Stereoboard Talks To Madina Lake Following Their Download Festival 2011 Performance (Interview)
Monday, 20 June 2011
Written by Heather McDaid
The last year or so has been an arduous road for Chicagoan foursome Madina Lake. In an act that even caused the toughest of metal-heads to tip their hat in respect, the band’s bassist Matthew risked his life to protect an innocent stranger. Since then the band has pushed forward through his recovery, touring the UK last year with pre-recorded bass before heading home to work on their new album as a solid unit.
It is now, a year on, that the band return to the UK festival circuit with their full line-up and a fresh outlook to dominate Download Festival and look ahead to the future with a bright new road ahead of them. After their fantastic return to the UK at Donington, the band’s drummer Dan Torelli had a little chat about how fantastic it is to be back, have the band together again on the road and tells a lot about the band’s upcoming release.
”We had a good show and it’s good to do a Download Festival that we are proud of because a few years ago we were here and we had a bunch of problems,” begins Dan, referring to their performance in 2008, which was plagued with issues. “So, not only did we want to come back and do it the right way this time, we also hadn’t played in a long time too for a couple of different reasons, which made it more important to us to have a good show. We had a really good time, so we’re all feeling really good.”
Last year the band played the main stage at Sonisphere festival as a three-man line-up as Matthew recovered at home. Surely, having him back with the band is the greatest feeling of all? “Oh my god, yes!” beams Dan. “We did a few shows around that date since we’d already booked them before that incident happened. We didn’t want to pull out because we don’t want to do that and it’s not really us. Matthew is such a huge part of our live show and we couldn’t just hire somebody else to play bass – it just wouldn’t be the same. It would be more awkward for us to hire someone to play in his place than to not have him at all.”
“We went and did those shows and it was great because everybody was so nice and would give us a bunch of things for Matthew, which was cool but it never felt like we were really doing our thing. It was awesome to be back. It was really something,” he adds. When hearing that their set earlier in the day was like seeing ‘the real Madina Lake back again’, he smiles and continues, “It’s definitely like that. I mean, we’re a four piece. We’re not a big band and if you take one person out of that you feel like limping, you know what I mean?”
With the band now looking to the future, attention turns to their new album ‘World War III’ – follow up to 2009’s ‘Attics to Eden’ album and 2010’s EP ‘The Dresden Codex’ - which is due out later this year. “It’s totally done and it’ll be out in September,” says Dan. “We’re really proud of it. We’ve done the whole thing ourselves this time: we wrote the whole thing, we recorded the whole thing, we played it, we mixed it – everything was done by us. We’re excited for everybody to be able to hear it. Hopefully people will like it!”
“This one happened really fast. It wasn’t something that I feel we sat down and planned out,” continues Dan, talking about the band’s approach to such an importantly timed album. “We didn’t have the time to do that like we would usually do before. Matthew was recovering and as soon as we were able to play songs, we would play songs. Especially for me, doing drums, we did a lot of the recording pretty early on when they were just freshly arranged, so a lot of it was a lot more spontaneous. I think that’s kind of cool and it makes for a much more emotional record. Nathan, being the lyricist, just wrote about everything that was going on right then for him, which was a lot of emotional stuff. I think we’re really proud of the record but it’s very cool that we captured the moment in our lives right then on that record. It is different. It’s a lot different from our first two but it wasn’t something that we had tried to do and work at, but it just turned out that way, which is kind of nice.”
“I would say that musically and lyrically this record has more ups and downs, like a rollercoaster ride,” continues Dan, looking at more specific factors of the album. “We’ve got some heavier songs, which I would say are heavier than our previous work and we’ve got the more ballad-y, emotional things too. I think that the highs are higher and the lows are lower. It’s less of a consistent sound that I’d say people are used to hearing from us, but I think that’s good. We’ve got to change it up and keep shit fresh too.”
“There’s a song called ‘Imaginary’,” states Dan, when asked about new tracks he’d recommend. “We played for the first time today and there’s a song that opens the record called ‘Howdy, Neighbour’ that we really like. It’s a heavier song with a lot of different parts and just musically, instrumentally it’s really fun to play as well. I’m sure that’ll be on the set list when we tour.”
“We’ve never really looked too far ahead as a band. We’re always seriously looking just one step ahead of where we are at, so I honestly don’t really know where we go from here,” he continues, looking at future music beyond ‘World War III’. “Our new album will be out in September and we seem to be making one every two years, so I guess we’ll just have to see how this one goes. You never know how you’re going to feel like playing songs on tour. You end up playing these songs hundreds of times and we’ll feel like doing something else, so we’ll start jamming. I think it’s too early to tell but we’ll see how this record goes and in time it will naturally start to take its own direction.”
As well as the new album, which Madina Lake fans are avidly awaiting, the band have already planned their full return to the UK later this year. “Still in the planning process but it’s getting solidified now. I think it’s going to be something around late-September, October, something like that. I’m very sure we’ll have this thing booked soon and posted up, but we are definitely coming back.”
“We always love coming back to London,” says Dan, turning from touring to travelling. “I think that after we finish the UK thing later this year we’re going to go to Holland. We’ve been there once before and it was totally awesome. We love all of it. We love going to Japan, that’s always cool to us. We’ve lived in America all of our lives so any chance we get to travel is something that we love!”
“We don’t get a lot of days off, so you go to a city but you can’t go into it much,” he continues. “You tell people where you’ve been and they’ll go ‘Wow, you’ve travelled there, that’s so cool!’ and I’m like ‘Not really!’ I mean, we arrive, we go in and we play the gig. We finish, we leave and then usually we just go on to the next place. That happens a lot of the time but when we get to have a look around we absolutely love it. A day off in a city we’ve never been to is always the best, so we always take advantage of it. We always walk around and try to see things.”
For those who haven’t yet experienced this, you should know Madina Lake are one of the most fan-friendly bands out there. Our chat was just prior to Dan shooting off to the band’s signing. “We love meeting everybody,” he smiles when being asked about the connection between the band and fans. “Especially since we’ve been gone for so long. We haven’t talked to a lot of people in a long time. We’ve become friends with people through every time we come over here and we get to hang out with them, so it’s always great. It’s been a long time since we’ve all seen our UK people, so it’ll be cool.”
As for Dan’s parting words, he warns fans to watch out for the exciting things coming up this year. “Our new record ‘World War III’ will be out in September and we will be here to support it shortly after that, so just keep your eyes peeled!”
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It is now, a year on, that the band return to the UK festival circuit with their full line-up and a fresh outlook to dominate Download Festival and look ahead to the future with a bright new road ahead of them. After their fantastic return to the UK at Donington, the band’s drummer Dan Torelli had a little chat about how fantastic it is to be back, have the band together again on the road and tells a lot about the band’s upcoming release. 
