Major League, as you will find out in my next album review post, is one of my favorite bands. Despite that they are not a band I've listened to for years and years, they are still one I hold dear to me. I emailed them just days before the show (which I only found out about less than a week beforehand) and asked if they would do an interview with me. Nick emailed me back the same day and was incredibly gracious and agreed. We set up a time and a place and bam! Just like that, it was on.
The only thing I didn't predict was first losing my camera charge cord and then having a tape recorder break. Yeah, it felt a little like the world was out to make sure I didn't get a good recording of my interview. But that's okay, because what did we do before we had technology like video and audio recording? We used pen and paper. So that's what I did.* I've never been nervous during an interview before, but the combined lack of preparation that happened at the last minute and being in the presence of one of my favorite bands (not in a fan-girl way, just in an appreciative way) made me a little flustered. Enjoy learning a little more about Major League!
(If you've never heard of Major League or don't know them well, please visit the links below to view their different social pages and check out their music.)
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How did you first get started and what made you choose the direction for your sound that you did?
We just started jamming and writing songs; threw it together. The pop punk thing just happened. We all came from hardcore or metalcore backgrounds; that's what we had played in different bands before we came together. It just worked and we're able to play what we want.
Do you feel like starting in New Jersey made things harder for you to break into the music scene?
Yes. In our area there wasn't a pop punk scene. It was a "harder" scene and then when it came to pop punk, bands like Man Overboard were becoming popular and being noticed so it was hard to break into that.
Do you feel like you've grown as a band and your sound has changed accordingly?
Yes.
[Unanimous. Perhaps next time I'll add more depth to this question!]
Do you think your fans perceptions of you may have changed over the past few years?
People take us more seriously now. It's a good and bad thing. [Good because] Our parents perceptions have definitely changed and they take us a lot more seriously. They're proud. My dad thought we'd come crawling back but now he sees that we've made it out of the garage band thing. [Brian]
How do you feel about being named a pop-punk band? Is that a self-proclaimed genre or something fans have decided for you?
Definitely fans. Really, it's all rock. We're playing rock and the titles are just sub-genres of rock.
Everything is pop punk now. Title Fight is pop punk. Things on Tumblr are pop punk. [Matt] I hate genres. [Brian] Promoters and kids take it so seriously - everything gets based on genre. It used to be so much like one big thing - the music scene. Now kids come out to your shows and they judge you off your merch and it's not about having fun anymore. They stop looking at musicians now and it's about being prejudice against certain genres and only coming out to shows if the show is a genre they like.
Who writes most of the lyrics and the music and if it's not a total collaboration, how do you come to agreements?
Brian writes the lyrics and Matt does too sometimes. The lyric process is just what I feel and what's going on, life experiences. The rest is a group feeling. Everyone in the band has lost someone or been able to relate to something that a song is about. Nick will sometimes take lyrics and make a chorus from something I couldn't, trying to figure it out and arrange it. Everyone writes their own music except with the last record where everyone had more input on it.
Please explain your writing process and how it has changed between albums, if it has.
Hard Feelings was totally different. Luke lives in Pittsburg so when we did The Split [with Giants at Large] and Hard Feelings recordings, we would use our phones to record and we would be emailing songs and it got to a point where Luke would hear the different parts of what we were doing and say "You'll hear the drums when I'm done."
Do you feel like it's ever difficult to continue making a name for yourself as a band, while others seem to meld together under the pressure of the industry to make "popular" music?
You pay your dues. You make the music you want to make. People see you work hard and it all comes back to you. It's about respect especially in underground music. [Nick]
What, if anything, have you run into as a band that was difficult to overcome?
An accident where a truck ran into us.
But honestly nothing really - we keep going - every band goes through things. [Nick] We've been asked this before and it seems like everything comes out good or better in the end. [Matt] For every 3 things, 1 good thing happens. So after 2 things we're just waiting for the third bad thing to come and know that a good thing will be coming next. Always 3 and then 1 in that order.
Have you experienced any fallbacks or problems while recording?
With the new record. It was the most stressful, crazy thing with limited time. Only 4 weeks in the studio which was different and we hadn't heard everything together. Once we did, we didn't want to go that way and we literally spent the whole first week in the studio rewriting all the songs completely. For Nick, that meant spending 4 days on vocals with no time to relax or take a little break away from music and not think about it. It was just straight recording.
Do you feel like those things brought you closer and made the band even stronger?
Yes. Getting through certain things like the van being totaled and bouncing back the next day. As a band we can get through anything but it's good and bad. We can get cocky and think we're immortal.
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| Photo taken Dec 8 @ Baldwin Park show |
When touring and playing live shows, do you feel lie it's hard to please all your fans? E.g. playing the songs they want to hear, meeting their expectations or meeting everyone who wants to say hi?
No, we ask if they want to hear certain songs and we try to make people happy. It's about the fans more than us. It's up to them what they want to hear.
What can fans expect from you in 2013?
More of the new record. We want to play more of the new stuff. Last night [12/7] in Vegas, the kids rushed to the front of the stage to hear Homewrecker right away and to sing along. It's a great feeling that kids want to hear our new stuff that much.
I'm curious as to how you guys personally feel about the way music sales have hanged, including illegal downloading, iTunes, Amazon, and other online music retailers. Does this totally ruin music or do you think this improves how easily and rapidly music reaches your fans ears?
Both. I hate that there is hardly any music stores anymore. It used to be a huge thing staying up and standing in line (like they do now for movie premieres at midnight) for a new record to drop. Kids miss out now, because it's not like that anymore. It's changed a lot. It helps bands in a way because when we're MIA kids can still download the stuff (illegally or not) and come out to our shows once they've heard it.
Do you think that online sales will eventually completely replace CD and vinyl sales?
Yes. It already has. I remember when Blink-182 self titled CD came out and I was a freshman I was there in line waiting for it and the next day you couldn't find it anywhere. That's how it was when albums dropped. But now when their last album came out, you saw it everywhere. Nobody was buying physical albums. It seems it's only at shows that people buy the actual albums. It's a big bummer.
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I tried to get things as perfectly as possible, so please excuse any paraphrasing or abruptness!
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Find Major League on
Facebook,
Twitter, and their
website.
All photos noted with source by
Shot by Nesha. Check her there on her website or on
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If you don't know much about Matthew, he's been around the music industry for quite a while, in various different projects, including having been one of the guitarists for New Years Day (who I actually just interviewed at the end of March!) and has started this new project more recently. I'm glad he decided to go on his own path, so that he had the full creative decision making to create this gem of a record.
