In between dodging the sun and filling up water bottles while listening to some of the best bands doing their thing I managed to catch up with one of my favourite bands on the planet, Million Dead!
MT: First and foremost, just a personal statement. I was so happy when I saw that you guys were getting the band back together, so to speak, because post hardcore was my thing, and you guys were a massive sort of part of getting me into the genre. So you guys have obviously just got back together. Are there plans for albums? I know you guys are going out on the road, touring. Is there a new album in the works?
MD: Personally, I often think that when bands do a reunion tour and then they announce a new record, they’ve slightly misread the room as to why people are excited they’re doing a reunion. It’s like people, and including us, are excited to relive the songs that we did 20 years ago. Yeah, we poured a lot of time and effort, love and art into that we’re really proud of. I’m not convinced that the world is waiting for us to do a new record and it’s not currently on deck. I mean, never say never. Thus far, we’ve done a bunch of rehearsing. We’ve done one show, yeah, and today we can do another one, and we’re gonna see how we go, yeah, seeing how it goes.
MT: Is this your second gig back together tonight?
MD: We did last night at the Joiners in Southampton. That was the first one back, and that was with the last gig we did in 2005 was at the same venue. So that was really nice to do, yeah, and today is the, you know, follow up for that one.
MT: I know that you guys have got a great relationship with the guys that put 2000 trees together but it takes balls, literally and figuratively, to have your second show back at such a big festival.
MD: It was gonna be the first one for a minute.
MT: You guys are playing the axiom and you are sandwiched in between Coheed and Taking Back Sunday. What’s your what’s your set length and will we see any surprises?
MD: Just an hour, I think we filled it pretty with, you know, the songs that we think people would like to hear, basically, yeah, you know, and it’s pretty solid,
MT: That brings me on quite nicely, I saw Frank’s acoustic set earlier and you played my second favourite song which is “Love, Ire & Song” but my first favourite song is “Smiling at Strangers on Trains”.
MD: Yeah, we’re not playing that one, only joking, we’re not fucking around, we’re playing it. Yeah, it’s a solid set. I would say that was the song where things really first kind of clicked for us as a band. There was a bunch of stuff we did before, and there was something about that. It’s kind of the sound of the band, yeah, really, isn’t it? Yeah, when we record it, it was supposed to be the B side. We were recording it in toe rag because we, you know, we practice in a rehearsal room, and you wouldn’t really be able to hear what Frank was singing, and we went to record the single. And I think was, you know, Cam Jules and I sitting in the in the room as we were hearing the play ball here, hearing record vocals and smiling. We both went, we all three of us were like, okay, no, that’s, that’s the A side. We just thought instrumentally kids are gonna love it. That had been the one where we were, like, that’s the A song. I think it’s that vocal melody, isn’t it? You know, it just really kind of adds the hook to the song, you know.
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MT: Million Dead had a great success back in the early 2000’s and you all went on to different projects that were also successful. Why get the band back together?
MD: Weird. It’s a funny story. The initial thing was that, and I only understand about 50% of the words in the sentence, there was a spin off series of ebooks from Buffy The Vampire Slayer about Spike? Anyway, our old guitar tech, Dave reads these books, right? There’s a scene in one where Spike has to go somewhere in a hurry because he’s going to a Million Dead reunion show. So whoever writes that’s a fan. Anyway, Dave sent an email to us, explaining the Buffy link and then we were all on an email thread for the first time in 20 years. Then I think that the next thing was, one of us had moved back to the UK for the first time in 10 years or so. It felt like the stars just kind of aligned. Also Frank and Ben had gotten terribly drunk one night and messaged Julia about getting the band back together.
MT: Next we are going to ask you some questions that will let our readers get to know you guys on a more personal level hopefully, firstly, what made you get into music, what was your gateway on to the scene?
Frank: Iron Maiden. I fell in love with Iron Maiden. I was into Games Workshop. I saw an Iron Maiden poster and assumed it was something to do with Games Workshop and then my mate said that’s a band, my brother’s into so I bought a cassette, it just changed everything and I’ve not really wanted to do anything else with my life ever since.
Julia: I just really gravitated towards music. When I was you it was all about pop music, right? I loved it, you know, I just loved music. And then, you know, as I grew up, I grew up in Australia, and, you know, I was very influenced. I loved, you know, British music and back then, you know, when you had magazines, I’d be reading about, you know, bands over here, and the Reading Festival I had that was actually a dream of mine to play Reading one day and we did, which was great. So, and that’s what led me to this country is just chasing that kind of ambition. I grew up in Melbourne, which, at the time, it’s a great city, but for music back then, it wasn’t brilliant. It’s amazing now, I think Australia is producing some really great music but, you know, I came over here in like, 1999 and one thing led to another, and here we are. So I went through loads of phases, pop music there was brit pop, then it was metal, then it was rock, then it was, I mean, I went through all kinds of phases.
Cam: I think getting into music similar to Frank, really, the first band, first tape I bought was Number of the Beast, Iron Maiden, you know, I went Iron Maiden, Metallica, like the, you know, Master of Puppets and Stuff like that and then move on quite quickly after that, things like Nirvana and, you know, I remember the Weezer blue album being massive and stuff like that, you know. So, like, as you went through the early 90s, you kind of, you never start liking less metal, more of the kind of, like, I don’t know what you call it, like fuzz, pot kind of stuff, you know, and that kind of thing with bit of heaviness, but more melody, you know, more harmony, maybe in the vocals. l think that the blue album is, is a classic. So similar trajectory, really. We then both gravitate towards hardcore, and that’s how and then, yeah, like late 90s, we moved on to kind of heavier stuff. So it’s all very gradual. You’re just picking things up as you go.
Ben: Anxiety? From a very young age I had to equal everything out on my hands and at some point along the line. I found drumming, and that seemed to help. And then I met Frank when I was 10 years old, and the rest is history.
Cam: I guess the first album I ever bought was, I think, a Duran Duran album, and, you know, when I was a teenager, you know, 12 or 13, I was sort of into Bon Jovi and that sort of thing but yeah, then, you know, it was the late 80s, and I guess after that, sort of started getting into things like Metallica and Slayer and Sepultura.
MT: You guys are very busy. So we’ll wrap this up. Two questions to wrap it up is, and it’s a question for everybody, just act like whoever you guys are. Million Dead are quite obviously bonafide headliners, but if there was one band, alive or dead that you could open for, who would it be?
MD: Fugazi or Hot Snakes!
MT: Before you guys hit the stage the last question I have is, if there was one thing you could say to your fans old and new, is there anything you would like to say?
MD: We’re not really a message band so I guess the only thing we would say is thank you, we are all aware that we get to do this because of them, so yeah, thank you.
