Pat Kirch - The Maine 'Feeling Fine on Australian Headlines'
When The Maine were back in Australia for the first time since their tour in which they supported All Time Low, we were lucky enough to have a chat to Pat Kirch about how their visit, what their future plans are, and their unique recording style.
What’s your favourite thing been so far about touring in Australia?
Honestly, Australia compared to other places feels not too far from home. It feels like we’re in California or something.
Does it feel much like Arizona at all?
A little bit! It feels more like California, I think. Arizona just tries to be like California. I just like that it’s so pretty and awesome out here.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tku0H7YeMeA&w=640&h=360]
I think it’s very relaxed out here, which is how it is in California, and people are very creative and alternative so to be in alternative music in both places, it must be a really good scene.
Oh yeah for sure! I think for us it took a little bit to get things going over here and now we’re finally building a community of people over here who are into what we’re doing so it’s been really good.
You guys have the 8123 Fest which is super successful and you've just finished with the 8123 Day as well. How did that all go for you guys?
Awesome! The festival was just mind blowing!
So what did you guys do for the festival? Was it just an absolutely massive tour?
Yeah so a bunch of bands played, we had a pop up shop and an after party and basically the whole weekend we just took over all of Phoenix. It was probably my favourite show I’ve ever played out there.
You guys had massive technical issues the other day with your amps breaking. Whats the worst thing thats happened and how do you deal with all that?
You just gotta deal with it, especially being in a different country. We bring stuff from home that only uses US power so we had an amp break but we managed to get it fixed two days later so it was alright, we just had to make do until then and borrow other peoples stuff. No matter what happens, we’re going to play a show anyway.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKrndtqKtWE&w=640&h=360]
Where are you headed to next?
We’re going back home to Phoenix for a couple of weeks. We’re going to write demo and record some songs that haven’t made it on any other albums in the past, so that will be cool. We’ll write songs without really much intention yet, y'know, just see what happens with that.
On the road, when you are recording, I know some singers like to record in bathrooms because they echo, so where’s the weirdest place that you’ve recorded?
We’ve definitely recorded in some bathrooms, showers… Cars? That’s about all though. Most of the time we’re writing at home. Its really hard to write or record on the road because your day is broken up so much yknow. You can never really find a chunk of time.
Your last tour was with All Time Low, so it’s good to have you back for a headlining tour. Was that in the works back then or did you just decide “fuck it let’s go?”
We had planned it right at the end of that tour because we kind of decided that it would be good to come back again and not play a half hour. Our last headliner was in 2015, and time just goes so fast.
You said that when you recorded Forever Halloween, you recorded it in a completely different way than usual. Do you think it impacted how you recorded American Candy and Lovely Little Lonely and would you do it again any other soon or is there any other methods that you wanted to try?
I think we pushed it so far in one direction, that we were kind of like okay let’s do the complete opposite of that which is why I think compared to Forever Halloween, American Candy is polished a bit more and put together whereas with Forever Halloween we were kind of like “okay let’s just play and let it record and thats the record” without putting too much thought into it, where these past two records we’ve really paid a lot of attention to making sure we’re happy with the parts and stuff but I feel like we’ve run our course with that now too, so now it’s a matter of figuring out what’s next.
We don’t like making the same album over and over again. We’ll see what we do now. It’s a little early, usually it kind of comes, like the ideas will just come to us but we definitely know it’s going to be different. It’s just in what way? So we’re just going to keep trying to push ourselves outside of the comfort zones that we’ve been in with the past two albums but it’ll definitely be different.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKrndtqKtWE&w=640&h=360]
So do you think it will impact how you record albums in future from just that one time trying that very different style?
Yeah, I just think every record is a reaction to the last one, like we enjoyed parts of that, lets do more of that and lets not do other things. When we recorded Pioneer we recorded like 27 songs and theres more that haven’t been released yet, so that was exhausting, so then with American Candy we recorded 10 songs and that was it, just the 10 songs that made it on the record. So that was a reaction to not wanting to do that again. So it’s like every time is just different so who knows? This time it might be something totally ridiculous.
It must be great to have that creativity now that you’re with your own record label that you created, so you’re not being forced to make a certain sound or anything so you can do whatever you like, and ultimately, you are your own boss!
It is great, we can do whatever we want! I think the biggest thing above all of that is that we’ve made so many different kinds of records and our fans have been so supportive of all of them so that makes us confident that we can kinda be like “hey we can do whatever the fuck we want” and people enjoy it if it’s good and that makes us feel not so trapped in a box of what people expect of our band because every time is a little different, so I think people expect the unexpected now.
Interview by Heather McNab
Revisit our Photo Gallery of The Maine's Sydney show right here
