MAYFIRE: "In the end it’s all about the joy of being creative and hopefully find a connection across time and space that matters"
With the number of wonderful debut albums impressively growing this year, I'd like to invite you to a trip to Norway and get to know the new band MAYFIRE, who shared their first opus, "Cloudscapes & Silhouettes", on November 17th via Rock of Angels Records.
Band-Links: WEBSITE / BANDCAMP / FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM / TWITTER
Welcome to join my chat with founding member Rex and learn more about the conceptual idea behind their work, their musical background and future plans:
Hey, thanks for making time to answer my questions. How are you today?
Hi Katha, it’s a pleasure. We’re freezing but happy here in the cold north right now.
Can totally relate to that. Could you please introduce yourself and Mayfire to our readers?
Certainly. We are Mayfire, a kind of unorthodox band I guess, as it's an extremely ambitious project, combining cinematic visuals with music. From a band perspective, music videos have always been a way of showing the music. And vica versa: Music has a big supporting role when it comes to film. But what if music and film were made for eachother, right from the get go? That is what we’re trying to do with Mayfire. It’s grandiose, for sure…
The center of it all is an awesome concept MJX has created, so the entire project is heavily conceptual, from the visuals, to the looks, and the story line.
Awesome! Congrats on the release of your marvelous debut. How do you feel about it, and how was the reception so far?
Thank you! The reception has been better than we anticipated. And it feels great to finally be able to share our project with the world.
Let’s take a look at the modern album cover: What can you tell us about its origins?
We knew we wanted something sleek, mysterious and modern-looking. The contrast between the white and the somewhat complex black logo we thought looked stunning. And it’s fitting with the futuristic concept as well, as the visuals will show.
Could you dive a bit into the story of “Cloudscapes & Silhouettes” with us, please?
The first song, "The Fall", gives a small introduction to the plot: The story begins in the far future, where the world has been broken down by war and poverty for decades. The world is now governed by a tyrant who claimed the throne through violence. Our hero’s journey begins with “City of Ruins”, from a snow covered wasteland into a world unknown.
The band represents the shadow guild, a faction of warriors who are fighting for the return of the true hair to the crown, and to restore balance and peace to the world again.
The story we tell of the world in "Cloudscapes & Silhouettes" is divided into three factions: The tyrant and the “world city”, where humanity is quartered and divided by enormous walls as a hierarchy of status, class, rich and poor. Then we have the outsiders and the free, that live outside the big city walls, but are in continuous conflict with the tyrants government, as well as the balancing force named “The Shadow Guild” (the band).
"Part 1” ends with “The Age Of Kings”, but our story will continue…
Awesome :-) Your music is mesmerizing, comes along as a strong unit, yet with a great dynamic and variety. What is your musical background, and where do you draw your inspiration from?
That is one of those magical personal chemistry things that sometimes happen, I think. MJX and I come from different musical backgrounds, but when we write together something goes “click”. As far as my influences, I started my musical career as a drummer - I wanted to be Lars Ulrich (laughs). That’s perhaps why I’m also inspired by tremendous rhythm players like James Hetfield, Max Cavalera, Pete Loeffler, Bjørn Gelotte, Dave Grohl and Adam Jones. Riffs for days!
I am probably the one in the band that enjoys black metal the most as well. But I also draw inspiration from composers like Hans Zimmer and shows like Final Space. It’s pretty diverse.
That's a diverse mix indeed :-) What was first on your creative journey: the conceptual idea or the music? And could you briefly describe your writing / recording process, please?
Well, I guess the first thing was the conceptual idea. It goes back to how MJX and I met. In the beginning it was writing and releasing songs in a linear fashion. We were kind of trying to find our form, as much as fleshing out it all and finding out how exactly we could wrap our heads around the entire concept. We wrote the album as the pandemic raged, which was a struggle for sure. Social distancing made it harder to be creative, since we couldn’t get together as easily as we’d like. So it was a lot of back and forth with files on dropbox. (laughs)
Let’s make a little time trip: When and how did you guys get together?
Sometime in 2018 I joined a band as a guitar player, and MJX was the lead vocalist. Not long after we realized that we had a chemistry that was special. So in mid 2019 we broke out and formed Mayfire. We haven’t looked back since.
How did you come up with your band’s name, and is there a deeper meaning behind “Mayfire” for you?
Well, the name was at first inspired by initials of MJX’ real name (back when
it was just a cinematic concept), but we changed some of the letters so it was
given its own feet and sounded cool.
It does absolutely :-) What are your experiences within today’s music business regarding the biggest chances and challenges?
I think the biggest “difficulties” is the share volume of bands and music being presented. It takes a lot to be noticed, to stick out and be interesting to people. Why should they stop what they are doing and give us a listen, you know?
I guess we are kind of going against the flow by doing a concept album in 2023. But just the possibility of releasing an album feels inspiring. In the end it’s all about the joy of being creative and hopefully find a connection across time and space that matters. I still think it’s wildly awesome that a riff written right here in the comforts of my home late one night can end up as a Mayfire song, and that it might become someones favourite song. I mean, how awesome is that? You can’t find that anywhere else.
While we’re travelling around the world musically for over three years now, with some amazing stops in Scandinavia already, I just realized this is the first time we head to Norway. How would you describe your local rock / metal scene, and did you notice changes over the recent years?
Oh, wow! Glad we could make you check Norway out. (laughs) Our local music scene is awesome, so many amazing bands and players, and there's still the chance to perform live. Some places have lost something when the clubs and stages disappeared, but around these parts, it’s still possible to go out and enjoy live music - It’s great!
Awesome! What can you tell us about your future plans?
Firstly we are finally ready to go out and play live now! We have become a complete band now, and are ready to bring the music out to the masses. And "Cloudscapes & Silhouettes" is our debut album. We have thought of this concept as a story that unfolds over three albums, so we are starting to work on the second album as well as filming and doing the film-based stuff. The future's looking bright indeed!
Sounds highly promising to me! Before we wrap things up, do you have any further thoughts you’d like to share here?
Thank you for having us! If anyone have 45 spare minutes they don’t know what to do with, take the time to listen to "Cloudscapes & Silhouettes". And you can find us on Facebook if you’d like to follow us on our journey.
Band-Links: WEBSITE / BANDCAMP / FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM / TWITTER
Absolutely :-) Thanks again for your time and these amazing insights into your work.