Photos by Jessica Gurewitz
Fresh off back-to-back and wildly successful UK and East Coast tours, Mini Mansions took a brief pause before heading back out on the road again in support of the upcoming release of their third full length album Guy Walks Into A Bar on July 26th. Alt Citizen caught up with Michael Shuman to discuss the band’s new record, their personal writing and DIY recording processes, and what it’s like headlining their own tours.
Aliens land they have no concept of what music is. How would you describe Mini Mansions’ sound to these visitors from another planet?
Michael Shuman: Out of this world! I think I would ask them to look up the history of rock n roll and pop music and then take it to Mars and listen up there and see what it sounds like and that’s what Mini Mansions would sound like.
Let’s talk about the new album. It’s out July 26 and it’s called Guy Walks Into A Bar, which is a timeless opening to some of the best bad jokes ever. Is there going to be some level of humor we can expect on the album or does the title have some kind of a deeper meaning?
Michael:The title has a deeper meaning and it’s actually a serious sentiment into the rest of the record. With Mini Mansions we always like to keep a sense of humor throughout a record. Songs, lyrics, even arrangements because, number one, we like comedy and, number two, I don’t think any rock band should really take themselves too seriously. I think there is a fine line with that. I think it’s a mistake. If you do otherwise you end up coming off like 30 Seconds To Mars or something and so I think that’s important.
And you know, we laugh our way through making records and touring so I think there would be no chance for it not to make its way onto our records. When you’re talking about serious subject matter like this record you got to do it with a smile.
“Hey Lover”, the single that you just released with Alison Mosshart, there’s some humorous back and forth in the dialogue but there is that darker undercurrent
Michael: Yeah, that’s the thing about the record. It’s all nonfiction and it’s all very serious to me because, except for some stuff from Tyler [Parkford], it’s all coming from me and real emotions and experiences. But yeah, like I said, do it with a smile on and I think it does come across better.
Let’s talk about the evolution of Mini Mansions as a band. Some of your early work leaned pretty heavily into off-kilter psychedelia. Great Pretenders had a lot of that trippy vibe but it was also a little slicker, a little kind of slippery underneath. So where are you guys going with Guy Walks Into A Bar? How does that previous work speak to the new album?
Michael: The one thing for us, and I hope for most bands and artists out there, is to always be evolving and always have forward motion and be progressing with all aspects, whether that’s your writing or your recording process. I think in the past those first two records, and jumping from the first record to The Great Pretenders, the lyrics became a little more focused and a little less psychedelic whereas Guy Walks Into A Bar is very matter of fact, just taking feelings and thoughts and putting them directly onto paper and directly onto the recording.
The other part is sonically. The first two records played with a lot of space, not just in the arrangements but also sonically the way we recorded in bigger rooms and using microphone techniques to use natural reverberations. Rooms that you can hear on the recordings. This record we wanted people to focus on the lyrics because we thought they were the most important we’ve ever written.
We’d wanted to make sure that the music was also very tight and vacuous and in a small space, so we actually built the room. We recorded the drums and bass, all the instruments and vocals, and it was a very small room. You can have fake reverb and fake spaces but we wanted that to be very tight so it’s basically pasted on your face and there’s no really escaping the lyrical content.
I can feel that sense of immediacy when you listen to the first couple singles, it has a vibe you really can’t avoid, kind of like the cover of the album. It’s inviting but also a little bit unsettling. Was that intentional, too, that the cover art represents some of that sound?
Michael: I think it represents a lot of things, you know, about becoming a little slicker. Yes, the production has become slicker, especially on this record, but to me my vocabulary wasn’t about making it slicker. It was more about making it sound more futuristic. “Guy walks into a bar” is a classic phrase and start of a joke but using that door and making it feel like you’re entering this other world, hopefully a futuristic world, was definitely part of the thought process behind the art. Trying to meld the old world with a world that is unknown to any of us, again like describing Mini Mansions, it’s where we stem from.
Last year you released the EP Works Every Time. How closely does the sound and style from Works Every Time align with the sound and style of Guy Walks Into A Bar? Are they complementary or are they standalone releases?
