Along with our City Travel Guides and Festival Guides comes a new feature, On The Road centres around the colliding worlds of music and travel. With these Q&A interviews we hope to delve not only into the touring side of a musician’s life, but to also see the world through their perspective.
After hitting the road on the Big Day Out jaunt across the country in January and the release of their debut album, Even The Odd Ones Out (which was our very own Record Of The Week at the time) in February the Melbourne four-piece relocated to the musical mecca of Berlin. A European tour, which included appearances at the Southside and Hurricane Festivals, and drinking tequila with Josh Homme amongst other highlights bear the fruits of ME’s German migration.
You’re currently based in Berlin recording new songs. What inspired the move to Germany?
German audiences are super killa! People love to party and play music, seemed like a good idea. Also the prospect of driving over 130 km an hour was very enticing. Also we’ve been looking for this girl Mikey met the first time he was here.
How do you think the city has affected your music?
It’s more badass, We are all living together in a big studio and playing all the time. Plus Josh joined the band as our new guitar player and we have found a renewed energy to write and play.
Take us through Berlin’s music scene. Is it everything Bowie and Iggy lead us to believe it is?
It depends if they like dark house, also we haven’t tried Bowie’s capsicum, milk and cocaine diet yet. But it does kick ass! There’s so much happening and we are big on the DIY aspect of the music scene, which is what Berlin is all about. We’re launching our own rock and roll club night in July called Satisfactory Factory, which we are all pumped about!
What is your favourite venue and record strore in Berlin? Tell us why.
Our favorite venue is Bassy; it’s a club that doesn’t play music from after 1960. We also have 3 clubs in the complex we live in and they’re pretty rad!! Also we have all the after parties at our studio with all our muso friends. Dodo Beach record store rules!! We did an in-store there for Record Store Day and everyone was a real music lover, rather than some record stores that are full of people just wanting to make money
You guys are getting quite popular in Germany are you starting to feel like locals?
Ja, wir fuehlen uns sehr wohl hier, aber kommen mit der deutschen Sprache ueberhaupt nicht klar….
Tell us about your most recent tour, where did you travel and how long for?
We just did a tour of Vienna and Germany for Full Hit of Summer, Southside and Hurricane Festivals. We got to play main stage with Queens Of The Stone Age. It was probably the best weekend of our lives to date. Josh drank tequila from the bottle with Josh Homme, he’s a giant of a man.
While on the road did you make any detours and do any sightseeing? If so, where did you go and what did you do?
We drove through the Czech Republic last week and we took a detour to go to Prague for lunch. We also got to stay with Mikey’s ex-girlfriends parents in Vienna that night. So we got to see more than usual. We spent the next day harassing people with our video camera for our tour diary.
Everyone always has a few strange or crazy travel stories. Could you let us in on some of yours?
Mikey almost got knifed last night.
Did you get very creative while you were on this tour?
Not this one, but last tour we were setting up backstage and in hotel rooms and writing songs and demoing.
How do you fill your time while you’re on the road? What music have you been listening to? What TV shows have you been devouring? And what books have you been flying though?
Music: New Q.O.T.S.A, Raconteurs, Jimi Hendrix, Band Of Skulls, and as for TV Twin Peaks and Arrested Development.
You’ve played your own shows and a few festivals on this tour. What are your highlights?
Southside and Hurricane Festivals for sure! Just the size of the whole thing was massive!! And Luke’s monitor mix.
What’s next for ME? What can we expect from the band in the second half of 2013?
We have a new single coming out in a few weeks, it’s called Sleepwalker and we’re making it a free download. Apart from releasing new music we’re writing our second album pretty constantly. So just to tour as much as possible and to keep writing.
Listen to ME’s new track ‘Sleepwalker’ below.
