An Interview with Moscow Metro.
After months of anticipation, Moscow Metro are finally releasing the follow-up to their highly acclaimed debut EP ‘Spirit of a City‘”’. The two new tracks are part of an upcoming series of releases: the band is planning to release two songs each month. I asked them a few question about their release plans, Berlin and their tour in Germany.
So it’s nearly a year since the release of your Spirit of a City EP. What happened in the last few months?
SC: After the release of our first EP we did some shows around Ireland, and last summer we did our first international tour in Germany. It was great, we sold out a show in Stuttgart actually, in a WWII bunker which was a surreal experience. We had intended to release three EP’s last year but we disbanded around September when our lead singer left.
I wanted to finish the songs that I had written and so did Dylan and Holmes so thats what we did. The new songs are great. Our plan is to release two tracks every month this year, so ‘Late Night Radio’ and ‘Berlin Prayer’ are the first two.
One thing that I didn’t like about the old band is how long it took to release a track, and how much time it took. I would prefer to be more like Guided by Voices and release songs all the time.
You gave me a hint that you’re about to release several singles over the next few weeks. I’m really excited about this news. Can you tell us a little bit more about this?
SC:Yeah as I mentioned, We will release 2 songs a month for 2015, unless we sign and deal and that requires us to tour or something, other than that we can do what ever we want seen as we are putting it out independently. It suits us to do it this way. I have been reading a lot of articles lately about how music have become a hobby for the middle class. Thats seem the be the way it is, the music scene here is very passive and gutless, and fame seeking. Labels are buying into that, saves them risking their own money I suppose. The best reaction to that is to ignore the industry and do what ever you want.
DC: Starting this week we are releasing two new singles ‘Late Night Radio’ and ‘Berlin Prayer’, and are already about halfway through the next release which should be out in February sometime. It think the new music shows a more confident side to the band. A certain kind of freedom comes when you start embracing imperfections and just let the music evolve naturally, and I’m excited to hear what our fans think of the new material.
What about an album? Will there be one in the near future?
SC: If we were to do an album now you wouldnt hear any of it until June and we don’t want to wait. If we have released 12 songs by then people can just track list them what ever way they want.
One of your new songs will be called “Berlin Prayer”. As an ex-Berliner I’m quite interested to hear what this song’s about.
SC: Ich bin ein Berliner. Its a cool city. We played a show there in the Karrera club and we had a few days off. So naturally it being the first leg of our tour, we planned not to stay out too late. I think I got home at four, with our lead singer Barry, who was absolutely intoxicated, we had to convince the taxi driver he wasn’t gonna get sick in the taxi before he took us. As for Dylan and Holmes they showed up around 10 the next morning.
We walked around Berlin a lot and we were trying to figure out what the massive graffiti on the buildings meant. We kept seeing the same word ‘pimmel’ over and over. We thought it was some kind of political or artistic statement. Some one told us at the Maifeld Derby that pimmel meant penis.
I haven’t answered your question here really ha ha. The song makes references to Berlin, suppose it was cool time, as opposed to the time I was in when I wrote it, which was a bad time.
So do you like Berlin?
DC: I will always have a special place for the city of Berlin, it was where I first saw our name up in lights.
SC:Yeah we all loved it. Great beer, great music scene, great clubs, people were cool. We only met one person we didn’t like, and he was eccentric so it was a funny experience. We met him on the last night in berlin in this really cool bar. It had a pool table and great music and bar guy was especially cool and friendly. This other guy claimed to be a writer and thanked us for Irish neutrality in the war. He was steaming drunk and telling us how many beautiful women he had been with and great lectures he had given. Really weird guy, kinda like Du pont in the movie Foxcatcher come to think of it.
What about your tour in Germany? What were your impressions? Do you have any stories, fairy tales or legends to share with us?
SC: We loved Germany. Its kind of a haze, we ended up in a bar one night playing really heavy African hip hop and talking to some guy named Falco about how many knife fights he had been in, and all the while someones thesis or PHD or something was left on the table beside us, and this like 3 o’clock in the morning. I went home after that. Dylan and Holmes carried on, so maybe they have more of a story.
DC: I think what struck me the most, was how genuine and outgoing everyone was to us. Strangers who are now friends literally opened their doors to us to cook and give us somewhere to throw our head down, which after driving some days consecutively for 12 hours or more was what kept us alive.
What gets you most excited for the rest of 2015?
SC: We are excited to release a lot of new material in the next few months, thats the main focus, and we will take the rest as it comes.
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Head over to bandcamp to grab your copy of ‘Berlin Prayer’ and ‘Late Night Radio’. Both are fantastic songs!
Originally published at nicorola.de
