Exclusive Interview: Major Major
By Claire Bertolus
Interview with Adrian Slattery
Lead Singer of the band Major Major.
There is more than one band on Myspace that go by the name Major Major. But don't be confused, it's the local boys that have the quality stuff. Playing their first gig in April of 2006 Major Major have been insidiously creeping their way into the Melbourne underground music scene.
I was listening to some tracks on your MySpace, but just wondering if you were aware there was another band called Major Major?
[Laughs]...I think there's about 15 bands called Major Major...
I thought it was strange when I wasn't interviewing someone from Liverpool [laughs]! Originally the band name was different wasn't it? Something about penguins?
We didn't actually have a band name. That was a bit of a joke [The Penguins Delete Nick - a reference to Danny Devito in Batman Returns],
where did you read that? Originally we just typed things into a band
name generator on Google and it spat back all these funny ones, but we
never were going to call the band that [laughs]. That was more of the project working title...
You guys haven't been together that long?
Yeah. We played our first show in April of last year [2006]...
That
seems kind of quick to be going on to do these sorts of things
[including being a finalist in the 2007 MTV Kickstart Competition and
an upcoming EP]...
Well, it depends. Some bands just get
on it straight away, and put something out pretty early. But I think a
year of shows is fairly normal these days. I mean if you don't record
anything, you know, after about a year or so you're probably taking it
too easy [laughs]. But I think it's a good time to be doing it, we probably wouldn't want to wait much longer to put something down on record.
Tell us a bit about the EP your currently recording?
We've
finished recording it and just looking for, and working out ways, of
putting it out at the moment. We're just figuring out exactly what we
want to do with it. But we have wrapped up recording it.
So no ideas on when it's going to be releasesd?
Well
we're looking at late August for a release, we're just going to put it
out independently probably, and just do some shows for it towards the
end of August and throughout September.
Was the fact that acts like John Butler, Ben Lee and Gotye
are finding great success with releasing material independently a
factor with your choice to go this way? What does putting out an EP
independently actually involve?
If you haven't got a
label or anything behind you [which is often the case for most
artists], then all the finances come from the members of the band. I
mean, we've paid for the recording, the mastering, as well as all the
packaging and distribution of it as well. Initially we are just going
to do a small run, and we'll just see what happens with that...
So I guess you'll be doing a bit of part-time work to cover that one [laughs]...
[laughs] Yeah, definatley...
You've got a cult following in Melbourne, with the EP on the way, are there any plans to tour outside of Victoria?
Yeah.
We are gonna do some shows along the coast. You know, some in Sydney
and some in Brisbane - but we are definatley going to play some big
shows down here to launch it.
Now for those who haven't caught you play live, your music sounds a bit like Elliot Smith...
Cool, that's a fantastic compliment!
So any plans on going solo yourself? I heard you might be doing some solo stuff...
Well
at the moment, the reason we're sort of sitting on the EP for a bit is
because our guitarist is actually overseas and has been living in
Sydney for a couple of months. So he's coming back around the time
we're putting it out, and some other members of the band are playing
with other bands. And in that time, I've been playing as a musician in
some other bands [Jerry Falwell Destroyed Earth] and I'll also be playing some solo gigs...
So is that where you're influences come from, from playing in other bands? What sort of musicians shaped Major Major?
Originally it was a 90's thing. Because we all grew up listening to 90's indie/slacker music like Weezer or Pavement
and things like that. So that's where I learned to play that sort of
stuff. But I guess over time I've sort of matured, that sounds a bit
stupid [laughs], but I kind of started getting more into songwriters like Elliot Smith and John Lennon and Bob Dylan and things like that, where it's really crafted on the melody - and lyrically as well...
Click To Hear Tunes from Major Major at www.myspace.com/thisismajormajor
Major Major will play
Melbourne again when their E.P is released in the second half of 2007.
For interstate fans, you may also be able to catch them in Queensland
and N.S.W. later in the year. |
