Mother Island | Interview
Mother Island collected 10 fresh jangle songs they recorded at Outside Inside Studio right after their tour along the West Coast. With California still in their heart, the band grew wiser, and tried to put some italianness in this brand new work. After all, they never concealed their love for 60s Italian movies and vibes à la Morricone can certainly be heard along the tracks.
“All that happened between is about hitting the road to promote our previous album while keeping up the writing sessions of the new one”
You have a brand new album out via Go Down Records. What’s the story behind making ‘Motel Rooms’?
During the recording sessions of ‘Wet Moon’, Nicolò spent a couple of nights alone in Matt’s Outside Inside Studio. On one evening he didn’t know how to spend his time there and switched on the old Fender Super Reverb he was using for the sessions, plugged his guitar in and the theme from ‘And We All Seem To Fall To Pieces Alone’ came out: the writing process of ‘Motel Rooms’ started back then. The last details of the lyrics saw the light in a motel room in Los Angeles, right before our US tour kicked in: Anita was trying to adjust some verses she wasn’t satisfied with while having some relaxing time in Fairfax. A California sunset probably helped her getting the lyrics ready, the day after we played our first American show. All that happened between is about hitting the road to promote our previous album while keeping up the writing sessions of the new one, it took a lot of energy but it was total fun.
“We were seeking a certain isolation and we spent a couple of weeks far from everything.”
Can you share some further details how your latest album was recorded?
‘Motel Rooms’ was recorded at Outside Inside Studio by Matt Bordin. We have always worked with him since the project exist but this time things were different: Matt moved in his new studio just a few months before, an incredible place lost in the woods near Treviso. We were seeking a certain isolation and we spent a couple of weeks far from everything. That was what we needed to work properly on our new album. Thinking about those days today sounds quite ironic.
The sound of your newest LP is quite different.
We brought our sound to a slightly different direction. This time we had some clearer intentions: we wanted our surf-oriented influences to be more revealed, plus we tried to put some Italiannessin a work strongly shaped by our love for California.
What would you say are some of the similarities with ‘Wet Moon’ and ‘Cosmic Pyre’, your previous releases?
There’s not much in common with ‘Cosmic Pyre’, while ‘Wet Moon’ can be seen as a preparatory work for what was to come: at that time (between ‘Cosmic Pyre’ and ‘Wet Moon’) we were trying to sharpen our song-writing to build something more direct. Since the writing process of ‘Wet Moon’ we stepped on that path and didn’t get back. For ‘Motel Rooms’ things were similar but we feel like we improved ourselves doing this: writing a bunch of jingle jangle pop songs, with easier structures and a strong impact.
How do you usually approach music making and what are some of the influences?
We approach music making in different ways, some songs are the result of improvisational jamming in our rehearsal room and some others are constructed around a specific and accurate idea. The goal, on the other hand, is always to make something that can have a strong imaginative impact. Our influences come from many different fields: the music we listen, the movies we watch, a landscape…everything.
How are you coping with the current world situation?
We’re just trying the best we can to stay positive, things are quite dark nowadays especially for the music industry (and art in general). All of a sudden we all had to face the fact that what we do is not considered essential: musicians, promoters, producers, artists, sound engineers (and the list goes on) are all in a temporary limbo and no one knows when this strange time will end. We had the chance to play some live shows lately but things are weird as hell and now another huge stop seems to be behind the corner. What we can do is to focus on the amount of work which stays out of sight so that we can be ready once this situation will come to an end.
Are any of you involved in any other bands or do you have any active side-projects going on at this point?
When we got together any of us came from different projects, lately we’ve been focusing almost 100% of our energies on Mother Island.
Let’s end this interview with some of your favorite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?
Wow, that’s a tough one. Well, some of our timeless favourite albums are the Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’, the Beach Boys’ ‘Pet Sound’s, The s/t The Velvet Underground, the Electric Toilet’s ‘In The Hands Of Karma’, Terry Reid’s ‘Seed Of Memory’, Brian Eno’s ‘Music For Airports’. Talking about modern stuff, we loved both the albums from Alexandra Savior and we’ve been listening to a lot Ariel Pink, John Maus and Connan Mockasin!
Thank you. Last word is yours.
Thanks to you for the interview. We love the good work you’ve been keeping up and it’s been a pleasure for us being featured on It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine! Cheers!
Klemen Breznikar
Mother Island Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp / Spotify
Go Down Records Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Bandcamp
