Brooklyn based rock band Midnight Spin has been putting in hard work over the last few years and making a name for themselves. After touring the east coast off of their EP release “Through The Mojo Wire” last year, the band is fresh out of the studio and ready to release their follow up full length record. We caught up with them to hear a bit about the process behind making the record and what plans they have in store to keep pushing forward in 2012.
So, Midnight Spin is now located in Brooklyn, but a couple of you guys have some ties to the DC area. Can you tell us how the band all came together?
Danny and I started playing together when we were in 7th grade at St. Andrew the Apostle school in Silver Spring, Maryland. We covered Nirvana and Green Day at our 8th grade talent show, and then continued playing together throughout high school and college, jamming in my parent’s basement over breaks and holidays. We moved to NYC in ’07 and found a rehearsal studio to serve as our apartment; we slept in a bunk bed in the drum room and rented the space out to 5 other bands as a means to afford our rent. We often slept through other band’s practices because our sleep schedules were so off-kilter. Ben, who met Danny in college, moved to NYC and started to jam with us, and Jim responded to a Craigslist ad we had posted with a link to “Trigger Finger Itch”. I had met Jeremy while he attended UMD, and while we had already played a bunch of random cover shows together to make some money, his first official show as a member of Midnight Spin was at our EP release show at NYC’s Mercury Lounge.
You guys just got out of the studio finishing your new full length record, can you tell us a little bit about how it went and how the process was?
The education of Midnight Spin continues – if we got our undergrad degree in the studio the first time around, this was us earning our Master’s. We worked at 5 different studios with 3 different assistant engineers, and were able to spend more time on specific parts than ever before. Drums and bass were basically finished within the first week of recording, so Ben and Danny have been able to bum around a lot more than Jim, Jer, and myself. Actually, that’s not entirely true, because we did end up doing a fair amount of writing in the studio, sometimes right up until we recorded takes. It was nice to have aspects of the album very locked in and other areas where we were able to experiment and allow the studio to really assist as a creative tool, and not solely as a means of recording these songs we had already been playing for several months.
This time around you were able to work with acclaimed mixing engineer Justin Gerrish who has some impressive work under his belt, including The Strokes and Weezer. What was it like working with Justin on your record?
Justin’s been a great friend to the band and taught us a lot about our strengths, allowed us to examine some things that we could try differently, and I think has made us a better band overall. He lives in Williamsburg like us, which is great, because we’ve been able to get together at a moment’s notice when we need to. He’s also had some great stories to share and really feeds off the band’s energy, which is inspiring to see. It’s been a very memorable and informative experience; from living for a week in Woodstock, NY on a farm, to working tirelessly in a NYC basement studio in the August heat, we have seen so much studio that we really do feel like a much smarter and more experienced band. We’ve been able to experiment with every instrument, and have taken our time to get it exactly how we’d like. We feel very fortunate to have had such an ideal experience in the studio, and are finally ready to bring it to the stage. The mixes are sounding great.
Your last EP “Through the MOJO Wire” gave everyone a taste of the rocking guitar riffs and fast paced rock that you guys do so well. Is this what listeners can expect with the new full length record as well?
The new record definitely picks up where Through the Mojo Wire left off in many ways. The band’s rock intensity has likely increased and tightened on this record, and there were five of us in the studio this time around, too, which has made a great deal of difference. Jeremy has definitely been able to broaden our sound and make some great contributions on this record, so it’s definitely a more fleshed-out version of the band than you’ve heard before. There are also some departures that I honestly think will surprise our fanbase, which is great because venturing out into different directions is absolutely something we wanted to do on a debut LP. We really took our time to figure out different moods that felt like “us” and set out making them into original, exciting Midnight Spin songs.
So has a release date been set yet for the new record? How about an album title?
We are currently working on track listing, album artwork, and titling the thing, so we’re excited to share little snippets of info as soon as we can. We’re anticipating the album to be released this spring, and want to have a lead single and video out in the coming months.
Last year you guys put together a pretty successful east coast tour for yourselves. Can we expect just as much touring this year for the new record?
Our tour last summer was thrown together in July at the drop of a hat, since MTV picked up our video out of the blue. We took on 13 shows in 15 days, from New York to Chicago to Toronto and back. The next touring scenario will probably start out a little bit more sane; we plan on focusing primarily on the East Coast to start, and as the press machine and word gets out, we’ll look to add more cities as we go. Once this record is released, I get the feeling we will become extremely well-versed with both our van and each other, haha. We have been getting a good amount of requests from fans on the West Coast to swing through, and we’re also in the process of figuring out the best way to tour Europe. 2012 is beginning to take shape, and it’s great to look forward to.
Any plans to come back to the DC area anytime soon for a show?
DC is going to be a major city for us in terms of supporting the new record and we are pumped to get back there asap. We are currently looking at which venues and bills would make the most sense for us to be a part of, and are excited to share the new music in the District.
Thanks for taking the time to sit down with us, we are looking forward to hearing the new record. Any last shotouts?
To anybody looking to see a memorable rock show, check Midnight Spin’s calendar for 2012. We’ll see you soon.
For more on midnight spin visit their facebook page at www.facebook.com/midnightspin
