Merseyside’s most menacing Rock outfit, The Mysterines, have had an intense period of touring over the last couple of years supporting the likes of Arctic Monkeys and Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes. Yet, they have somehow found the time to dive back into the studio to create their highly-anticipated sophomore album ‘Afraid of Tomorrows’ which is out June 21st.
They will be playing a run of in-store shows to promote the release including a hometown performance at The Jacaranda Baltic on June 19th. Tickets available here.
These shows will then be followed by a huge run of UK + EU tour dates this October including their biggest ever headline show at Liverpool Olympia. The new record is raw, straight-to-the-vein and lyrically poignant, adding a personal feeling and emotive depth to their infectiously slick and viscous sonic style. We spoke with the band about their musical progression, writing the new album and their crazy live experiences.
Photo Credit: Steve Gullick
Q. What do you feel you learned from the first album release and how have you developed as a band since then?
A. “I think the biggest development we’ve had is just genuinely growing up, actually. The older you get and the more you do it, the more you figure out little ways of dealing with the madness because it is a mad fucking world to be in and being in a band is a fucking weird job. It takes a while to figure out what you need to do to cope with it.
We finished the first album way before it came out because of lockdowns and stuff like that. So when we actually finished it we were all 18-21 kind of age and a lot has changed since then. The four of us had also only been a band for like six months by the time we started recording the album so it was a massive learning curve in every way. None of us had ever done an album before and we didn't really know what we were doing but when you're thrown into the deep end like that you just kind of figure out ways of how to make things better next time.
I do also think we were a little bit like a rabbit in the headlights in the case that we thought once you’d released the album that was it but that's not the case… that's when the hard work really starts and I think we kind of learned that from releasing the first record”.
Q. How was the process of writing the new album different from working on ‘Reeling’?
A. “I think second albums are notoriously hard to write purely because you want to do something different and something better but you don't want to put off the people that have liked your music so far. So, when you're writing it, you've constantly got that in the back of your head. It took a while for it to all come together, but I think once it did, it felt right.
There was a period when we first started writing it where we were a bit nervous about it all because nothing was sticking fast. We did four or five writing trips and we had like four or five songs that we liked but they didn't really make sense cohesively but then we went away and we wrote ‘The Last Dance’ and that kind of tied all those songs together. As soon as that happened it just made everything that we'd done before make more sense and then everything after that just happened way quicker”.
Q. How was the lyrical approach on the new album different from your first and are the emotions in these lyrics drawn from shared experiences?
A. “The lyrics on this record are a lot more personal. The first record had quite a lot of characters on it whereas this album is a bit more true to itself. It's probably a bit more brutal in a way. We never really sat down and talked about certain lyrics and emotions together but in a weird way we were doing it a lot because we were living in each other's pockets so much on tour. Everyone's gonna be aware of how everyone's feeling when you’re on tour”.
Q. Would you say this new album is also more true to who you are musically?
A. “Yeah, I think so. I think it represents what we actually listen to. We were a lot younger writing the first album and because we were recording it all live we were writing stuff that just felt right in the moment when you're playing it in the room whereas on this record we’ve tried to push ourselves out of our comfort zones musically. There's much more texture to this album, there's just more thought into the structures and arrangements and stuff”.
Q. Is it daunting supporting the likes of Arctic Monkeys and playing in front of huge crowds when you’re unsure how they will react?
A. “I think it's part of the fun, isn't it? Especially when it's the size of audience that Arctic Monkeys had. We would leave the stage and still be unsure how it had gone. You'd be looking around and you'd see one group of people singing along then look in the other corner and there's a bunch of proper lads watching and you couldn’t tell if they were enjoying it. There'd be a bunch of older blokes at the back and then another group of people who weren’t even watching so it was hard to know. But in the end it all worked out and we loved it!”.
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