Introducing #119 - MIYA MIYA — When The Horn Blows

Let us introduce you to brand new Britpop band MIYA MIYA, who have just released their debut single ‘Underwater’. The four piece met at university - they took a moment to talk to us about Fleetwood Mac and how their music comes together.

So you are called Miya Miya, where does that come from?
Well, if you want the honest answer, we were called something else a month ago. Finding a new band name now is near impossible because they are all taken. But if you want the Official answer, we were studying jujitsu in a temple called Miya in Japan. Of course Miya was taken so we went with Miya Miya.

You met at university, which one and what did you all study?
We all studied at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford. Two of us did the production course and two of us did performance. We actually didn’t really get to know each other until after we left, when we started working together on different projects.

You started a songwriting team, and have penned a few tracks for some big names, what made you want to go outside of that and release your own music?
Although we started off writing music for other people, things only started to move once we formed MIYA MIYA. As soon as we wrote our first song together as a band we hit it off.
We were all working on other things before, but found that our sound and style were all going in the same direction. It felt like a really natural step for us to start the band.

Who would you say are your key influences as a band?
We are all such huge music fans so our range of influences is really broad. We grew up listening to the classics like Fleetwood Mac and Queen, but we now love acts like the Chainsmokers, Imagine Dragons and Twenty One Pilots. Right now we’re obsessed with a band called Muna, go check them out!

So your debut track ‘Underwater’ is out now, what is the track about?
It’s about going inside your head and figuring out what you really want to do. We’ve all been told at some point we can’t achieve something, so we wanted to write a song basically saying that if you can dream it, you can do it .

Now the debut single is out there, what next?
We’ve literally just finished the last track of our first EP, which we’re so excited to share. Now we’re really focusing on the live side, and looking forward to putting on some of our own shows later this year.