Project Description

Interview with John O’Callaghan of The Maine

With their sixth album being released in April, The Maine are no strangers to the alt-rock scene. Since releasing their debut album Can’t Stop Won’t Stop in 2008, the American band have consistently been touring and making music.

Lead vocalist John O’Callaghan had a chat with AMNplify about their upcoming tour with All Time Low and Neck Deep, their new album and more.

 

A few weeks back you released Bad Behaviour, what has the reaction been like so far?

We’ve actually had the pleasure of playing a few shows since it’s been released. We released it two days before our first 8123 Festival a couple weeks ago and when we played it, people were singing and knew the words to the song, which is always a trip because we don’t really know how people are going to react but we actually got back from a couple of shows in New Jersey at some colleges and it was the same case there as well. People were singing and having a good time so for me the tangible stuff is always a great gauge, it’s harder to gauge online for me because there’s so much other stuff online [laughs]. I get distracted easily but people have been supportive and are singing very loudly and I think that’s a good thing.

How different is Lovely, Little, Lonely to one of your older albums like Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop?

I guess I’m not 19 anymore [laughs] so the lyrical content is vastly different but at the same time I’m still talking about, kind of, the same topics. As far as the songs are concerned and the sound of the album, I would say that this is the most cohesive album that we will have put out. We tried our best to make it as seamless as possible and going from track to track, we didn’t want any downtime, we didn’t want any wasted moments. We tried our hand at threading the whole thing together and trying to connect each song to the next as best as we could, we’ve always wanted to do that and for the first time I think we successfully did. It should hopefully be different for the listener.

What was the recording process like for the album?

The writing was something incredibly tough for me personally. I do all the initial writing for the band and this one was just the most trying record that I’ve written for a multitude of reasons but one of the big ones was that I procrastinated and waited to pen lyrics until, kind of, the end and I normally have at least some inkling of an idea what a song is going to be about before we step in the studio and this time it was a tough task trying to do it because you create something in an arrangement where it has to lend itself to some sort of emotion and some sort of feeling and to match that with lyrics was very stressful because sometimes it just felt forced or didn’t feel right or didn’t feel harmonious. I guess from an environment standpoint, where we recorded the album, it was beautiful, we recorded it on the coast in Northern California in an Air B&B that we rented, it was literally on a cliff that went out to the ocean so visually we were not short of anything but amazing as far as the view was concerned. I think everything that happened and transpired during the writing and the recording, there was some overwhelming feeling of things needing to happen in order for other things to transpire and I think that there was a level of serendipity that was involved and it was an incredible record to make as far as the journey and as far as the camaraderie. We recorded with a guy that we’ve known and built a great relationship with and he recorded American Candy and one of our older ones, Pioneer, so it was trying but it was certainly fulfilling

The Maine

Are you excited for the tour in May with All Time Low and Neck Deep?

Very excited, we’ve had the pleasure of touring with All Time Low before so we know those guys and we’ve built a good relationship with them so it’ll be great to see them and I briefly met the singer of Neck Deep and we’re very excited to be back to visit Australia, it’s going to be a blast.

The last time you came to Australia was late 2015, what did you think of the crowd over here?

We were actually very surprised, it was a headliner so we were very surprised at the attendance, it was overwhelming, I mean it wasn’t thousands and thousands of people but it wasn’t like our first time headlining over here in the States, it caught us off guard in a great way. So yeah, we’re excited to tour – All Time Low’s built an incredible following all over the world so hopefully we can snag a few of their devoted followers and hopefully make them followers of our music as well [laughs].

What songs are you most excited to play off the new album?

I think, having already released Bad Behavior, hopefully people are already going to be semi-familiar with it to a certain degree over there and over here as well. There are plenty songs off the new one that I want to play and we just know that there needs to be a balance and we can’t just be so selfish and play the new ones only, we know that there’s a balance and we’re hopefully going to do a good job of doing the ones that we want and hopefully appeasing the people that paid to see us play.

Is there anything you’re looking forward to doing in Australia?

As we’ve grown older we’ve gained more of an appreciation for good food so I guess Yelp is such a huge thing for us because we try to visit the spots that people rave about and that cities are known for so there’s a level of that which we’re going to try to enjoy. I’m not sure what the weather should be like there, if it lends itself to going to the beach and taking a swim then I’m definitely down to do that as well. The hard part when on the road, especially on such a small tour is finding time to allocate to going to see neat things and visit museums and things of that nature, so we’ll try to jam pack the trip and hopefully get a few recommendations along the way.

The Maine

A while back you did the Free For All tour, how did that come about and would you ever consider doing something like that again?

It was an idea that we had tossed around for a while and was always kind of a pipe dream, it didn’t seem like it could be a reality and with the help of our manager, he practically booked the whole thing on his own and he reached out to anybody that would listen and for us, the motivation behind the tour was to pay back the people that have given us so much and continue to give us so much and those people allow us to make music so we certainly wanted to find a way to acknowledge them and try to create a gesture that they would understand is solely for them. If you asked our manager, he would probably say we’re never doing it again because of the workload that he took on but it would be pretty amazing if we could team up with a partner and, down the road, throw something similar to that, make a tour where most of the profits go towards some greater cause that we are in line with. I think for now, if you asked our manager, he’d be like “Hell no” [laughs]. It was a blast and I think people dug it and we certainly received nothing but kind words for doing it from people that attended and people that didn’t and weren’t able to so it was definitely a beneficial thing, a great thing.

What’s the weirdest thing that’s happened to you at a show?

I don’t know – that’s a good question. Nothing too strange has happened. Somebody crowd surfed up with Jack Daniel shots once and got on the stage and we took a shot. That’s not crazy but it was actually crazy that the shots stayed in the glasses while he crowd surfed [laughs]. I like to have a lot of fun; I like to interact a lot with people. We were just at New Jersey playing at Rucker’s College and I like to bring people up on stage for a song called Girls Do What They Want and I like to interact like that. That always makes for entertaining times because you kind of throw people out of their comfort zone and make people try to shine for their five minutes on stage [laughs]. So that’s always fun, that’s probably the weirdest thing for somebody random that comes to our shows.

What are some of the best and worst moments you’ve had as a band?

One of the best moments was recently, that festival that we were a part of and helped put on, that our manager organised, was the largest headlining show that we’ve done to date and it was all the more special because it was in our hometown and to have all of our family and friends there at one time for something bigger than our music, for the sense of community and that’s really what we’re trying to perpetuate and continue to grow. This feeling of, hopefully, positivity and a message of kindness and compassion and all the while, the bonus is being able to create music. I would say that was probably the best memory that I have.

The worst, I mean, there’s definitely an element of flow to everything, like life to work. I would say that probably the most taxing emotionally was right after the release of our second album, Black And White, through a major label and desperately trying to get off that label and there were a few times during that period where we definitely didn’t think that we were going to be able to continue as a band and fortunately we saw it through but the older that you get, the more that reality continuously knocks on the door. We’re feeling really good about things right now and trying to keep and carry the momentum into the next record cycle.

What do you have planned for the rest of 2017?

We’re starting to pen out our book here, it’s looking like things are looking up and we’re able to book a lot of shows in a lot of places that we’ve been to before and some we haven’t been to. So it’s going to be a lot of travelling and we’re excited for it. For the first part of the year, we’re doing the North American tour and then we just jump all over the place. The first part of the world is in London and it sold out in a couple of days, which we were blown away with. Hopefully people just start spreading the word and hopefully once we release a few more tunes, people are enthusiastic about it.
All Time Low tour w/ The Maine

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