BAND: Mae
INTERVIEWER: Amanda Klaus (Amanda@bandvibe.com)
INTERVIEWEE: Mae’s Zach Gehring
DATE OF INTERVIEW: 08.24.07

BAND MEMBERS:
Dave Elkins - Vocals, Guitar
Jacob Marshall - Drums
Mark Padgett - Bass
Rob Sweitzer - Keyboards
Zach Gehring - Guitar

Bandvibe: Why did the band move to Capitol Records?
Mae: Because they have a bigger bank, you know, they have more resources for our music to be as available as humanly possible. And that’s easier done on a major label, or thought to be done easier on a major label. Tooth and Nail is great, we love them, they did everything they could for us, and we still have a relationship with them, personally and in a business sense, but we’ve always wanted to make this step to a major, you know that was our intention from the start. And at the time it just felt right, and we met with them, and yeah it was kinda like a natural step forward, you know we didn’t want to just stay where we were or you know some one to challenge ourselves and put us out there and see what happens. You know, you only live once.

Bandvibe: What is your favorite part about performing live?
Mae: Some nights you feel yourself making more of a connection more so than other nights, and you just do it for that reason. Some shows are better than others, obviously, but certain nights where everything just clicks and you kind of feed off each other as far as the band members and the band and the audience and the sort of synergistic exchange. It’s unspoken and it’s just real.

Bandvibe: Would you rather play small clubs or would you rather play arenas on big tours?
Mae: Well, I would love to play an arena tour where we were the headliners, you know, but preferably I like midsize places like house of blues and sort of like our hometown being the Norva but still midsize where there’s still an intimacy there. And some venues of that size do become sterile but I think if we could get a good size venue that would be awesome.

Bandvibe: Now the new album, Singularity, seems a little bit more radio friendly. Is that a term you guys are okay with?
Mae: I guess you can’t fight it, I mean, it’s funny I guess it’s just a judgment call, I don’t consider it more of radio friendly record. I thought The Everglow was completely radio friendly. But it’s not like we’re fighting to not be radio friendly, but we’re not jumping through hoops to be a radio friendly band. I mean, people have said, you know we’ve gotten criticism from this record but we made the record we wanted, and it wasn’t Capitol, and it wasn’t Howard Benson you know, they honestly took the record maybe 2% but all the songs were Mae songs and we wanted to do the songs we wanted to do the songs we put on that record and did it in the fashion we wanted to. The only thing Capitol and Howard Benson did was help us focus and keep our eyes straight forward. As far as artistic integrity or all that crap that people want to talk about, there’s none of that stuff going on and the next record might be the same, it might be different. It’s just kind of weird of how people… it’s almost a knee jerk reaction to expect when a band goes to a major label the sound’s going to be more radio friendly. The thing is like, you know, you can’t attack a band’s motivation when you don’t know it, and I’m not trying to be defensive and I’m not saying that the question that you asked is any kind of… but thinking back to what people have said and responding to that as well, but yeah I mean people are typical, especially kids, they can be full of shit as far know what they claim. I got an email from a kid the other day, or the band did, how he could write a better record in 10 minutes. [Laughs] It just blows my mind, but at the same time it’s all in stride. So, I don’t think the record is radio friendly in an uncomfortable way. And some songs have more of a pop appeal, but Mae has always been a pop band as much as we’ve been a rock band as much as we’ve been an indie/post-pop whatever, you know. And you know, we’re not gonna make the same record twice so sorry to those people that wanted us to.

Bandvibe: One of my questions actually was how do you think you’ve changed, but it’s obvious in the way from the first album to this one.
Mae: I think it’s just not a change, it’s like we’re more comfortable in our skin, we’re older and we don’t think of it as a change and when I hear the record I don’t hear anything drastically different. You know, I mean there’s obviously so many differences between Destination: Beautiful and this one, you know, but I think the song writing as far as we are together is much more focused, much more cohesive. In this record we did strip down a lot of stuff, but it was intentional, because our melodies in the past have always been so layered and that the main melodies in certain songs have been missed because we have so many ideas on top of each another. You know Rob is doing one thing, me doing another, and Dave is doing something else, and then the vocal melodies. And for this record we took a lot of that out, and focused on the one melody that the song was based upon. So everything was put in or taken out to serve the song better. And Mae has always been a rock band and if you’ve seen our show then you know, people have always said “You guys are a lot more energetic than I would expect you to be,” and stuff like that. I think that’s just the records have come out, I mean Destination: Beautiful was done by Mark and the dudes and the fact that he had no help at all or outside ear. And at the time Dave was, I think, 19 years old and all the dudes were so much younger and listening to different things and in different stages and that was 5 years ago. And everything that we’ve done since then has just been a movement towards something, a tighter cohesive and confident. Like a move of nature to be more confident in what we want to do. And we can still write songs like Giving it Away and plus we can write songs like Rocket and things like that, it’s just us becoming more confident and us doing what we have wanted to do. Because The Everglow, if you listen to it, it’s more a rock record than Destination: Beautiful, but we’re taking steps, but I guess it wasn’t as drastic between those two records as it may be between The Everglow and Singularity.

Bandvibe: I was going to say that Dave’s voice does sound stronger and more confident.
Mae: Yeah, he’s learned to sing a whole lot better and you know he got a lot of help from Howard because Howard is more of a vocal producer, he worked with Dave a lot of the time. And Dave, he’s been on the road for 5 years and so yeah, you learn stuff and he’s become a lot more expressive and a lot more emotive in his vocals and he had to become stronger, and you know, it’s just so funny. The vocals on Destination: Beautiful they’re so light, and have more of a feather-esque feel to it, but this one’s more of a rock, more straight forward feel.

Bandvibe: How do you feel about fans getting tattoos?
Mae: I love it. I think it’s a very extreme form of flattery, I don’t get creeped out at all. And I can relate and identify to the kids and it’s weird to think that we’re meaning that much to people you know as I did to a band when I was growing up. But I get it. I get the connection between a kid and a song, or an adult and a song. So I understand it and I love it.

Bandvibe: What’s your favorite song to play onstage?
Mae: On stage right now, it kind of changes… Right now I really like playing “On Top,” that’s a new song. I really love playing “Just Let Go,” that’s another new song I like to play a lot.

Bandvibe: What has your favorite tour lineup been?
Mae: Every tour line up has been great for different reasons. I remember having a lot of fun when we took Copeland a long time ago, because we were all at the same stage, we were all pretty green. We were all in vans. It was so much fun on that tour and from then on we’ve had so many relationships with those bands ever since. I really enjoyed the Something Corporate tour, we learned a whole lot, that tour was awesome. Every tour I could talk about. We had the Foo Fighters tour which was mind blowing. But I think looking back, I can just remember having so much fun on that Copeland tour.

Bandvibe: A lot of bands that came out with you guys, like Copeland, the Working Title, Slow Coming Day. Copeland’s lost members and other bands have broken up. But you guys have lasted over the years, what is it that you guys have that make you stick together?
Mae: I honestly probably couldn’t quite answer that question, you know to say that we have more of a connection than Copeland did, or a personal connection. We definitely have found a good working/personal point as far as Mae’s concerned, like living together and working together. We really enjoy each other’s company and I think it’s rare when 4 or 5 people can. You know we’ve gotten on each other’s nerves here and there but we have respect for each other and we all share a common goal with our music so I think that helps a whole lot and that hasn’t been much of a period of divergence and there’s been little stuff here and there but we’ve been able to learn from each other and we know each other’s weaknesses and strengths so if it’s not going in the right direction we communicate. I think that’s one thing in any capacity, working, relationship, band, whatever, there’s so many things that’s over looked but so obvious if you can just sit down and understand each other where your coming from in a respectful way and it goes a long way. And I guess we’ve been lucky a whole lot too, we’ve been able to tour. But Copeland’s still a band, they’re still touring, the Working Title’s had some problems, but I just think the combination of our hard work and we haven’t really done anything other than what we want to do and so whatever happens happens. I don’t know, plus still time will tell. We’re a band right now, we feel really good about where we are and hopefully continue in that direction.

