If you were to ask any band if there are any regrets or missteps in their career, chances are, most would say no. Not Matty Mullins.
For their seventh album, though, Memphis May Fire are decidedly back on track. For a while, things deviated from the original plan: outside factors muddied the waters, stopping Matty, guitarist Kellen McGregor, drummer Cory Elders and bassist Jake Garland from being able to focus on what made Memphis so appealing in that dark and dingy world of metalcore in the first place.
“I’d be lying if I said differently,” Matty shrugs with an accepting grin. “There are some of our records I can’t even go back and listen to, but I put myself in the mindset that I was in when we were making them, and mental health takes a toll on every season of life,” he says.
“You’re in the grind, trying to be on tour and make a record, and you’ve got all these voices saying ‘do this’ or ‘I wish you were more like this’ or ‘I wish you would try this’ or ‘you’re not doing this enough’. You just get so wrapped up in all of it.”
The vortex of voices surrounding Matty is mostly silenced on ‘Remade In Misery’. Starting just before the pandemic with the band separated, it was Kellen who began the instrumentation side of things. Meanwhile, Matty found himself mucking around with Wage War guitarist Cody Quistad – a close-by neighbour – with single ‘Somebody’ the first of these musical playdates.
A track that tackles addiction and the self-flagellation that comes with it, the theme of resilience in the face of adversity and accountability began to take shape. Forced to complete the record in their bedrooms, it was a drastic change compared to their most recent endeavours, which generally involved finding a top-notch studio and settling in to create whatever that previously mentioned vortex demanded. Able to strip back to the purity of being a band doing things for themselves lends itself to ‘Remade In Misery’ and its caustic brand of fresh Memphis May Fire mayhem.
Matty acknowledges that this previous process made it “hard to remember why you even went to that studio in the first place. You’re just making music and doing the best you can. But something’s missing. We’ve had a handful of records like that – that’s the honest truth. To be here with this one, that we so genuinely, authentically made from scratch, right here at home, and to see the reaction from our fans, it’s like, ‘Oh, now, this makes sense’.”
Making sense of things is part of the allure of Memphis May Fire. Metalcore’s darting euphoria predominantly houses darkness in the hope of offering light to others, at least in Matty’s case. “I’ve always been a hope enthusiast,” he beams. “It’s just who I am as a person. I always want to acknowledge the pain we go through as human beings but know that nothing is ever hopeless. There’s always an opportunity. There’s always a chance for things to get better.”
Where ‘Remade In Misery’ differs from usual for Matty, however, is that he deviates from this natural inclination. “I just realised that in seasons where I’m struggling, it doesn’t help me when someone comes along, pats me on the back and says, ‘Hey, cheer up. Everything’s gonna be okay’, right?”
This time he’s saying: you’re not alone. Three powerful words that do much more than any reflection of misery ever could. “Pain is this universal language that we all speak,” he continues, “and then at the very end of the album, we kind of wrap it all up and say, But hold on, you know, it’s worth it. It’s worth it to keep going.”
“I saw something the other day that said you never had the chance to heal because you never admitted that you were broken,” Matty explains. “Or you never admitted that you were hurt.”
Looking back is one of Matty’s favourite hobbies at the moment. Not only upon his band’s catalogue, but to those moments that he kept “a secret or hidden pain or faked happiness.”
“I’ve regretted every one of those, but I’ve never regretted a moment of vulnerability, where I’ve been honest with the people I love, honest with music,” he reveals. “Honest with friends and family and being sincere to just say, ‘Hey, I don’t think I have it all together. Right now, I’m hurting.’ It’s in those moments that you can really start to heal. You’ll never heal if you can’t admit it to yourself.”
That’s a theme that runs throughout ‘Remade In Misery’. The term itself, according to Matty, is “another way of saying being forged in the fire.” Rebuilding from the ground up, like a phoenix from the ashes – it’s what their seventh outing is all about. Feeling confident with this stride is him combatting his foibles.
“I always want to be celebrating. It’s not until I’m willing to get honest and get dirty that things really start to come together. That’s honestly why the record is called ‘Remade In Misery’. It’s to understand that the hardest moments of your life are the ones that have brought you to this place. If it wasn’t for the things you had to go through, you wouldn’t be the person you are today. You have to be thankful for that.”
Throughout chatting, there’s an air of relief that exudes from Matty. As if this is something the band needed. That, had the pandemic not altered their course, would undoubtedly have ended up in one of those moments that they learn to overcome, as opposed to being a point that is Memphis May Fire. And for that, Matty is thankful.
“I’ve always felt like I was running, trying to catch up to something with every record we’ve made,” he ends. “For the first time, I feel like I’m one with this album. For the first time, I think that I’m a fan of Memphis May Fire.”
Taken from the June issue of Upset. Memphis May Fire’s album ‘Remade In Misery’ is out 3rd June.
