Mercury Switch Interview
Mercury Switch has a new album out on Indianola Records. They're a good band. So we interviewed them.
Tell me about your new album, Time To Shine... How did the recording go? What songs stand out to you? What changes in your sound can we expect? What inspired any specific songs that have an interesting angle?
The recording went awesome! Jim at Zing Studios is the man for sure. He made us sound awesome and all heavy, just like we asked. So for this record, the music itself is a lot heavier and faster, and the quality is right up there with all the Zing Studios releases we have all come to know, and love. We also played a lot of poker and ate a lot of pizza in the studio which is a lot of fun, and nice...
The last 'song' is this big long metal song called "Invitation Of The Reaper," that goes all over the place. It actually has 5 different tracks with in the song, Its a lot of fun to listen to. It covers every kind of part and sound we do in this band, and then some. And it has a crazy good butt rock part half way through! Oh, and for an interesting angle song? Lets just say we wrote a fun song about a werewolf...
What experiences touring in the past year or so have impacted you (in a
positive or negative way)? What are some funny road stories or mishaps that
you'd like to share?
Our summer tour last year was the craziest tour ever. Anything and everything that could have happened did. From the good to the bad and everything in between. Including such highlights as our old van dying in Seattle (that's the complete opposite side of the country for us...). Sold out shows where we got a crazy good response, and then in Florida the hurricane cancelled ALL of our Florida shows and we were stuck in Baton Rouge for 5 days. Some stuff sucks, but if you can get through the bad and learn from it, its all good. And then on the plus side, we have a lot of fun on tour. We have way too many funny stories to even get started. But lets just say one night on and overnight drive, Gabe (our good friend and fill in tour bass player at the time) and I were trying out hardest to stay awake, while everyone else was sleeping. So we listened to the Maroon 5 cd all night and just mooned cars and trucks and we drove by them on the highway. I don't know if anyone could see anything or not. But we were cracking up laughing all night, and it helped us stay awake!
If Mercury Switch was in charge of the Grammy Awards, who would win for
Best Band? Best Album? Best Solo Artist? Best Album Cover Art (our own
new category)? Why?
Tough question! Maybe Meshuggah for best band, because they can do anything and everything that is metal. Best album, maybe Killswitch Engage The End of Heartache. That is a solid album start to finish, and the quality is super good. Solo artist, maybe MC Awesome because he is king of the rap kingdom. Cover art, Extol's last album, Synergy, was pretty cool.
How do you see the fusion of faith and art in your music?
Of course, that fusion is basically all in the lyrics. A lot of our songs are about events in personal lives, how these events are affected by our beliefs and vice-verse. Time to Shine has a few songs about how we can act quite lethargic at times, or all the time. There's a lot of positivity in this album, as far as 'taking the hand you are delt' and making more than the best out of it.
What tunes/music are firing you up these days? Please explain (why or how, if possible)...
For metal and hard core- Misery Signals, The Red Chord, Between The Buried And Me, Children Of Bodom, Hatebreed, and The Acacia Strain. All those bands are good times when it comes to heavy and shred factors. I Went Out The Window, and Further Seems Forever and some good melodic type stuff. And MC Awesome, and Cadillac Arrest are very good hilarious projects.
You're in a great position to take your music out to everyone (as opposed to "Christian rock bands" who are pretty much isolated into a smaller scene...).
What are some challenges you or your friends in other bands have scene that this sort of separate scene ("Christian music") causes/creates/embodies?
Well, I guess when kids hear 'christian band' they automatically figure for them to get some singer preaching at them. I guess that's a challenge to bands like us. I mean, I don't really think there's much we can say about that, I don't think that it affects us directly. Christian music is a scene in itself, it's just marketed to a different crowd that's all. Sometimes some 'scenesters' that are TCFS (Too Cool For School) make fun of us because we can actually have fun with our music sometimes. But we just brush it off like it aint no thang.
What's the craziest move you've ever seen in a pit?
Oh easy, our friend 'Evil Shawn' from Worcester, MA. He is a big dood, and pretty scary too, he evens work security at an established venue of sorts... But anyway, one time at one of our shows in Worcester he just randomly did a flip into like 12 kids. He doesn't look like he should be able to move fast at all, but he definitely did a flip and took out a whole bunch of people. No one got hurt, so it was actually pretty funny.
Anything else you'd like to add?
New album, Time To Shine, comes out May 10th, pick it up and give it a listen or 2.
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