SOUNDS OF THE UNDERGROUND: MECHA MECHA // Making Magic Happen

Mecha Mecha may have released Karma Krow back in 2018, but their ode to irrational fear and insomnia is as exciting and relevant now as it was all those years ago.

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Releasing their official video, we’re feeling hyped all over again. We caught up with frontman Walter Webb to chat about the track and the band’s plans for the rest of the year. Read on.

Hysteria: Tell us about Karma Krow.

Walter: It was one of those songs that just magically happened. All of a sudden it was in our setlist, it was one of the first songs that all three of us wrote evenly. It’s emblematic of our band’s sound with the electric violin and the lead bass tones, but it’s all tied together by my brother Angelo’s drumming.

It was really organic and we decided to not incorporate guitar into it, we had so much sound already built up we felt we didn’t need it. There was the bass, and the violin had all this distortion over it so it wasn’t necessary. It was a really fun process though.

We feel like this song would fit well in some psychological horror movies, what inspired it lyrically?

It’s funny because I’ve been told about the movie The Crow, but I’ve never seen it.  Through most of my life, I’ve struggled with getting sleep, sometimes I have memories and I don’t know if they’re a dream or not. The song is about that, struggling to discern reality from your dreams.

You’ve said that this was one of your first tracks where you didn’t try to borrow from another band, how did that go?

I have this philosophy that if you’ve taken something musically, you should just tell everyone you’ve done it. Someone will notice and call you out on it, so you’re better off just saying you stole it. One of our older songs was overtly copied from a Violent Soho song and we were honest about that, it’s better than acting like anything is original these days (laughs).

Like I said earlier, Karma Krow happened very naturally. It wrote itself and we didn’t have to copy someone else’s structure. It’s been a strong piece for us. I have this memory of playing a gig in Newcastle and we weren’t sure if it was going to go down well because it was in this chill bar, but once we started people got up right away and started dancing. It was so good to see that… I mean, the song is heavy but it’s got a beat that’s easy to dance to.

Karma Krow was one of those songs that just magically happened. All of a sudden it was in our setlist.
[ Walter Webb ]

How has your sound changed since the original release of the single?

It’s pretty focused now. I mean, we released a poppier song last year and that was us in a happy mood. The next single we’re going to release is the same vibe as Karma Krow, both sonically and aesthetically. 

It’ll be coming out next month. We’re hoping to get approved by John Wick (laughs). The song feels like it should be in a Keanu Reeves film, it’s very “action movie soundtrack”.

We hear you have a new album on the way.

We do, but it’s not our focus at the moment. One of the things we enjoyed about Karma Krow was that it was a home-job. The album art was done by a very close friend and we took the video home and edited it ourselves. We typically put quite a bit of money into our projects to keep them professional but this time we just wanted to see what we could do at home. For the most part, we were really happy with it.

A couple of years ago we released this video that got MTV and rage coverage and it was literally our first one as a band. We were so lucky, we did not expect it to pick up like that. But it’s annoying because every video we release has to be as good as that one (laughs). We have this standard we have to hit now. You see bands getting creative with cool videos, some indie creative ideas like a watermelon in a bath [laughs]. It looks really cool for what it is, but we can’t do that. It would be a bit weird because it doesn’t suit our sound. 

What else can we expect to see from Mecha Mecha this year?

We’ll be releasing another single in another month or so. It has a great crew behind it and it’ll probably be our most poignant release yet.

Purchase & stream Mecha Mecha’s Karma Krow here.