by Austin Buckingham
Kansas City collective Mother Culture have already had a successful year – the group played SXSW and released the Sold Your Voice EP. Though they’re busy preparing for a full-length and a big fall tour, the group took some time to talk to PopWreckoning about everything from their music to literary inspirations to Quintiles.
. “Sold Your Voice”
Be sure to check them out July 1 at KC’s the Riot Room. They have another upcoming local show at the Record Bar on July 23 before a fall tour throughout the Midwest starting Sept. 3 in Des Moines. The full dates are available on their MySpace here.
Bethany, PopWreckoning: How did you all meet and form Mother Culture?
Nick Talley, Percussionist: Justin and I, Justin’s our lead singer and guitar player, we were living in Omaha at the time and we had been jamming together – we were roommates. We just wanted to get a band together and do something that was positive for the world around us. So we started getting a band together and started practicing. In October, we moved to Kansas City from Des Moines to try and do the band full time: to start touring and recording. That’s where we met and started working with Kyle, our bass player.
Justin Hayes, Vocalist and Guitarist: In the mean time, I was with Jess and when we decided to make this our life, we decided she should get on board with that. At that point, she started singing for us. That happened shortly before we moved to KC.
PW: So why did you decide to move to Kansas City? Omaha has a pretty strong music scene, too.
Nick: Omaha is a good time, but we were having a hard time finding people that shared our mission and we really wanted to start touring and put a large amount of time and effort into this band. Another thing that Kansas City has going for it is that there’s Quintiles, so we can do medical studies and pay our bills and stuff.
Justin: That was actually our biggest motivation probably for moving to Kansas City.
PW: You really do Quintiles studies?
They laugh.
Justin: I can do it for three months at a time and write music the entire time. It’s great.
Nick: Minus all the needles.
Jessi Lu Rud, Vocalist: You get used to it though.
Justin: Then, Kyle was a long time friend. We went to high school together. He lived here, also. So that was another motivating factor to move to KC; that we had a great bass player that was willing to play with us and lived here.
PW: Where did your name Mother Culture come from?
Justin: That’s actually taken from my personal favorite book called Ishmael. It is basically a phrase that describes civilization as a whole .
Nick: A mother culture is a term for an early culture and its people that has had a lot of great impact and influence on later cultures that thereby come from that culture basically.
PW: Then you liked it for what you’re doing as a band?
Justin: The book is a lot about having lived through hundreds of thousands of years tribally and the founding of civilization – we’ve only been around for 10,000 years and we’re already on the verge of catastrophe. As a band, it is a tribal lifestyle. It is kind of a give and take lifestyle. We’re all crammed in a van and we have to give to each other to have it work. I just thought it was kind of appropriate.
PW: What is your band writing process like?
Justin: Typically, I will sit down at a computer with an acoustic guitar and basically scratch down some ideas – sing a melody into a crappy microphone and lay down some guitar tracks and lay down a beat. A lot of times, I’ll just have a verse and a chorus finished and I’ll bring that to practice. I’ll have the band write it collectively.
Nick: We write things very communally. We try to be very open to ideas that people have. We’re all different individuals and we all have a different perspective and we try to let that come through as much as we can with our music, but at the same time we try to make it cohesive. But we don’t try to say that any one thing is greater than any other person’s. It is very collective and group-oriented.
PW: Lyrically, and I know on your website it said this, you guys really try to focus on peace and justice issues through your music. Is that always in your mind when writing or just something that just kind of naturally happens?
Justin: It is something for me that is kind of unavoidable. I can walk through the city and it just catches my eye whether its just a homeless person standing there or a bucket collecting change or turning on the TV – which I try to avoid as much as possible actually.
They laugh.
Justin: We’ve been labelled as a political band. I’d say we’re more of a philosophical band. Political, to me, has a negative connotation like I’m affiliated with some political party and I definitely don’t want that to come across in our music. That feels kind of alienating to me. The last thing I want to do is alienate people. It is more about love and having people around you valued rather than the things we strive to own. For me, that’s more of a philosophy rather than having to do with politics.
PW: I’d agree with that. My next question, you guys have a big fall tour coming up. What can people expect from your live show if they’ve never seen you before?
Nick: I’d definitely say that we really try to have a lot of energy with our show. We hope to have people dance and have fun so we try to pick more up tempo songs and we’re going to play a lot of new songs on this tour. We’ve got, we’re starting to do preproduction for our new full length. that’s not going to be out for awhile, but we’ve got a lot of new songs that we’re going to be pushing. We’ve got some real gampy stuff.
Justin: We’re starting to work with a lot more sample based stuff and a lot of programming so our music has definitely gone in a bit of a different direction but it is definitely still us. We’re trying to phase out some of the slower songs for the live show to keep it more tempo based and energetic. I’d also say our live show, especially with the new stuff, that it is a lot more theatrical. So yeah, it is energetic and theatrical. Those are the words I’d use to describe it.
PW: I guess I’m having a hard time picturing what theatrical means…not like Lady Gaga does theatrical, right?
Nick: Haha, no we don’t dress up in crazy costumes or anything, but we have a lot of parts that get very big and just kind of ambience sounding. We play around a lot with like dynamics. We want the important parts of our songs – the parts that drive the message of the band – we want them to stand out and be in your face, but at the same time we still try to have fun with the music.
Jessi: We all vibe off each other. That’s important to me – seeing the people and my band just having a good time - I get more energized and I want to do my best. I definitely vibe off the people.
PW: Do you know who you’re going out on tour with in the fall?
Nick: We’ve got a couple different bands that we’ve been talking to about playing with . I’ve got some friends up in Michigan that we might be playing some shows with, but we don’t have any bands that we’re doing all the dates with.
PW: If you could take anyone out on tour with you, who would your dream tour be?
Nick: You’re going to get a different answer from every person.
Justin: For me, I would say Radiohead.
PW: I hear they’re ok at opening.
Jessi: Yeah, they’re alright. What would you say Nick?
Nick: I’d really like to go out with a band like The Deerhunter, or The Antlers are one of my favorites right now. I don’t know if you’ve heard of a band called Foals?
PW: Yeah, I love Foals.
Nick: I’ve been really digging on them. I’d love to do some shows with them.
Kyle Anthony, Bassist: I’m more into Young Widow, The Melvins, stuff like that. Which doesn’t really fit our music at all, but still fun.
Jessi: I’d say maybe Fleet Foxes, also maybe Dr. Dog. I love Dr. Dog.
PW: I could see that.
Jessi: My favorite band would be Of Montreal. They’re insane. That would be an amazing tour.
PW: Definitely. Ok, is there anything else that you guys want to get out there that we didn’t cover?
Nick: We have some Kansas City shows coming up – July 1 at the Riot Room. We’ll be playing with The Cherry Tree Parade, Le Grand and a band called Filligar, from Chicago. Then, July 23, we’ll be at the Record Bar. You can download our EP right now off our Myspace, completely free, and there’s two unreleased bsides. that we’ve also included with that that did not make it on to the EP.
