For this edition of Music Meter Monday, we caught up with Brooklyn band Milagres, whose album Glowing Mouth has been enjoying success in the form of a “slow burn.”
The unassuming manner in which the band has claimed a top 10 spot on the MTV Music Meter — following its recent UK release — seems in keeping with the band’s sound: a kind of haunting lo-fi deal that palpitates with something deeper just below the surface.
We spoke with multi-instrumentalist Eric Schwortz about the album’s over-the-pond success, their tripped-out music video for the single “Halfway,” and how the band feels about all those comparisons to Coldplay.
So you guys just got back from Europe?
It was mostly the UK. We did do a promo show in Paris, but we won’t get to properly tour Europe until May.
And your album just came out there as well?
Yeah, on Monday [January 16]. We were pretty active when we were over there and we did a couple sessions, were on a couple of BBC shows. Just tried to do as much as we could when we were over there.
Has the reception of the album been different there than over here?
The process has felt different. I think it seemed like everything kind of hit at once in the UK. Like the tour and the press and some of the promo stuff and radio — so it just felt a little bit more overnight, in a sense. Where here it seems like more like a slow burn.
Maybe it’s because the UK is smaller. Everybody’s a little bit closer together and kind of all listening to the same radio stations and reading the same papers. Here it’s so fragmented.
Did you have a favorite place you played over there?
It was all great. We spent the most time in London, so I think we got to know it the best. London also seems very much like New York in a lot of ways.
Not that we would like a place because it’s like New York, but it was definitely familiar. Every place we went we got a really good reception, so we felt happy to be in all the new cities.
We would have loved to see more of Paris, but the little that we did see was beautiful. Hopefully we’ll get to go back soon.
So I really love the video for ‘Halfway.’ It must have been really interesting to see your song turned into such a wild story.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the director, the guy who made the video?
Dimitri Simakis? He runs EverythingIsTerrible.com, right?
Right. When we first started talking to him we were really excited, because we were familiar with his sense of humor and aesthetic. We got the treatment for the video and it was totally bizarre and we kind of didn’t know what the end result was going to be, but we knew that it was going to be something to see.
[Seeing someone else's interpretation of a song] is great because you have such an idea of what it means to you and to see what it inspires in someone else is very interesting. I think that must be why people love remixes of their own music — because it’s somebody else’s insanity taking apart and putting back together something you created.
Has anyone done any remixes of your songs? I don’t think I’ve seen any?
Actually, not that we know of. We’ve had some people express interest, but for one reason or another we just haven’t done it yet. I’m sure if the right person came along and wanted to remix something, we’d absolutely say yes.
That’s kind of strange. It seems to be the process. A song comes out, people remix it.
I think it’s very a in vogue thing to do right now. I dunno, maybe we’re kind of a timeless entity and we’re not quite on the same wavelength. But I’m sure it’ll happen and hopefully it will be radically different than what we’ve done with the songs.
Any people that you would want to remix you?
Sure. I know that Noel [Heroux] from Hooray For Earth — they’ve done some things and he’s got a great sound and aesthetic and it would be cool to have somebody make something really jamming out of some of our more somber or slow-burning songs.
So this is your first record on a label — Kill Rock Stars? How has that experience been?
Yeah, this is our first properly released record. We had one before that we kind of released ourselves. We didn’t know what we were doing and it probably didn’t reach as many people as we would have liked. So this is the first really officially widely released record.
In every possible way, it’s just better and bigger and different. We have really great people helping us out. A lot more exposure and lot more people hearing it around the world. It’s been a totally different experience. The shows are better and there’s been a lot more interviews, obviously.
Now I know there’s been a lot of talk about the creation of this album in relation to lead singer Kyle Wilson’s near fatal mountain climbing accident. How that inspired him to write these songs. Do you have a creation story, too?
Everybody in the band had some major shifts happening in their personal lives as well. There were a lot of relationship changes and living situation changes and job changes — and all of this was happening as the band was going through a rough period. Lineup changes.
There was this kind of huge sea change happening. And that was for everybody, including myself and I think I didn’t even know where I stood with the band at all. So it was good to break away for a little while.
We all had a nice break from each other and when we came back together it was very refreshing. It was a huge sense of perspective that was gained. Which was really hard to have when you’re just inside of it.
So you guys have been touring a lot now. How is that? It is new for you?
In 2011 we definitely did more touring than I’ve ever done. Some of the other guys in the band actually toured a lot more in high on summer breaks and I never actually had the chance to do that in high school. I would have loved to.
So this is the most that we’ve toured together as band, and 2012 we’re probably going to be doing twice as much as we did in 2011.
You say you couldn’t tour in high school. Were you in bands?
I was; I didn’t know that you could go and do it. I just think I existed in a very different scene or world. I was making the music that I wanted to make and for what it was it was good. But it wasn’t — I don’t think I knew a lot about the DIY thing.
The other guys in the band were in bands that were very hardcore, punk, DIY — just get in a van and tour. And I was probably the most cautious of all of us at that point in my life. I didn’t know that bands just did that. I thought you got signed and then you did it.
So what were your bands like?
Some of the guys were in punk bands, and some of the guys were in more hardcore punk bands, and some of us were in more alternative bands. It was all kind of influenced by what was going on at the time. Alternative, indie, punk rock. One thing that I can say for sure if that it’s very different from what I’m doing now.
Yeah, you’re not so punk anymore.
Right. But I think that it’s interesting that we’re on Kill Rock Stars in the U.S., which is a very punk rock label in a lot of ways. Maybe while somebody wouldn’t look at Milagres and think ‘punk rock,’ there’s still like underneath it all the ideology and the ethic of being punk rock and having a kind of DIY sensibility and trying to be hands-on and maintain some kind of integrity in what you’re doing.
OK, so I have to ask you about this… The number of people who keep comparing you guys to Coldplay. Thoughts? Does that bother you?
I think at the end of the day we’re just trying to music that we want to make and we love it and we know that other people will, too. And there’s also a lot of people out there who just going to say, ‘You sound like this, and you sound like that,’ and those people are completely entitled to their opinion.
Some people will read those reviews and think, ‘Oh, great, this is something I’ll probably like.’ Some people will just write you off and never listen to you. And it’s completely out of your control. Best thing you can do is just keep making the music that you want to make and that you like. You can’t please everybody. It just is what it is.
If you could correct them — set the record straight — and describe your sound without referencing other bands, how would you do it?
Well, I think we’ve always strived to make simple music. It’s like kind of influenced by some type of minimalism, where you’re not trying to overload the space with tons of different stuff.
You’re just trying to let all of the different compositional elements work together — kind of like a very sophisticated machine. It’s very stark and simple with a lot of atmosphere and mood and hopefully some strong emotional core that somebody can listen to and latch onto rather than being too heavy or obtuse.