Michael: We recorded the record first. The EP came after because we had these other songs that we really wanted to record that didn’t really fit the record. We also just felt like we needed, as a band, to go to the studio again and record more songs to kind of get our shit together, to come together and be on the same page as a unit. But they were all recorded in the same studio, same engineer, same gear, basically. They’re an extension of each other and they complement each other, yet I feel like all the songs on the record and all the songs on the EP are really, I mean think about us as a band, our record’s going to be a little bit schizophrenic because there are no rules about what kind of songs Mini Mansions can write and record. I think that’s the most freeing and liberating way to approach a record and your songwriting.
Like This Bullet; we can write a post-punk song and then we can have a ballad like Hey Lover and we can have a pop song like I’m In Love. I think having no rules just leaves your world open and there’s endless possibilities. So, yes, they complement each other but I think every song stands on its own.
As individuals you guys are all in or have collaborated with bands and artists across the musical spectrum. How much of those experiences influence Mini Mansions’ sound and songwriting?
Michael: Hopefully completely! I grew up on The Beatles then when I was about 7 or 8 years old I found out about punk rock and fell in love so I don’t want to leave any of my influences behind. I think they should all be a part of what you do and I think working with other musicians and artists and bands, or touring with whoever you tour with, I think it’s a mistake to not keep your eyes and ears open and learn something from all those experiences. Then hopefully take them with you and use them in another project like Mini Mansions.
I tend to pick up little pieces of information from everywhere and any person I come in contact with, whether that’s a sound guy or a crew member on a certain tour. I think you’d be very ignorant to not learn from all those things.
You’ve worked with some pretty recognizable names featured on the past records like Brian Wilson, Alex Turner, Alison Mosshart on the new record. How do those collaborations come about? Do you write songs with specific guests in mind?
Michael: All the songs we write are not geared towards any other people besides the three of us. Any of these songs we’ve written and then had collaborators come in on, they’re just written by us and then down the line there might be an idea that I guess the track needs a different voice, and that could be a musical voice. It doesn’t have to be actual vocals. Then we’ll think about it and implement someone into that.
Fortunately, I’ve been blessed with having a lot of supporters and fans since I was young and living in L.A. and a lot of people helped me out along the way. I’ve met a lot of people from early on and joining Queens [Of The Stone Age] when I was 21 was a big stepping stone for me. I met a lot of people the first couple years and I continue to meet a lot of cool people.
So most of that is just friendships that you develop and besides someone like Brian Wilson (who actually I’ve still never met), people like Alex and Alison, they’re just the friends that I think it’s important to trust in any collaboration.
We had these ideas and then thought OK, we need someone that we know can deliver this and give an honest interpretation of whatever we’re thinking. We rarely seek out people just because we want a “feature,” you know, it’s more just like an idea that we have that needs something that we can’t physically do, like Alison. I knew [Hey Lover] was written as a conversation between a man and woman so we needed someone. Although Tyler does sing Alison’s part live which is funny as well.
Even though you write without necessarily thinking about a specific person, if you were to collaborate specifically do you have any dream collaborations?
Michael: You know, I never think about that. I guess the only people that we’ve talked about doing something with and I feel like we will in the future, and we have played together but we haven’t made a song together, I’d love to do something with Sparks.
We covered one of their songs on the last record and ended up meeting them and they asked us to be their backup band. They’re one of our favorite bands of all time and I think that as far as our ethos and also how people view us and Sparks is very similar. I think that we write pop songs but they’re a little off-kilter and so some people just cannot wrap their heads around it. I think that we kind of get each other in that way.
And also, I look up to them and their career. They’re 70 years old now and they are still going and still very inspiring. They keep touring and making music, so I’d love to do something with them.
Going way back to your left field and very excellent cover of Blondie’s Heart of Glass in 2010 and then you covered Edwyn Collins’ on last year’s EP, you don’t do a lot of covers but they feel like natural parts of Mini Mansions’ lineup. How do you choose songs to add the Mini Mansions spin to? Is it favorites from way back or just something that kind of happens and you think it might be cool to kind of mess around with?
Michael: I don’t personally love doing cover songs, so maybe that’s why we haven’t done too many, but the reason we did Heart Of Glass was we’d just started being a band and we’d written a handful of tunes and our friends Autolux asked us to go on tour with them. Because we hadn’t played any shows and really didn’t have any recordings we thought the best way to kind of connect with an audience that has never heard of you and don’t know any of your songs would be to do a cover song so there’s some kind of familiarity there for the audience to connect with.
