In Conversation With #114 - ME REX
With what started out as a bedroom project - ME REX has grown into an exciting collaborative adventure featuring band members of Fresh, Happy Accidents and Cheerbleederz. Combining the electronic influences of WHY? and the lyrical flare of Los Campesinos, ME REX have a new EP ‘Stegosaurus’ out now via Big Scary Monsters. Myles McCabe, who started this project - talks to us in more depth about how this EP came together.
Hey Myles, how are you? How does it feel to be releasing music during this strange time for the creative industry?
We were all really disappointed at the start of the first lockdown, having just that week finished booking a tour for June. The plan was to tour with Happy Accidents with meplaying keys and Kathryn playing bass. We were just starting to plan the releases for both of the EPs with Big Scary Monsters which ideally we would be touring around as well. I was glad of the break from working and managed to use the extra time to record 4 new demos for the next set of recording. Following on from that Fresh managed to demo a whole album remotely online which I really enjoyed. The few livestreams that I’ve played have been great and people have been very supportive. I still want to get back to playing gigs all over the place as soon as it’s safe.
Your EP ‘Stegosaurus’ is out now, which follows on from your previous EP ‘Triceratops’, so we have to ask - why the dinosaur theme?
My friend Joe suggested it while we were recording the original demos, I think he was joking but I’ve more or less stuck with it. It does give each set of releases some consistency and it means I don’t have to think too hard about naming each one. I went with extinct mammals for the choral and acoustic EP and I called a compilation of odds and ends ‘ Brontosaurus’ because of the controversy over whether or not that is it’s own dinosaur. I have an EP called ‘Pterodactyl’ which is not technically a dinosaur but nobody has complained to me about it yet.
Early on I was more committed to the dinosaur theme, on my first tour I didn’t have any perch so I ordered a load of plastic dinosaurs off Ebay and tagged them all with “dinoload codes”
ME REX started off as a solo bedroom project that has now transformed into a collaborative one, who have you got involved?
Phoebe - I first met Phoebe when I played a house show in New Cross with Happy Accidents about 5 years ago. It was the first time I heard them and I was immediately very into the band. We played a few shows together after that and Fresh and Happy Accidents went on a short European tour. After drumming on Flood it was Phoebe’s idea to get everyone involved in playing the songs live.
Rich - Rich got in touch about working together on something in around 2017 which culminated in the single ‘Flood’ which came out on Rosecoloured Records the next year. Rich then went on to record the second Fresh album. After that we went on to start recording Triceratops and it wasn’t until we finished that that I decided I wanted to release it alongside Stegosaurus as a double EP. By that point we had played a few shows as a band so it made sense to record both EPs with the whole band playing on them.
Kathryn - Kathryn I first met when I went to see Fresh support Trust Fund at an acoustic show at Housmans Radical booksellers. I joined the band about a year later. We’ve toured a lot together in Fresh, Kathryn is a great songwriter and performer.
Where was this EP recorded? Any behind the scenes stories from the recording process?
These songs were all recorded at Resident Studios in Willesden where Rich and Kathryn both work. I haven’t got any stories about it but at the same time as the recording of Stegosaurus we also recorded a full album which will be out next year.
What are the key themes and influences on this EP?
Los Campesinos! were a big influence on how this EP came out, lyrically but also sonically and in terms of the energy and dynamics. I wrote these songs around a time I was doing a lot of self reflection, something I try to keep up now but was a relatively new thing to me at a time. I was discovering a lot about who I was and who I wanted to be. Themes of discovery, change and growth are all throughout this EP. Particularly in ‘Sinkhole’ which came about as a result of a conversation with an old man who came up to the gate of my old house and started telling me about all the local underground rivers. He told me one of them was causing a sinkhole outside his house where they had built the road over it. I thought of it as a natural force undermining the structure that had been imposed on it.
Do you have a favorite lyric on the EP? If so, which one and why?
I put a lot of thought and a lot of time into the lyrics to each song. I don’t let anything stay that doesn’t add meaning to the song for me. That said, I really enjoy adding things that are “too weird’ or “too silly” and my favourite one of those on this record is “Perspective’s all we found in these negative spaces”. In the recording all the instruments drop out on the phrase “negative spaces” which is a pun on top of a pun and has no place in a serious song. My music quite often gets described as “sad” but I disagree with that, I try and express a range of emotions in these songs and adding goofy jokes is one of my favourite ways to do that.