I recently chatted with Ben Ellingworth, drummer of Sydney quartet MM9. The recently, finally, released their debut LP “The Air Between”. We chat about the new album and life on the road. Special thanks to David Young, who contributed to our questions.
Congratulations on the release of your debut album “The Air Between” – it has been a long time coming! Can you tell us a bit about the process of putting the album together?
Cheers! It was a lot of writing on the road and trying out tracks live, it was a great way to see what worked and what didn’t, we would just sneak a new track in the set and see how people reacted, really helped cull the songs back to the final track listing. We had a space for 8 weeks leading up to recording where all our gear was, so we could just get in and nut out the last pieces before going in to start tracking. Most of tracks start from a synth or programmed idea so most of that side was done before anything else.
We did all Drums and Bass at Electric Ave in Camperdown, Sydney and then Guitars and Vox in another studio called 456. The tracking came together really quick, the mixing was a little trickier as we had to do it via email with Mike B in New York, originally we had a budget for us to go over and be there to do it, but un-forseen changes in the Aussie dollar made it impossible, so we would wake up in the morning with 7 or 8 emails from Mike all containing different mix versions and we would have to sit down go through it make notes and then correlate it all into one email at a time. Was certainly an interesting experience to say the least.
How did the process compare to your earlier recordings, such as the They Murder EP?
Each recording process for us has been a completely different journey, each time we have approached it differently,with The Air Between we had a much bigger budget to be able to stretch out a little and really get into sounds and try out some cool things. Different amps, drums, synths, etc etc, i had a bunch of really different drums in there for example, had an old vintage kit to record some live loops so that instead of just programming loops i could jump on a kit and create them myself, then dump them through a bunch of effects and chop them up to grab to create the final loop.
Dan has always been at the helm of a lot of the production side, with all his remix work he has done for us and the likes of Cog, DLC, Preshrunk, Silverchair, he was able to really get stuck into some pretty amazing and subtle programming, its what keeps this such a fun album, if you chuck it through a loud stereo its a straight up fun simple Pop album, if you listen through headphones you hear some really amazing intricate stuff within. We also had Evan McHugh recording and co producing and finally the awesome Mike Barbiero (Metallica, Anthrax, Guns’n Roses, Thrice, Cypress Hill) Mixing and really putting so much love into it. We learnt so much in making this album, and will be using these lessons for the next one
I imagine you’d been playing many of the songs live for quite some time – but now that you’re on tour with the album, is there a notably difference in the crowds response to the tracks?
Yeah, absolutely, even something as simple as having the lyrics printed within the inside cover has been incredible for crowd participation, This tour so far Dan has had that mic out in the crowd so much especially on tracks like “They murder” and Celebrate the failure”, its something that i think a whole bunch of people who aren’t that interested in pouring over album covers will miss out on in the download age. I personally hope that kids will stay interested in getting lost in complete albums, rather than just grabbing the one single off the album and discarding the rest. People have had a bit of time with the album now and you can see people react to new parts of the set. Its been great.
The songs themselves are a lot poppier than earlier work. What were some of the major influences during the album’s creation?
The influence for this album really came from each other, and our excitement for writing whatever comes naturally, there is such a broad cross spectrum of music we listen to in our personal lives but very little of that enters MM9’s music. I think that if anything its been discovering new sounds through synths, pedals, samples etc etc that is currently inspiring us to write music. There isn’t anything wrong with drawing on other artists music for the sake of lifting writers block or for getting the creative juices flowing, but for us its more about not worrying about whats happening over the back fence and just concentrating on what we are doing in our own backyard.
Is there a different energy to the live performances of the songs as opposed to their recorded versions?
I think there will always be a larger passion for the live take on our music. The style really lends itself to a different interpretation live. Our kind of energy is very hard to capture on tape, MM9 isn’t a standard 4 piece rock band that can just press record with everyone in a room and grab that live experience, there are other layers and its very much about frequencies sitting just right to give space and depth but also still have the compression in your face you need for a bang’n electro track. The live take on the tracks will always have sharper teeth to the recorded stuff. There is some discussion about a live album in the future.
Favourite songs to perform live from the new album?
Devil once said is a fave, its the one we close with most of the time, SOSOS is a real fun part of the set, generally evokes a fair amount of crowd participation, i actually still really love Disappear from view, which is an older track but is just flat out from the get go, really allows me to open up and let all the pent up drum n bass angst come out. Its a style that i really love, i guess its my preferred style of drumming, got really hooked on it when i was in the UK about 11 years ago, and whenever i get the chance I’ll rip some out.
Did you ever fear possibly polarising fans of your older work with your new material?
I don’t think it’s something that any band that wants to move forward can be too concerned with, I mean we don’t want to isolate fans of the first 2 EP’s but at the same time for our own mental stability and musical expression you gotta keep progressing. Its certainly not as heavy as the first E.P but its a natural progression for us.
How do you view Australia’s current live rock music scene? Where do you feel your band comes into the fold in relation to it?
There is a lot of local stuff that we are all loving at the moment bands like K-Oscillate, LO, Dead Letter Circus, Sailmaker, Wolves, We Lost the Sea, Metals, MM9 fits in to all and non. Its always been that way for us but it allows us to cross over to other demographics, being able to remix our set to do gigs like Hardwars indoors alongside the likes of Neophyte and Dj Scott Brown in front of 2000 purist hardcore rave fans or cranking up the gain a little and doing festivals alongside full on metal bands is the main inspiration and the whole purpose of this band.
And going back to the current tour, can you fill us in on how it’s been going so far, and what/where you’re looking forward to as you continue to travel around the country?
This version of the live show is really killer I think!, its more energetic than before, its always evolving with adding new bits and pieces,As always we will be traveling our laptops and ways to create on the road so it may change as we go but i think the people will be loving the vibe of what we are delivering.
I note, too, that you’ve got Electric Horse and Jerrico on board for much of the tour – how’d they come into the fold?
Electric Horse are just a straight up killer rock band, we have been mates with Jas and Dane from the Sunk Loto days and the other guys from the bands Lump and King Mungi, amazing live band with songs that just kill! EH’s new EP is going to blow everyone away, its really good! Jerrico and MM9 have been doing shows together pretty solidly for the past year and have become super close friends of ours, they are fast becoming a real force and are doing their EP at the moment as well which I’m sure will be awesome.
I’d like to end the interview by asking you – who’s playing on your iPods when you’re on the road? Who should we all be listening to? … aside from MM9, of course.
We all have pretty different tastes, Not sure what the other guys are into at the moment? I’m listening to loads of different stuff, The Notwist, Pinback, American Football,Metals, Lali Puna, Jesu, Immortal Techniques, Kool Keith, Iron Maiden, Depeche Mode, Propagandhi, Thievery Corporation, Infected Mushroom, The new Deftones is pretty killer! actually that pretty much covers the kind of stuff we are listening to a the moment, hahaha! That’s just me, but I know the other guys are along the same vein give or take a few.
MM9 are on the road, touring nationally. Their debut album is in stores now.
Find out more at their official Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/mmnine
