of mice and men
Jan
03
11.58am

OF MICE & MEN // For Love, Not Money


From the rain-soaked cobble streets of Copenhagen, Denmark, Aaron Pauley claims to be scientifically freezing. He’s not about to volunteer his extremities to scientific research, mind you, he’s merely focusing on keeping warm by giving the Danes the best live performances possible. Supporting In Flames and Five Finger Death Punch, Of Mice & Men have been showcasing a few tracks from their upcoming album Defy. “We’ve played Unbreakable and War Zone,” says Pauley.

MORE: Best 25 Albums of 2017.

The band’s fifth studio album, Pauley’s first on lead vocals entirely, doesn’t drop until January 19, and yet the reception has already been overwhelmingly successful. “There’s a part of the set where I ask, ‘Who’s seen Of Mice & Men before?’ and people raise their hand,” Pauley begins, “And then I ask, ‘Who’s never seen Of Mice & Men before?’ You know, generally there’s maybe a tenth of the audience [who’ve] seen us and so many of these people, they’ve never seen and never heard of us. So, to them, the new songs are just as foreign as the old songs. But it’s been awesome to see how the new songs get such a positive reaction.

“To see that our fans only make like a tenth or maybe even a twentieth of the people in these arenas—and they’re big arenas—it’s just kind of like… it feels very validating, reaffirming.”

Certainly, these are appropriate feelings for Pauley to be having because Defy does just that—it defies anything that Of Mice & Men have put out before, the defiance being the breaking of the parameters of music. This is an album with both the power to turn strangers to their sound and elicit an absolute love from long time followers. “That means the world,” Pauley says, genuinely floored by the positive compliment. “We spent so much time just working on those songs.



“We released two songs because Rise [Records] believed in us. We told ’em, ‘These are honest,’ we said, ‘If you want this band to continue, just let us release a couple of songs, let us communicate with our fans.’”

Pauley continues, deep in appreciative and audible thought, saying, “Then for us to kind of get back out there, to get a lot of love on the new songs and then to take that energy, that live energy, turn it into a record… I don’t know. It’s swag. Tino says it’s swag. You can put him on record, Valentino Arteaga said, ‘That’s swag.’” The band’s drummer, David Valentino Arteaga, sits with Pauley, comically developing potential new trends in slang. He listens to the conversation in agreement with each topic. Pauley says Of Mice & Men is all about the shared experience and with Arteaga by him, this holds true.

I think it was Maynard [James Keenan] from Tool said, “We, as artists, are supposed to be reporters.” Basically, we look at the world, what we’re going through, and figure out a way to interpret that.
[ Aaron Pauley ] 

You must agree with Pauley when he talks of shared experiences and music being the universal language, because that’s the definition of Defy. Throughout each track Of Mice & Men present a different theme, a different angle, communicating thoughts and feelings, relatable things. How they’ve managed to create such an experience in sound, Pauley doesn’t quite understand himself. “I don’t know if that’s what we did,” he says, “If you’re telling me that’s what we did, then I’m gonna take that to the bank. Because, to be honest with you, the instrumentation is always super collaborative and we always work [together] on that. But the lyrical side, I think it was Maynard [James Keenan] from Tool said, “We, as artists, are supposed to be reporters.” Basically, we look at the world, what we’re going through, and figure out a way to interpret that.

“[We] give that to people that listen to us, ‘cause hopefully, if music is the universal language, the type of music you make is specifically tied with your specific dialect, and people will speak that and understand that, and they’ll be able to have conversations with people. A lot of what bands do is try to experiment with that to try and perfect their dialect but for us, it was just about really being honest.

“We didn’t try to reinvent ourselves. It was about just figuring out who we were as people, who we were as musicians. For every hour we’d play music, we’d spend two hours talking. For me, I look at Of Mice & Men and I’m not the front man. I think of myself as a mouthpiece for the band. It’s not my story, it’s our story, because as much as the lyrics are very honest to my life, they’re honest to each and every single one of us in the band’s lives.”

Despite the trials they’ve faced, Of Mice & Men are still able to have fun with their music. It’s never uniform and it’s not a chore. They love their fans, they love their experiences and most importantly, they portray all this in their music—each album is a snippet of time. “For us, it’s the honesty in all of it. All we really have is music,” says Pauley. “I’m just smiling and looking at Tino and he’s smiling big, too. He’s punching me on the shoulder.

“Yeah, this is our lives; it’s real for us and I always enjoy talking to people who devote their lives to doing the same thing because we share a love for music, and we share music with our fans. It’s a language only we can speak, you know?”  

Defy is out January 19, pre-order here.

Of Mice & Men play Download Melbourne 2018, tickets available here.





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