Barely a year since forming in Leicester, and already The Mai 68s have wowed crowds across the country with their pop-filled noise, stand-up-drums and sugar-coated chaos. And all this without owning a working stereo between them! We're joined by their guitarist Jon to find out about ninja hair straightening, 13th century churches and how to get a free lift to the festival...Hiya Jon, please tell us a little bit about The Mai 68s?
We’ve only been around for about a year as a band, but so far it’s been a bit of a whirlwind one, meeting loads of really nice people/bands and working with people who have inspired us to be in a band. We are a four piece band, formed out of a shared love of the Jesus and Mary Chain, MBV, Shop Assistants, Boo Radleys, Postcard Records and similar.
The band is comprised of Julie – Vocals, Jeremy – Stand Up Drums and Ninja Hair straightening skills, Zac – Bass, and me (Jon) - Guitars. Our first single will be out shortly on Cloudberry Records called ‘Froth on the Daydream’; produced by Joe Foster of creation fame, soon to be followed by a 7” single and our album.
Two singles and an album - sounds like you're keeping yourselves pretty busy?
Yes, the next stage in our plan of world domination is to finish recording the album in Glasgow with ‘Slaughter’ Joe Foster and release it to world wide acclaim and Beatlemania style devotion….. Well that’s the plan at least…. I guess the idea is to tour, including Berlin; Norway and a gig in a 13th Century Church; so we can meet new people, so they can hear us and make up their own minds and to continue writing new material for the album.
What's going to be on your compilation tapes as you travel down to Indietracks?
Compilation tape??? That would mean we had a working stereo between us…. Usually we rely on whatever is lying around, so it varies quite considerably…. In fact thinking about it the last time we travelled to Sheffield we were listening to the Wu Tang Clan as it was the only CD my mate had that wasn’t hard house….In and ideal world it would be a combination of all our tastes, so indiepop, 60s psych/garage/pop, classic era indie (the Fanclub, MBV, early Ride) or new wave/punk like the Ramones, Suzy and Los Quattro, the Clash or the Stooges. Realistically as my mate Matt is gonna drive us down it will be wall to wall Wedding Present as he is a massive fan and has only agreed to drive us so he gets in free……
Do you have any surprises planned for the festival?
Seeing as how we are one of the newest bands on the bill and will have only released one/two singles by the time of the festival then I guess the whole set will be a surprise to the majority of people there, particularly if they have not seen us live and have only heard the mp3s. It would be nice to try and do something with some of the other bands on the bill, such as the Bobby McGees (who I have known for years) or perhaps bring along some friends to add to the sound. That said we are already incredibly noisy on stage anyway and incredibly un-organised so we’ll probably cause enough chaos on our own…
Sounds great! Thanks very much Jon.
Before the festival, you can also catch The Mai 68s playing numerous Leicester dates, including a show with Indietracks star and Youtube legend MJ Hibbett on 22 May. And in the meantime, the band have also left us with a free MP3 to download.
Free MP3 Download: The Mai 68s - I am Javanese
Next up: Indie-pop-punk with a kiss on the cheek and a kick in the shin - it's Town Bike
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