAY FIRE, who are marking their first Australian appearance in over a decade since touring as special guests to Parkway Drive in 2015. Known for their unassailable live shows, MMF have an uncanny ability to connect with their audience on an otherworldly plane, turning band and audience into one living, breathing, circle pit dancing organism. Matty Mullins talks to Hi Fi Way about going on tour with Atreyu.
Returning to Australia for the first time since 2015, you must be stoked to be back?
I’m so stoked! Definitely not looking forward to the flight, as you can imagine, but every other aspect of the trip, we’re really looking forward to it.
Does anything prepare you for that long-haul flight?
Well, I bought the Apple Vision Pro, knowing that an Australia flight was coming up someday, and I haven’t really used it yet. So I’m looking forward to trying that out. It’s pretty bulky, though, so I’m not sure how long I’ll keep it on my head. Maybe that and some sleep medicine, we’ll get through it.
Touring with Atreyu, that’s definitely a great combo?
Yeah, it’s gonna be killer! We’ve done a co-headliner with them here in the States too, so we’re looking forward to bringing that experience over there. The dynamic between our two bands, both as musicians and just as humans is really special. We can tour with anyone, but it’s rare to find a group where everything is cohesive and effortless like it is with Atreyu. We jump at any opportunity to work together.
It’s taken a while to line everything up. Between 2015 and now, with COVID and other challenges, has it been hard to get things to align?
Yeah, it’s definitely been tough. Over the last few years, our band has grown significantly in the States, so it’s been hard to focus on foreign territories because there are so many opportunities here that come rapidly. We’ve been talking forever about needing to get back to Australia and Europe. But then another incredible U.S. tour opportunity pops up, and we can’t say no. It’s been an ongoing conversation, but we’re very excited to be coming back now. And honestly, this is just the beginning, I think we’ll be touring Australia much more frequently from now on.
Has this been the most exciting year for you and the band in terms of touring?
For sure. Between what I’m doing with Memphis and Amberlin, it’s been a lot of touring, but it’s been really amazing. There’s nothing quite like seeing so much of the country all year long. I played the same city four times in one year, it felt like every corner of the U.S. got covered! The best part is seeing how well the new songs are connecting with crowds. Fans are attaching themselves to our new material quicker than ever, which has been awesome.
The new singles are being really well received, right?
Yes, especially in a live setting. Some of our newer songs already feel like staples in our set, just as much as older ones like The Sinner and Vices. Songs like Make Believe from our last record and even Infection, which is a very new single, have skyrocketed to the top of the set because of how exciting they feel live. We’re so stoked to bring new material to Australia, it’s been far too long!
Was it hard to keep a lid on the excitement for Shapeshifter? Were you tempted to tease more ahead of release, or did you hold back to make sure it lands at full potential?
Yeah, I mean, these days we put out records because our label wants us to. Personally, I don’t see much value in albums anymore, people just don’t have the attention span to listen to an album all the way through. Obviously, our core fans love unpacking a full body of work. But in general, most listeners digest music so fast now through playlists and streaming. I see no reason not to adapt to that and move away from traditional album releases.
We put out albums because we’re contractually obligated to, and there are people who enjoy them. But for me, it’s more about releasing music as often as possible and keeping people engaged with fresh material. That’s probably the way of the future.
So is the album more of an endpoint, like a collection once you’ve released a bunch of singles?
Yeah, exactly. We always save some new material for the album release, but it’s really just a way to bundle things up before moving on to the next project.
That is the way that things are headed for sure. Like, you know, by the time an album comes out, there’s so much of the music that’s already been digested, and then people can kind of rediscover the songs by listening to the album as a whole if they choose to.
But I didn’t want to write songs that were really special to us and have them be deep cuts that, you know, five percent of our fan base ever hear because they’re on an album that never made it to a playlist. So, for us it’s more so getting the songs out one at a time, so that people can enjoy them as their own entity, not as just a piece of a body of work, and then rediscover them as a piece of the body of work when it comes out that way. However, you choose to listen to us, we’re thankful for that. I just see a lot more value in spreading music out over time, rather than just expecting everybody to have the attention span to digest an entire album at once.
Does that create challenges in terms of trying to come up with a body of work that’s a particular style, or reflects a particular moment in time for the band? Or do you just kind of see it differently, that if you just want to be able to go and experiment and do this type of track, you can just literally put it out as soon as it’s done?
When you put out a record, I think any band would speak to this, you look back, and there’s pieces of the album that you’re like, man, by the time we finished the eleventh song, I wish that we would have incorporated things about this first song, but it all becomes one body of work anyways. For us, being able to learn, adapt, write, record and release as we go, it’s a much more genuine insight into us as writers and as musicians, and who this band really is. People get to follow it in real time rather than it being a collection of three years all thrown at somebody at once.
Is that better for the creative process as well, that you can just write when you feel like it, not because you have to?
Yeah, I would say we do block off specific time to work on writing, but it really does become an ongoing process. Writing is never finished, at least for our band.
By the time you get to Australia, will the majority of the Shapeshifter end up in the set?
I would hope so. But I guess it just depends. I don’t even really know what our set length is for those shows, but I would hope that we can at least play the vast majority of them.
To digress there is still a real buzz with Anberlin? Those shows I’ve been watching from afar just seem to be getting bigger and bigger.
Yeah, it’s been super cool to see. The band had a big streaming year and the new singles have been really well received, which has been awesome. Obviously you’re going to get push back with a new front man, nobody takes nicely to that, and I went into it knowing that. But the songs have been so well received on record and also in a live setting. It’s been really refreshing and fun to see a fan base react that way. The shows have been awesome. We have the Never Take Friendship Personal twenty-year tour here in America coming up as well, which is going to be really exciting. So yeah, all is well.
How do you sort of split your time between both? Is that a bit of a tough juggle?
It is the toughest juggle of all time. It’s been interesting, to say the least. But we’ve been making it happen, and that’s all that matters.
Do you think Anberlin will come back to Australia?
Yes, absolutely. I mean, Australia is a big market for that band. Australia was one of the first markets to really latch on to Anberlin in the early years and gave them a big part of their career. So it’s definitely not a question of if, it’s a question of when.
Interview By Rob Lyon
Catch Memphis May Fire on tour with Atreyu on the following dates, tickets from The Phoenix…