That’s why we did Heart of Glass. When we did it, and when we do any cover songs, the idea is to flip it on its head and for us to come out of it feeling like this could be our song. Now we have some ownership in this song, at least the way we covered it. So, a song Heart Of Glass just had to be interesting, to do like a Velvet Underground-almost version of that song because it’s such a classic.
It was funny for the first couple years we played that song live people would always come up like “I love that Beatles cover that you did!” That’s kind of the thing, it’s like they knew it was something but they couldn’t figure out how they knew it. Or they’re just a bunch of dumb-dumbs, I don’t know, but they just knew that they knew it but they couldn’t figure out how and that was the best response. That’s the reason we do it. And just to make sure that they ended up selling Mini Mansions songs!
2019 has been a big year for the band. So far you guys had international dates at the beginning of the year, you just wrapped up an East Coast tour, you’re doing a West Coast tour pretty soon, and the new album out July 26. How has the energy been at the shows so far? Any standout moments? Are fans reacting well to the new material?
Michael Shuman: The tour we just did in the UK and East Coast are by far the best shows we’ve ever done, I think, for a couple of reasons. Now that I don’t have to play drums anymore, I’m able to play guitar and front the show. Having Jon Theodore on drums has opened up our world. It’s a completely different show than we’ve ever done before over the last 10 years. It’s a lot more exciting, it’s a lot more dynamic.
I think people are connecting with that and also with the new songs. We also realize, like, “oh we’ve done a couple headline tours” and then we’re like “oh shit we haven’t!” We’ve done a handful of headlining dates in between support dates but these are our first real headlining tours and they’ve been amazing. The fans have been amazing. The turnout, reaction, people singing the words, it means everything. It’s making it all worthwhile, all the work we’ve done over the years.
Are there any dates in particular you’re really looking forward to? Favorite cities to play?
Michael: We haven’t played L.A. in maybe four years and it’s our hometown so it seems a little silly, but also it’s going to end this whole tour on [June] 28th. I’m really excited for that, it’s sold out. Just to come back home and play there, I’m really excited about. Then we go right back out and support Muse in Europe. I’ve never supported on a stadium level so that’s going to be a trip and I’m really looking forward to that, too.
You personally have a lot of experience touring with big, stadium sized projects. What’s the transition like, going from doing those really massive tours to touring with Mini Mansions? Is there a big shift?
Michael: It’s shocking at first but then I got so used to it. It’s weird because when you play arenas and stadiums there is a bit of a disconnect because [the audience] so far away from you. It’s almost like a bunch of dots, and my vision isn’t so great. It is a little hard to connect, you do a lot of work to try to connect to these people. Playing in these small venues, I mean, I fucking hate barriers so if there’s a barrier in a small place we immediately get it removed. I want to be able to touch the crowd and have them touch me and sweat on each other.
It is a big shift but now I’m so used to it that I can’t imagine not being able to have that really intense connection with the audience. Not saying I don’t want to gain more fans and play bigger rooms, but I’m having a great time doing this.
Have fans ever given you gifts on tour and what’s the best thing you have ever been gifted?
Michael Shuman: Yeah, I’ve gotten a lot of gifts. Art works, which is really cool. I’ve gotten custom pics with my face on them. I think the best gift I ever got was last year on the Queens [Of The Stone Age] tour. This one girl put it together but a bunch of fans all over the world made me a real hardback book for my birthday with photos of shows, me with fans, and a bunch of different anecdotes and stories and thank-yous from fans. It’s about a 30-page book, so it was really special. It meant a lot, I never got that nice of a gift from anyone before then that.
Top five releases of 2019 so far that you’re really digging. Doesn’t have to be in order.
Michael: This is a tough one. I don’t know if it came out in 2019, Street Worms from the band Viagra Boys, that was one of my favorites. I’m really digging that new Yak record, it’s called Pursuit of Momentary Happiness. I just listened to the new record Serfs Up! from the band Fat White Family, I think that one’s really cool. This is the hardest one for me! Did the Spiritualized record come out this year or last year? And Nothing Hurt, I love that record. Oh shit. You might do a top three for me, man.
Top three is still pretty solid. Any shout-outs you’d like to make, any thank-yous or recommendations or anything else you’d like to add?
Michael: The only thing I can think about is just feeling very grateful for everyone, all our fans that have come out to all the shows this year so far. It means everything because you go into it, it could be a disaster and I could come out feeling defeated but I’ve come back home feeling pretty good and feeling pretty good about where we are. It’s really just all about them and supporting us.
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