As promised in our 5 New Albums You Should Listen to Now, we've got a more in-depth interview with The Manvils lead singer, Mikey Manville.
We caught up on the phone with Mikey and talked about his bandmates, the writing and recording process for Reaction Arrow, physical locations, studios, life and more.
We first chatted about life, and Manville mentioned he'd been getting some painting done around the house. The one thing this virus has done is given many of us time to do the things at home, that regular life didn't seem to allow for. That's not a bad thing.
The Manvils have been making music together for 15 years now, and we wondered how things came together. Manville said he was on the Johnny Cash Art Tour in 2005. After Johnny Cash died, this touring art show brought together multiple well-known artists. Mikey was asked to be the in house singer-songwriter, playing both his music and of course, Johnny Cash songs throughout the North American tour. It was on that tour where Mikey and his connection with Producer John Akred came into being.
Today's The Manvils is made up of Mikey Manville on vocals and guitar, Jay Koenderman on drums, and Dave Fenton on bass. When I asked about the writing and recording process for Reaction Arrow, Mikey said "When John moved his studio from Chicago to California, I had no idea that it was going to be an 1879 hunting lodge. So the neighborhood is all bungalows like 1940s and 1950s bungalows, and then this 140-year-old log cabin. That's probably the most romantic experience I've ever had recording. The rest was done in Toronto in two different studios, and we kinda rounded the recorded out at Coalition with a guy named Stephan Di Mambro who recorded two songs, right before we released the record."
The band was pretty much ready to go when they hit the studio. "Every time we went into the studio, although it wasn't live off the floor, everyone knew their parts. We would play the classic. We would play the embellished versions. We would then add the indulgent versions of our takes, and then take the best out of all three, so it was meticulous. All the creativity of songwriting, I'd say, 90% of it was created in our personal studio and rehearsal spaces over the course of those years. We were very efficient with our time. With this record a lot of the experimentation that happened in the studio, I guess, to answer your question was a lot of the tonal qualities a lot of the fuzz guitar, a lot of the drum tones, snare tones, those were all decided on. Those were the fun things that we were working on. It was like the taste of the toppings. And how all of that would come together, and that was the stuff that I'm most proud of."
I touched on the subject of gear and it was great to hear his enthusiasm. Mikey talked about having control of the sound as a guitar player. Choices of vintage guitars, vintage amps, really particular, hard to find source pedals from the UK. He then said that John of course, had a significant input with studio gear and that microphones in the studio were, of course, integral to the sound.
I then opened the door by asking about his coolest/weirdest pedal. Manville answered, "There's a few that I own now that are of the same circuit, and it's definitely displayed on this record. On I think every single song recorded in California. We just fell in love with this pedal. The world of fuzz is like; everyone makes a fuzz pedal in now every country. It's like the hamburger of the world.
But this particular fuzz pedal is made with NKT213 transistors or like-minded, new market or similar germanium transistors. That was a circuit that was made famous by Robert Fripp from King Crimson, and it's called the Burns Buzzaround."
I'd be remiss if I didn't touch on the subject matter of the album. It expresses the loss of several family members in unimaginably quick succession after the move to Toronto.
"I can give back in perpetuity, to know that I can honour my family and everything they went through and it just maybe adds a little bit of comfort that I'm forever remembering this chapter, and respecting it as a songwriter. I don't know, when you put something, that means so much, into something that is so important. I don't want to say it closes a chapter, but it allows me to sort of express some people battle with fighting for their life, it sort of allows you to put closure to a few things but also memorializing these amazing people that you'll never forget. And now some people might know something about them even though they never met just through the song."
As we started to wrap up the call, we skipped back into real-life mode and talked about what's going on in the world as a collective. Mikey said something that gave me goosebumps. He said, "The world can be absolutely cruel as we've all experienced. I find it very interesting during these times of struggle for so many races. So many people that are just trying to find a voice. We went through it on a macro personal level that no one else experienced but families go through this and through succession. People that shouldn't have to suffer these horrific events at really youthful ages in their life. They'll be experienced. What I feel right now is like the world is going through that collectively.
Obviously, a lot of people think that, and one day there will have to be a light at the end of the tunnel because I know from your experience and my experience, and the macro experience that we have seen the light at the end of the tunnel. When you involve millions of people, millions upon millions of people collectively, it seems like the tower is a lot harder to find. When you have so much evil and so much strife in the world, it's a different angle. The world is suffering. You know, an intimate family can suffer, and that's something of a unique situation. The world is definitely experiencing this collectively now."
This isn't a review post, but if it were, I'd tell you that I love this album. If you're expecting soft and sad, you'll be disappointed -The Manvils rock the message to you.
If you're looking for a great breakdown of Reaction Arrow, Randal Wark's review on Montreal Rocks does a great track by track review.
The Manvils Links
