| Midas Live dates | Sat 27 Aug
The Flapper and Firkin, Birmingham Mon 29 Aug
4pm - All dayer @ The Rock Cafe Sat 10 Sept
8pm Little Civic, Wolverhampton Tues 13 Sept The Flapper and Firkin, Birmingham |
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Formed in 2003, Stourbridge rock band Midas have rapidly secured a reputation for producing a big and exciting live sound. I met up with front man Kris Lloyd and bassist Jake Mason for a chat about finding their own sound, child-eating dogs and becoming bigger than God… Hello guys, how are you? Jake: Very well.
Kris: Yeah very well. Hungover from last night actually. Ha ha, yeah we had a belly full last night. Good Stuff. OK, for people who don’t have a clue, what is Midas? K: Midas is a four piece rock-indie-alternative outfit.
J: We’ve tried to work out an exact genre but…
K: Yeah, but we’ll let someone else pigeon-hole us. There're four of us and we’re all from the Stourbridge and Dudley area and we’ve been going in the present line up since…
J: Since last August. And how did you guys meet? J: I played in an orchestra with him for years.
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Never! What instruments did you play? K: He played cello, I played viola, Lee played clarinet and Ryan used to play percussion. It all sounds very reminiscent of the Jack Black film School of Rock. K: Ha ha, definitely yeah. Do you ever get down to your classical roots with Midas? K: Err…I’d say to be honest with you…
J: There're definitely bits and pieces that are stolen.
K: There're definitely influences there in the music. I don’t know, I keep having people say to me “you should play viola or something in one song” but I can’t play it and sing at the same time. I see, that could well be a problem. What’s the plan with Midas then? K: Bigger than God, it’s got to be! Ha ha, you’ve got to go one step further than Lennon.
J: Ha ha.
K: Err…well, as far as we can take it, obviously. We wouldn’t want to say we’d reached a comfortable level; you always want to try and push it further. You’re very ambitious… K: Oh yeah, if we could do it for a living, then I’d be very happy. Looking at what’s been written about you on websites, you’ve been compared to various bands, particularly Muse. How do feel about this?
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J: All bands are going to be compared to someone else because that’s who you listen to. We listened to a lot of Muse and we started off playing Muse covers. So you’re big Muse fans then? K: Oh yeah, we went to see them at the NEC and stuff. I hadn’t sung for God knows how long and I hardly had any range at all, so those songs threw me in at the deep end. If you can sing that high, you can sing pretty much anything comfortably! Were you both into similar styles of music when you were growing up? K: Yeah well, it kind of overlaps. We’ll listen to all these bands and then I’ll go for something a little bit heavier.
J: He’s into the heavier stuff.
K: Yeah, I like listening to At The Drive-In and stuff. I’ll bring it to the other guys and they’ll say what bits they like and what bits they don’t or whatever. Our drummer’s very punk influenced, so that overlaps too.
J: I’ve got weird influences. Before this band I was in a soul band, doing more of the jazz thing. It seems like there’s a lot of diverse elements coming together. Would you say that comes out in the song-writing? K: I’d say it definitely does.
J: We’re not all listening to the same things.
K: I might have a couple of riffs or a few ideas for a song and take them to the practise, where we’ve got to go “right we’ve got our couple of hours now, let’s be as creative as we possibly can.” But yeah definitely, people bring in different influences to it all. If I had my way, everything would be really fast. But I think we bring out the best in each other, because we won’t let ourselves get lazy. If we don’t like something, we will be really brutally honest with each other. How do you deal with band arguments? K: If we slag each other off at practise or whatever, then that stays in the room. It doesn’t interfere with our friendship. You’ve got to be passionate about it; you’ve got to feel something for the music. Otherwise it’s like going through the motions isn’t it? Now you’ve made two demos, haven’t you? K: Yeah the first one that we did was kind of more directly influenced by bands like Muse, as we said, and Radiohead. More formulaic, perhaps? K: Yeah, I think so. It definitely took on another step with the second one that we did. How do you think you’ve developed, as far as the songs go?
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J: I think we started to find more of our own sound, rather than copying other people. Is it important to you, to sound as individual as possible? K: Yeah, I mean you’re always going to get the comparisons. But yeah, something a bit more removed. I think on the second one, the song-writing quality was getting better.
J: The recording quality was better.
K: As we were recording, the sound guy that we worked with was saying he could definitely see a progression. He’s a good guy, Gavin is.
J: The third or fourth time we went there, he said “this is the first one that sounds like you.”
K: It’s good to have someone that will say those kind of things to you. Because at the end of the day, a lot of people are just after the money and they’re going tell you, “that’s fantastic, that’s fantastic.” Whereas he will say “that’s good, but you could do with bringing out something better with your performance.” Are you a first-take kind of band in the studio, or more perfectionists to the bitter end? K: I don’t know, I think Lee the guitarist is definitely the perfectionist. He’ll spend ages setting his guitar up, to get the right sound just how he wants it. That’s how mine compliments his, because I’ve got all the squeaks and duff notes!
J: And when you’ve got those differences, it makes it sound more human. Maybe it comes over live better that way too. What’s the best thing about playing live? J: It’s just the adrenaline rush you get. Onstage you feel like you’re in your own little world.
K: The nervous energy kind of thing. I don’t really get particularly nervous about it anymore, but it’s so exhilarating just to be doing it. The sheer hedonism of it feels great. I probably enjoy playing live more than being in the studio or anything. In that case, would you describe yourselves as more of a live band? K: Yeah definitely. From the demo CDs that we’ve got, I don’t think that they really do us justice, compared to the live sound that we’re capable of making. It feels bigger somehow when we’re playing live. What have you learnt after getting more gigs under your belt? K: Interacting with each other. Depending on the spur of the moment and who’s there, we sometimes make bits up. You know, the spontaneousness of it all.