Bandvibe: Do you plan on doing another DVD?
Mae: We don’t have anything planned, we have a lot of footage, I’m sure one will make it’s way out sooner or later in some form. We’ve been doing those webisodes we’ve been putting on the website before the record was released and did a webisode every week. But you know, we like to give something visual, but as far a compiled document, you gotta get a whole story for that. From Toledo to Tokyo was a whole story about how Benj came on for 3 days initially and then stayed and now he’s with us today. But hopefully, I’d like to do another one, but I don’t want to do a pointless one that doesn’t make any sense.

Bandvibe: If you could tour with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?
Mae: I don’t know, I could answer that question differently each day. Right now, I’m thinking it’d be interesting to tour with the Doors, but they have to be the same age so I guess we have to go back in time because I wouldn’t want to tour with them now. But just to be around Jim Morrison, I’d probably hate it. I’d like to tour with the Beatles obviously, Jimmy Eat World, Elliot Smith, Jets to Brazil, Pearl Jam.

Bandvibe: What are you listening to right now?
Mae: I bought the new Okkervil River CD, it’s a band from Austin, it came out a few weeks, I’ve been liking that a whole lot. The new Silverchair I like a whole lot.

Bandvibe: Are you liking this tour? (Dear and the Headlights and As Tall as Lions are supporting acts)
Mae: Yeah, I think the bands are awesome. I like doing a headlining tour because we have more of a pick and choose of the bands that we take out and these bands are really awesome.

Bandvibe: What’s your favorite city to play in?
Mae: I like playing Philadelphia, Chicago, I always have a good time in Orlando, I’m from Orlando, so I like it there. I always have a good time in Austin, Austin’s a good one, and L.A.

Bandvibe: When you have days off while on tour, do you do touristy things or just kind of hang out?
Mae: It depends on if we have friends in town, most of the time we schedule days off in cities, like in Philadelphia or Chicago, our managers from there and we’ll go hang out at the lake or whatever. We don’t do touristy things that much unless it’s something we haven’t done yet. I like to see movies, I love watching movies, reading books, going to bars, and hanging out.

Bandvibe: What’s the craziest thing a fan has done?
Mae: We don’t really get crazy fans. We have this one guy… he’ll get information about [the band], before I do, like legit information, and post it, and it blows my mind how he gets this information before I do. That’s kind of a bummer in a lot of ways, because he’ll post inaccurate information that he’ll get and he won’t check it, and he’ll just post it, and that’s kind of annoying. I guess he likes the band, so thank you, but at the same time… We get a lot of cookies, but nothing crazy. I can’t think of anything too insane, but I’m sure there are, I’m just bad at remembering things like that. On this tour so far it’s been pretty low key.

Bandvibe: Do you have a favorite lyric?
Mae: Yeah, I have a favorite lyric in “Reflection,” off the new record. “When does the physical meet with the spiritual? It this the typical question? But down below and up above it looks the same so I’m not sure of anything. Where will love come from again?” It kind of sums up where we all are, personally, in terms of spiritually or rationality, science, anything like that, and it’s more of a question than a comfortable certainty.

Bandvibe: Who are your influences?
Mae: Personal influences stem from Depeche Mode to Iron & Wine to Bob Dylan to the Foo Fighters to the Sunny Day Real Estate to the Beatles. But I think as far as collective influence, and collective where we draw from it’s more of a timeless nature, things that U2 have done, Sunny Day Real Estate have done, things that Nirvana, the Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam did, and you know make music that is popular and meaningful at the same, it seems like a loss art that’s becoming very hard to find these days, and I think that that’s what we look up to the most about music and what it can do.

Mae’s new album, Singularity, is available now on Capitol Records.

For more official information on Mae, please log onto:
http://www.whatismae.com
http://www.myspace.com/mae

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