Seattle post punks Mutiny Mutiny have released their debut LP "Constellation" which you can purchase HERE. But besides that they have put together a unique source of style that is considered noise within the 11 songs that make up this debut and the band mates have gone into saying that making music is what they live for and couldn't be happier.
1. So tell me why the name Mutiny Mutiny?
Jason: I know we had narrowed it down to either Mutiny Mutiny or Clustercuss. Mutiny Mutiny was Marc's contribution and I'm not actually sure where it came from. I'm glad it won out though. It's the better name.
Marc: It kind of came out of nowhere. I guess I just thought it sounded catchy.
2. What type of band are you?
We're an angular, sometimes noisy post-punk band.
3. Tell us the brief history of your band.
Jason: I've been trying to get a band like this going forever. I put out a musician's classified ad in early 2009 and Marc answered. We played together for a bit, tried out a bunch of different bass players and thought we might just have to be a two piece. Jenn used to play bass and said she'd be interested in trying to play with us. It clicked right away and we've been plugging away ever since.
Marc: Ya, the chemistry was pretty immediate; within two months together, we wrote eight songs. We started playing shows around Seattle in early 2010, and recorded our first full-length record, Constellation, later that year.
4. Who are your musical and non-musical influences?
Marc: Our musical influences are post-hardcore and post-punk bands like Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Jawbox , Hoover, Mission of Burma, and stuff like that.
Jason: Ya, Marc and I both grew up listening to lots of 90s stuff from DC and Olympia on record labels like Dischord and Kill Rock Stars. I listen to a lot of different music and we all have pretty diverse musical backgrounds but this band is kind of about keeping in the spirit of that sound. I read a lot of modern poetry and that sneaks its way in sometimes. I think, generally, most musicians have pieces from whatever is going on in their lives consciously or subconsciously winding up in their music too.
Marc: Left-leaning politics and activism, contemporary poetry and philosopy, and the DIY community are definitely influences for me as well.
Jenn: My background is as a cellist, so I guess classical music is an influence for me. A lot of my bass lines are pretty melodic.
5. Who writes the songs, what are they about?
Jenn: We write all of our songs together, although they usually start with whatever bass line pops into my head. I do come up with vocal melodies and harmonies for some songs, but I really don’t do much lyric writing. I kind of hate that part about song writing, actually. Marc and Jason are much better at it so I leave that part to them.
Marc: Our songs are about a lot of different things. Everything from current events and politics ("Oil and Water" was written around the time of the BP oil spill in 2010) to our daily work lives ("Close of Business") to relationships ("Some Fresh Disaster") to nothing in particular (sometimes it's a bunch of words thrown together that simply sound nice, like "Villanelle").
Jason: I had a couple of songs kicking around that I wrote early on that wound up on the first record. What are my words are about? Well, that could take a while to go into here. Mostly they are reflections on and reactions to what is going on in my world and the world at large.
6. How about the single you currently have available can you tell me a little about it?
Jason: This was our most recent song at the time we recorded the record. Jenn and I came up with the vocal parts in the studio by letting the song roll and trying out different ideas. I used some words that I had a written for a different song that I thought might work for this one. Good thing they did because that was all I had at the time. I kind of lifted a bunch of them from ideas in the book, The Revolution Of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem.
7. What inspires you to do what you do?
Jason: Not to go on a complete nostalgia trip but I got exposed to some amazing bands and saw pretty intense shows early on that really inspired me. Seeing a band like Fugazi when you're 16 or 17 years old is pretty powerful. There are still some great bands that are passionate about what they do but seeing a band like that with no pretense give that much in a performance is pretty incredible. I feel like we're trying to capture some of the energy and spirit of bands like Fugazi, Nation of Ulysses, Sleater-Kinney and a lot of the bands happening in the mid, late 90s, early 2000s that you don't hear on "indie" rock radio or see when a lot of newer bands are playing.
Jenn: What Jason said. Also, I lead a bit of a left-brain existence at work and in the rest of my life, so music for me is a really cathartic counter-balance to that.
Marc: I love music, both listening to and performing it. It’s in my blood, and is something I likely will never stop doing in some form or another. We enjoy challenging ourselves to write songs we hope other folks will love as much as the music of the bands we love.8. What’s new in the recording of your music?
Jason: When we recorded “Constellation”, we looked for a really good-sounding room (Soundhouse Studios) and recorded to tape, so there isn’t really anything new about that. Our producer, Brandon Busch, is really on top of his game though so I think he was able to take the old school approach but keep things cool and modern in the mixes. On a more general level we wear our influences on our sleeves a bit but I don't think we're totally rehashing things that you've heard before. I like to think we keep things rooted in the past but still moving forward with our own individual take on math rock, post-punk, post-hardcore, whatever you want to call it.
9. What do you plan to do to celebrate the upcoming holidays?
Marc: My girlfriend and some of my other close friends are Jewish, so the holidays for me are usually a mix of Hanukkah and Jewish Christmas (going out for Chinese food and a movie on Christmas Day).
Jason: Holidays are pretty mellow for Jenn and me. Our families are in the Seattle area so we hang out with them. My Mom makes a ton of Christmas cookies every year. Our new puppy just turned six months old and it's her first Christmas so that's pretty fun.
Jenn: Jason and I also just bought our house earlier this year, so it has been really cool to put up some full-blown Christmas decorations for the first time. And yes, Christmas cookies. His Mom’s Christmas cookies are epic.
10. What can we expect to see from Mutiny Mutiny in the New Year?
Jason: We're working on writing a bunch of new stuff that is taking us in some new directions. Our first songs were great and happened pretty organically but we're really working on pushing ourselves to be as good as we can be. We've been thinking about the parts of each song, what and how we're playing and tweaking things until we feel like they're the best songs they can be. Once we've got a solid batch of new stuff we'll probably be heading back in the studio with Brandon and cranking out a new album.
Marc: We also want to maybe do a West Coast tour and try to do some local festival gigs.
11. Is that your final answer?
Jason: For now. Hopefully we'll be chatting again in the future, though. Thanks for your time and interest in our band.
Jenn: And Happy Holidays to you and your readers!
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