EastScene

EastScene had a chance to interview Nathan Leone from the band Madina Lake. The boys are set to release their next album Atticts to Eden on April 28th, 2009. The guys are currently touring internationally in Australia, Japan, and Europe. They will then be back in North America for Warped Tour so make sure you go out and see these guys.

ES: So, first question for you. How’s the tour so far?

NL: You know what? It’s one of the best we’ve done. It’s our first tour back from like five months of writing, recording and just sitting around watching House. So, we were out of shape a little bit for the first couple of shows, but when you’re on a tour with a band like Anberlin, they’re awesome dudes and they’re incredible musically and it kind of, like, bleeds over into the crowds that come to the show. They’re also super cool and easy going, willing to go out and have a good time and get excited about the opening bands as well.

ES: Do you find a lot of people singing along, even though you’re just opening? You guys are pretty well known, I’ve heard of you for a while now. Do you find that a lot of people in the front row are singing along. How does that feel when you actually do see that?

NL: We feel super lucky, we spent about two and a half years on tour on the first record, like we started a year before it came out and it went on for about a year and a half after that and we got to play some Warped Tour dates, we did Project Revolution with Linkin Park in the States, and had a good run in the UK and Japan. So I think that people are starting to support us from all over the place and now when we come out for the second record, it’s amazing to see that they’ve come back with the enthusiasm and the anticipation that we left. So we’re really lucky.

ES: It happens alot. Like you go to a show, you know the band, you sing along.. but to see them perform, it’s just so much better. Then you go home and just play that record over and over again and then the next time you see them, it’s a hundred times better. So, your favorite place to perform, other then Chicago obviously…

NL: We’ve had really good shows in London and Birmingham, and Tokyo has been fantastic, Sydney, Australia, those are more of the glamorous, amazing, oppurtunities. But in the states now, it’s picking up like crazy and it’s really exciting for us to go to a relatively small town like Toledo, Ohio or something. To go from Toledo to Denver to Virginia Beach and we’ve got pockets of support there and it just blows us away each time and it’s really, really cool.

ES: So you’ve been to Tokyo before?

NL: Yeah, we played twice in Tokyo. Once for this festival called Summer Sonic which was crazy, it was like 10,000 kids a day at this huge, multi-band festival and one of those shows was actually with Motorhead and Blue Man Group, yeah, they’re crazy over there. Blue Man Group, then us right after, it’s a hard act to follow and then a couple of bands later, Motorhead. So we were like, “okay, Japan represents!”

ES: I guess so! I guess you’re excited to play there again?

NL: Yeah, cause then we went back and played a headliner there, which was fantastic, that was in Tokyo and Osaka, and now we’re going back for Punk Springs, which is another punk festival. So that’ll be awesome.

ES: In an interview, it said that you guys don’t believe in organized religion. Is there any reason why the album is named what it is and what does Eden mean to you?

NL: First of all, we support anyone, it’s like to each his own kind of thing. For us personally, Eden is like what represents a happiness and a psychological feeling of things being okay and good and positive. With the title Attics to Eden, Attics kind of implies the different frames of minds in your head, like the different ways of thinking that can get you that happiness. So even if you experience some traumatic events or if you’re going through a really hard time, or if you’re having an amazing experience in your life, I think that everything is kind of how you think about it, so if you can train your mind or learn how to think positively about things, you know, you can find the good in life.

ES: That’s true, and like you said, it’s to each his own. You don’t have to be a part of a specific thing, you believe what you believe and that’s what matters. I agree with that. So what can we expect from the new album?

NL: Well, it’s so hard not to sound cliche when you’re talking about it,  everyone’s like, “it’s more melodic and it’s more mature.” With us it’s like, there’s twelve songs on it, and each one is kind of like it’s own island. You know what I mean? It’s like it’s its own entity within the twelve. So there’s some that are super electronic and programmed edgy, like dance Nine Inch Nails kind of edgy, and some that are more alternative rock and some that are more heavier metal.

ES: On this tour, are you guys going to play a lot from it or are you going to mix it up?

NL: We’re starting with two new songs, cause I don’t know, with my personal experience growing up and everytime I would go see one of my favourite bands, and they would play new songs, it was amazing and exciting but it was just like, “come on man!!”.

ES: It’s so nice to hear though, because when the album comes out, you feel like you’ve already heard that song and you know that song.

NL: That’s so true. We have a 25-30 minute set on this tour, so we put in two new ones and then are just kicking it old school and we’ll add new ones as the months go by.

ES: Same thing happened with Anberlin on warped tour. They played some new songs and it was like, “alright, these are pretty good.”. Popped in the new record when it finally came out and it was like “I know this one already!”. So, with making this album, what learning experiences did you take from the last album. With your first album how was the recording process?

