I’m Mikey Bee of MT WARNING. It began when I met American film maker Taylor Steele at a bar I was playing a solo show at, and he was interested in the walls of noise I was creating with my guitar. He challenged me to create music to visual stories, to have the instrumentation be as vocal to the imagery as the lyric. We became great friends and over a couple months I compiled a whole album of songs with themes spanning a lifetime that we’d come up with together, from the innocence of youth to sceptical rebellion to mid life confusion and to the finality of it all.
Your new single ‘Youth Bird’ comes out later this month.
The track Youth Bird falls in the middle of the aforementioned album, it’s a celebration as much as a sneer at the coveted nature of youth. It came about super quick as I plucked a bass line and howled a melody into a mic on the other side of the room. From there I laid drums, guitars, broken keys and sang about that eternal chasing of the tail. It’s something I find fascinating that no matter what age we are at, we interact with ourselves like we are something that doesn’t change.
It’s considerably more upbeat than your last single ‘Forward Miles’. Was it important this time around to showcase a different side to the band?
For me it’s important to reveal the stories from the record in a certain order. Not the order from the record, but how I’d like to interact with people. Forward Miles is all about innocent dreams and breaking free of the mould. That’s something I’d like to discover with someone on a first night out. Youth Bird is the second date, you hit the town, you yell, you jump, you feel confident and almost comfortable, but still want to impress, so you wear your loud but fashionably cut paisley shirt and dance accordingly.
You say the track “falls midway through the forthcoming album”. What can we expect from the record and when can we expect it?
The album will be out early next year. It’s a whole journey. Taylor Steele (the film maker-cum-producer) and I placed each new song on the timeline of what could be a life’s experience. It has an introduction, acts 1, 2 and 3 and an outro. It’s rock and roll yet atmospheric, sincere but off the cuff yet always there for me to reference and learn from still. Personally, it’s a like a photo album for me of one of the funnest and most inspiring creative times I’ve had to date.
Lyrically is there an overriding theme of the record? What can we expect from the lyricism of the record?
The lyrics tell the story, yet remain vague enough for anyone to grab onto and make relevant for them. I like lyrics to elude to something I’d like to say, but I prefer to be subtle, I write lyrics that will act as a trigger or a reset when I’m singing them on stage. I hope that if I were lucky enough that people ever got to know those words, it would transport them somewhere too.
You’re also touring in September, which includes a spot on the BIGSOUND lineup. What can the uninitiated expect from a Mt Warning show?
It’s fun, the stage is one of my most comfortable places to be. We play loud, then soft, all out rock and roll building walls of noise to intimate moments of one-string songs. We try to convey that journey that’s been built on the record, and also play to have a whole lot of good times.
Your band logo has a triangle instead the ‘a’, while most know of significance of Alt-J’s delta symbol, was it a conscious decision to include it?
Ha, a friend made the logo in the first week we chose the name, the delta’s been used a lot before and I’m sure it will be used a lot more in the future. But I’d happily show homage to Alt-J, they create and perform music like no other band I’ve seen in a long whiles.
What have Mt Warning got planned for the remainder of the year?
Our tour in September, that will be hell fun, then off to Germany, France and the UK for shows very soon after that. Hoping to announce some pre-summer shows here quite soon, then I’m looking for a way to get to Russia to create a new soundscape with Taylor.
Where we can see you play next, what releases do you have available and where can we get them?
‘Youth Bird’ out on iTunes August 27th
‘Forward Miles’ EP at iTunes now: itunes.apple.com/au/album/forward-miles-ep/id657922366
MT Warning Tour Dates 2013
TUE SEP 10 – WORKERS CLUB – MELBOURNE
WED SEP 11 – BRIGHTON UP BAR – SYDNEY
THU SEP 12 – BIGSOUND – BRISBANE – Electric Playground (9:10 – 9:40pm)
FRI SEP 13 – THE GREAT NORTHERN – BYRON BAY – Free Entry
Watch ‘Forward Miles’ here:
