Cougar Microbes caught up with the members of Maps & Atlases munching on a vegetarian platter hours before they were due on stage at Cargo. We discussed sweaty clothes, Cee Lo Green and scary songs:
– Cougar Microbes – So to start off; what time did you guys get out of bed this morning?
– Maps & Atlases – We got up at 8:30.
– CM – 8:30? Was that out of choice or where you dragged out of bed?
– M&A – Well we had to get down to London from Manchester so it was kind of like we dragged ourselves out of bed.
– CM – How do you guys kill time on the road? Do you play games?
– M&A – We had a couple of fun games. We used to have games, now we just don’t talk (laughs). Fortunately there’s lots of scenery to take in.
– CM – And the great weather?
M&A – Of course your great weather!
CM – What have been your favourite venues on this UK tour?
M&A – We really liked the venue from last night, Manchester Deaf Institute was really cool, and Glasgow just looked awesome as a city.
CM – Any absolutely shocking venues?
M&A– Actually, kind of funny you bring that up… they were mostly good.
CM – We like to name and shame
M&A – All our shows have been good experiences…. but it got so packed at our Brighton show and it got extremely hot, the air conditioning wasn’t working… people were passing out, literally. We nearly passed out. It was pretty bad.
The clothes we have from that show are still wet.
CM – Are there any tracks in the set you are sick of playing?
M&A – Not yet but probably by the end of this tour (laughs).
CM – And what’s your favourite?
M&A – You know, I think ‘Pigeon’ is a fun one to play it’s got all these things that could go wrong so it is just scary enough to be exciting every time. Its high energy but it has a good root to it. It’s pretty easy to mess it up but it is so great to play.
CM – Are you guys able to write on the road?
M&A – I guess writing lyrics can happen any time, but we don’t necessarily as you would imagine. I guess sometimes we will have a 2 minute jam on the side of the soundcheck but for the most part when you are playing live you don’t wanna be pissing off the sound guys.
CM – Whats more important for you, the lyrics or the melody?
M&A – Hopefully there is a balance between both. I think the lyrics are important to give a sense to the songs you are singing but without the melody tying it together its not really worth anything. I guess if i had to chose one Lyrics would be slightly more important.
I mean look at Cake, who are a fantastic band, and notice how they emphasise the lyrics whilst he almost talks over it.
CM – and says ‘Oh no’ a lot of times…
M&A – Exactly!
CM – You guys have toured with Ra Ra Riot, mewithoutyou and Minus the Bear, who would you like to tour with again
M&A – We did a few shows with Rar Ra Riot and those were fun and we did some with Foals which we also enjoyed. Really any of those tours we’d love to do again.
I’d like to do Frightened Rabbit again. There aren’t too many bands that we’ve toured with that we disliked.
CM – What is the most flattering thing you’ve read or heard about yourselves?
M&A – I really like some of the comparisons we get all the time. we are one of these bands that always gets oddball comparisons. People are like “yeah you sound like Talking Heads and… Prince” and I’m just thinking yeah, I guess thats pretty awesome. We’ll take that.
The other day Dave was compared to Cee Lo which made us laugh.
CM – Which other bands are doing stuff that you like at the moment?
M&A – I like Phantogram a lot, Wild Beasts came out a while ago but that was an awesome album, a band that is coming out soon called Gypsyblood will be pretty awesome.
CM – When was the last time you queued up and paid for a show?
M&A – I just got tickets to Dismemberment Plan in Chicago, hopefully I wont have to queue. I got tickets for a Thermals show last year and didn’t really have to wait in line for very long. Not because I’m a rockstar or anything, just that I got there at the right time.
CM – Are there any covers you are planning to record or have recorded?
M&A – We are always trying to think of an awesome cover we could play.
CM – You could do Cee Lo?
M&A – Now that’s an awesome idea… We were actually working on a couple of songs earlier in the tour like an Echo & The Bunnymen track.
CM – Final question, if you have to bring an artist back from the dead and swap them with a living artist who would it be and why?
M&A – We’d probably wanna bring someone back whose career has been cut short like Buddy Holly or someone like that. Someone who was unfortunate to die but fortunate for their career to go that way.
I say we bring back Buddy Holly. Swap them with someone like Puddle of Mudd. In fact you don’t even have to bring anyone back, just take that band away.
The album ‘Perch Patchwork‘ is out now on FatCat.
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