NL: An interesting question because we did the first record with Mark Trombino and he was amazing and he was very kind of like a hands off kind of guy he didn’t touch the songs, he didn’t want to add anything production wise except his expertise and we got there and did, I think, like two weeks of pre-production. So we’d sit there and play all of our sings live for him and he would sit there. We battled to no end in there, like we hated each other. I mean, he’s an animal.

ES: What  was the process on the new album?

NL: What was awesome was that at the end of the day, and just to be honest we’re at a time musically where bands use co-writers, it’s not that we’re against it, but we’re so anti, like we would never do it in a million years. So we insisted that we wrote ever single note on it and that’s where a lot of the battles came because he would push us and push us to write a better part on one that we already liked. And we did and I think that at the end of the day, we did end up being a better band from it.

ES: Did you find it overwhelming, working with him?

NL: Totally overwhelming. I mean this guy is relentless, he’s a nut, he will break you down! He’s an amazing guy and we had the ability to be really close with him and also bitch at each other to no end.

ES: And that’s the thing, if you have that ability to kind of yell at him and him not take it to heart then its kind of like that sibiling relationship.

NL: Exactly, and then ten minutes later you have a better product. so, we were really lucky.

ES: Were there any songs that you wrote that didn’t really fit into the whole Madina Lake kind of scene?

NL: Well, yes and no. One of our kind of protocols for that is, like, when we write songs at least lyrically, they have to come from the heart, not to be cliche, but they have to be honest and based on real experiences. So we write the songs for the album first and then kind of wrap the story around them. And the stories involve like, popular themes and typical things that people go through in life across the board, so it’s easy to apply it. So we basically write songs and add another creative push beyond that of wrapping the story around it.

ES:What is one of the benefits and advantages of being in Madina Lake?

NL: That’s an awesome question. One of the things that we benefit from and we’re really lucky about or to have, is the ability to travel from continent to continent. You know, like being in a place like Japan is like, it’s a place you read about or see in the movies. And being in Germany and Australia, you find that people are different in so many ways but also they’re very similar in a lot of ways. And a lot of the people are the same everywhere you go and I think that there’s a genuine goodness in people that I may not have been able to realize before we started traveling so much and that’s definitely something we’ve all appreciated.

ES: What’s your proudest moment in Madina Lake?

NL:
Definitely the Kerrang award. We got Best International New-Comer in Kerrang in 2007 and it’s a reader based poll, so basically the kids in England and in the UK went online and voted and we won that award and it made us feel really good about ourselves.

ES: So they love you overseas then?

NL: They helped us, they helped to spread the word.
No doubt. I mean for bands, things like Kerrang for example for us has been instrumental. I mean they basically changed our whole lives. They support us, they’ve been writing about it, and we’ve got on the cover a few times. And just like that, things spread out in a way that we could never have done otherwise. So things like Myspace and Kerrang- those are huge for us.


ES:
Okay, so now I have to ask about Fear Factor.. how did you get on that? How does that happen? Was it just random?

NL: No! it was the weirdest thing, one of our best friends from home, as a joke, like he was trying to fuck with us, found a listing on Craig’s List for Fear Factor saying they were looking for the twin episode. So he grabbed a picture and wrote an email about us and submitted it without us knowing. So we get the call one day and they were like, “Hey, this is Fear Factor.” And we were like, “For what? What are you talking about?” so basically, long story short, they put us in a conference call and asked us a few questions while we filmed it and had to email it to them. We thought it was a joke.

ES: So, winning the $20,000 & $50,000, obviously you put some of it into recording and stuff, but you had to spend it on something else..

NL: Yeah, I bought a flat screen TV, because really, when I’m home, I don’t do much except my remote, my couch and my TV, that’s kind of what I base my life around. So to be able to get a nice, big hi-def…

ES:How long did it take you and your brother to eat hamburgers again?

NL: We’re idiots, because everyone is puking everywhere,  and it was freezing out when we did this stunt, and right when you finish, they take off all your clothes and hose you down outside and then put you in a SUV to keep you warm with buckets, and you’re just in there puking in buckets in the nude, next to your twin brother which is weird enough. So that night, we went back to the hotel and ordered fucking cheeseburgers for dinner. And of course, the taste comes back.

ES: So now that you’re releasing the new album, have you already considered writing more stuff?

NL: Yeah, nowadays with protools and all that stuff, we can work in the van. And people always need songs for like b-sides or a movie soundtrack or whatever. So as far as the labels concern, they want us to continue delivering songs, and we keep our caps on and keep writing. So we will continue to write and we’ll have a lot of b-sides coming out soon.