J: Because we’ve been playing with each other for so many years, you get to the point where you can read each other on stage.
K: Playing around with tempos and playing around with the songs.
J: It’s that element of unpredictability.
K: It’s like, when a few of the fans come and stand at the front and they’ll be singing along, so I’ll change the words just to catch them out. Or at the next gig I might stop and let them sing it instead, or whatever. It’s good fun. What did it feel like to be performing in front of 10,000 people at the Festival of Water and Light?
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K: It was a really weird experience. How long did we play for at that one?
J: About 20 minutes.
K: Yeah it was only a short set, about 4 or 5 songs.
J: It’s indescribable really.
K: It’s pretty strange because there’s the big canal basin between you and all the people, so by the time the energy from them came over, it was kind of stale already. You know what I mean? I much prefer it when the audience is closer and you can see their reactions more, whereas at that gig it was more like “get your binoculars out.” It almost sounds like a Shea Stadium kind of thing! K: Ha ha, I guess it was kind of intimidating, because it was the first time we’d done anything so big. You lose the intimacy I guess. You mentioned the fans before and you’ve got quite a healthy following. Tell me about this Street Team of yours. K: Street Team is made up of friends of the band to be honest, that we’ve met along the way. They’ll all go around selling tickets for the band and handing out flyers for us and stuff like that. They sound like a dedicated bunch. Would you say the same is true of your fans generally? K: There’s a small unit of hardcore fans and they’ll be there at every gig. There’d have to be some kind of medical emergency to keep one of them away! So what do you think of the Stourbridge music scene at the moment compared to the Pop Will Eat Itself and The Wonderstuff era? K: I still feel that it’s sort of lagging behind a lot of other places. Saying that, it is only a small place. It’s strange that so many bands that became big, like Ned And His Atomic Dustbin, all come from Stourbridge. But it’s definitely on its way back up.
J: Yeah definitely.
K: It’s already bottomed out and it’s starting to climb back up.
J: There’re a lot of places opening up that are doing live music.
K: Yeah, even the clubs that play all dance music are realising “actually, we can get a PA in her, it’s got good acoustics and we can have bands in as well”. It’s got a healthy unsigned scene. Any particular favourites that you’d like to mention? K: There’s a band called Stateless, they’re nice lads, I’ve seen them a few times. Thinking of around the area… Err, REDdOGMEAN, The New Blacks, Low Ego they’re cool. We’re still waiting to do gigs with them, but it’s finding the time.
J: Hey Pablo! are a good laugh. You’ve got to see them, it’s comedy. It’s good after a few pints.
K: There’s almost an Electric 6 vibe going on and the guy does vocal scratching, it’s strange.
J: He doesn’t half throw his voice around.
K: He’s good. He acts the songs out, so it’s like cabaret. But there’re a couple of great bands that are now defunct. There’s Chester Road and it’s a shame that they called it a day. There’s been a few clichéd questions in this interview. Here’s another clichéd question for you: What’s in the immediate future for Midas? K: As many gigs as we can possibly do, but we want to move further afield and play to more people. I can’t say I’d be happy with constantly playing the same 5 or 6 clubs; we want to be expanding and gigging up and down the country.
J: At the moment we’ve only played a couple of gigs outside the Midlands. We want to expand a bit more.
K: I think it’s handy that this year we’ve really consolidated the line-up and everything, because we’re starting to build up the fan base. Promotion wise, we’re doing as much as we can, using the internet as well.
J: The internet’s a wonderful thing. The website myspace.com, what was it? Some 4 and a half thousand people have logged on for us…
K: No mate, it’s more than that, I’ve been cracking on with it! It’s getting on for about 6 thousand people and that’s out of date as well. It’s good for spreading your music around. And things like Overplay are really good, because you get to see what other bands in the area are doing. OK and now for the really tough questions: Favourite 1980s cartoon series?
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J: Oh, I don’t know any.
K: Dangermouse that was good! Err, Thundercats? I can’t think of anymore.
J: Stingray. It’s not 80s but it gets shown a lot. I’m more of a Transformers man myself, but there you go. Hasselholf’s crowning moment – Baywatch or Knight Rider? J: I’d go for Knight Rider.
K: I’d probably say neither! Err, Knight Rider for the car. Favourite root vegetable? K: Potato because you can do so much with it. It is versatile, that’s true. Jake, how are you going to top that? J: Err, radish? I like it! Just to wrap things up, I’ve done some research into your name Midas and come up a couple of interesting things. There was King Midas who challenged Apollo in a music contest - are you passionate about Greek mythology? K: Yeah they’re brilliant stories. They ought to do soaps based on them, because they’ve got everything – incest, sex, dwarves, violence, dogs that eat children – everything you need!
J: Or maybe like a reality TV show and instead of being evicted, they get smited! Midas is also the name of a small ghost town in Nevada. K: I think we should use that explanation from now on! There’s a UK tour company who arrange visits to various historic battlefields around the country called Midas.
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K: Ha ha that’s cool. It’s good to see those nutters re-enacting it all, charging around and everything. They do really go for it. Big gaping holes in their arms and stuff… Midas also stands for the Minibus Driver Awareness Scheme. Is this something close to your hearts? J: Err… no, not really. I can’t really comment on that at all! Well perhaps this is more appropriate: the Motivational Interventions for Drug and Alcohol Misuse in Schizophrenia, which is apparently an on-going scheme on the NHS. K: Ha ha, yeah I think that’ll apply in a couple of years from now. Kris and Jake, it’s been a pleasure. J: Cheers.
K: Yeah, thank you very much. Make sure you visit www.midas-official.com for downloads and lots more on the band. | 
