MEW // Seeing The Past, The Present, & Future

With almost 25 years of exploring the ethereal soundscapes of dream pop and atmospheric alternative rock, Danes Mew have carved a unique and influential musical pedigree most bands can only aspire towards. Ahead of their Australian tour, we spoke with frontman Jonas Bjerre and chatted Visuals, Kate Bush, and the current state of the world.

What has the live response to Visuals been like so far? It’s such an ethereal and atmospheric album – how do you go about ensuring that this feeling is incorporated into your live show?

In pre-production we tend to play as a piece but we also tend to overdub a lot of stuff, our albums are very layered and we want our live shows to be as precise as possible. There’s always a period where we’re figuring out how to do the songs, involving a lot of making sure guitar and bass parts are exactly where they should be so it’s always a fun and exciting process. In saying that though, I really enjoy the way the live show has a bit of a rawness to it, but I do think we get it pretty close to the way it sounds on the album. I mean, we’re coordinating 5 people playing onstage and we’re all doing so many things, our keyboard player especially is sings a lot and sometimes plays around parts per show [laughs].

Mew have been around for almost 25 years now and you have such a vast back catalogue to include in your set – how do you go about selecting tracks that both best represent where you are as a band now as well as ensuring you honour your history?

There are always songs that we want to play but we’re always excited to play the newer songs as well as incorporating the fan favourites. We’re constantly travelling around the world and playing, so it’s important we try and mix it up a bit even though there are certain tracks we always bring on tour. It’s cool that a lot of the fan favourites are also the ones we enjoy playing the most.

Visuals features so many dream pop and atmospheric element –soundscapes that you’ve included in your sound for a while now. What were you listening to at the time of recording that inspired this further sonic exploration?

A lost of it was going back and re-visiting the things that initially inspired us. We had a weird musical upbringing because when we were kids, we listened to what our parents were listening to, so going back it was a lot of listening to 80s pop [laughs]. It was the ‘post-rock’ thing that really got us wanting to start a band after we’d been doing lots of artistic and weird experimental things together, but recording now a lot of those earlier influences come through like Kate Bush. She was my favourite when I was a kid, I think she’s a genius and I think this time around, we gave way to it a bit more. We also made shorter songs than we usually do! Precise, shorter little songs that aren’t as meandering as we usually do.

A lot like the rest of your back catalogue, Visuals packs a serious emotional punch. What sort of experiences inspired the intensity behind the album?

Well, we had a bit of a shorter break in between tours this time around than we usually do. We had so many ideas and when we got back we wanted to start working on them to see where they could go and we got it together quite quickly, so that whirlwind process really influenced it. 2016 was kind of a dark year for humanity and it really had an influence on us, but I don’t think it’s the darkest album we’ve ever written even though it’s definitely is influenced by a widespread despondence. I think it’s a very hopeful album—like a counter-reaction to the darkness.

I think it’s a very hopeful album—like a counter-reaction to the darkness.
[JONAS]

Mew has always put such an emphasis on the aesthetics of elements like album art-work and other visuals related to the band. How do you integrate this vision on Visuals?

The whole process of creating Visuals was such a collaborative effort. It was all of us adopting the same direction and same ideas so it’s all connected musically and visually. I made the artwork for the album, I’ve been doing animations for quite a while and wanted to try and do more of that stuff. It just felt like the right time to do it because it is really and album that we felt like we had to make at this point, which is quite liberating and joyous, despite being influenced by dark things and I think that comes through.

You’re heading to Australia soon for the first time in a while, what are you looking forward to?

There are so many amazing subcultures, beautiful architecture and wild places to admire [laughs]. The first time we were in Brisbane, we walked out of our venue and there were these kids breakdancing on the street to this weird, experimental music and we don’t really have that where we come from [laughs]. It’s just a really cool place and we love the vibe.