ES: What’s the story with Madina Lake? This mythological town..

NL: The first one that coincides with the first record is basically about this girl Adelia who is kind of like the town celebrity and about how the whole town becomes obsessed with her. And it kind of parallels with pop culture in the United States, especially in how bad it can be to just completely wrap yourself up in that material, shallow, bullshit aspect of life. And basically she goes missing. And now we’re working on part two which is called Scorched Earth and it’s going to expand the whole story kind of globally.

ES: I noticed that a lot of the stuff that’s in there has a lot to do with what’s happening today in society,  but I think things have changed. Especially in the states, Obama even, and all the political and economical stuff that has happened, do you find that it affects the way Madina Lake writes and the whole story?

NL: Yes and no because the general principle of the story is kind of a good vs. evil thing. I think that the more things that are good, which I think Obama was a good, and he’s appointing all these guys to be in his cabinet and they’re all shady as hell. So it’s just this perpetual cycle of good and bad in the world. And I don’t know where all that ends up.



ES: But even him getting sworn in, like even up here (Canada), if you go skating on the Rideau, it’s like this big river where everyone skates on, they have like beaver tails and they’re writing O on it, and big signs up everywhere on the Rideau. People up here were nuts when it was the election, the bars were packed.

NL: No shit, why do you think that is?

ES: I mean, I think the most of it has to do with, like, what you guys do has major, major impact on us. So, whatever happens obviously affects us. I’ve even talked to people who have been like, “I wish we could have had a vote.” “I wish Canadians could even vote for the American president.”

NL: It was the same thing in England as well. And to me, that’s amazing. To have a guy like Obama, like the United States is not this big fucking powerful monster. It’s no longer just the United States. It’s a global society now and we all have to be on the same positive playing field.. And everyone affects everyone now, so it’s like if you’re voting on someone else who’s going to do the exact same thing as before, it’s not going to help anyone. So when people see that one person who says that they’re going to make that change, and they’re promising all this stuff, when it actually comes true it will be amazing.

ES: Was the whole concept of your band and the whole idea and story something that you always wanted to try and tackle? Was the story something that you thought of before or was it something that just gradually happened?

NL: It’s something that gradually happened. You know, nowadays, there’s a million bands, and a million websites and labels, so we just figured that we wanted to do as much creatively as we possibly could to kind of give more to whoever was listening. So when we were coming up with the band and the name Madina Lake, we decided to come up with a ficticious town, where we could employ characters to add more. And we don’t want to be pretentious about it, we’re not a concept band. We’re just a band, here’s our record.

ES: What can we expect from the album, other than what we already talked about, like… headlining a tour maybe?

NL: We just found out that we’re going to be doing the whole Warped Tour. Our real goal is the headlining thing, because then we could do all the production things that we want to do, you know, because when you’re a supporting band, you could only really put up a banner. Which is also cool, but we like to put as much as we can into a live show. In the U.K, we’ll go over and headline, and we’ve been really lucky there, you know we’ll get 2000-3000 kids, which is dramatically different. So when we headline over there, we’ll get like cans of confetti, and whatever to add more fun to the live show.

ES: Now, onto the Smashing Pumpkins.. you’re a huge fan. What do you think of the new stuff?

NL: When we were in Chicago, we got to see them like four times. At the first one, I was a little bit disappointed. He was very self-indulgent and there were some hippie jams in there and that’s not what drew me to the Pumpkins. Then I saw them again and I was like, “wow, that was pretty awesome,” and by the fourth one, I was completely floored, just like I was when I was 12 years old.

ES: So other than them, who else are your big influences?

NL: There aren’t many. Muse, Nine Inch Nails, Billy Talent..



ES: Billy Talent eh?

NL: Yeah, crazy about Billy Talent. Matter of fact, we’re playing SoundWave in Australia and we’re on the main stage with Billy Talent and Nine Inch Nails.

ES: I heard Billy Corgan on the radio the other day doing an interview, saying how he thinks that rock ‘n’ roll is dead. How do you guys fit into that, being the band that you are and playing the way you do?

NL: I think I’ve heard that from all 90’s bands or musicians, and I don’t mean that disrespectfully. I think that the minute you start paying attention to the industry, and other bands and like, the top 40, it’s a bad road to go down. Focus on your own music, do your own thing with honesty and integrity and passion. The second people start bitching about other bands, it’s because they’ve lost their way and their art, in my opinion. Just focus on what you do best, and that’s creating music. You don’t have to worry about giving it a label, or complaining about the state of the industry. None of that should matter to you.