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Today The Mae Shi are Jonathan Gray, Jeff Byron, Bill Gray and Jacob Cooper, although over their six year history they’ve had a line-up more variable than your average girl group. Gigwise meets the band on Brighton pier, where they are later to play their gig as part of The Great Escape festival. The family pub at the end of Brighton pier seems an unusual venue for them to unleash their punk rawk chaos. Although the band seems to thrive when playing in such unlikely surroundings, as Jeff recounts: “The most unusual gig we’ve played was probably at a middle school, kids set up a skate ramp which we played on. It was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life just seeing all these kids on skate ramps and kids in the crowd watching us and then just behind them all these parents just looking at us.”
Wherever the band play their live show is typically the most thrilling, transcendental performance you’re likely to experience. Jonathan: “Recording is really fulfilling but it’s different. With a live show you have more of a good time. You don’t go into the studio just to have a good time, which you do with a live show.” Good times are most certainly guaranteed at a Mae Shi gig, with the band exuding a persistently frantic energy and breaking down the performer/audience barriers by spending most of the time performing in the crowd.
The band’s latest release HLLYH manages to capture their live energy. It is a veritable punk rock/electro/super pop beast of an album and one of the most exciting releases of the year. It’s the first of the band’s proper UK releases, on Moshi Moshi. Jeff says: “It’s really exciting to have someone who wants to put out our records in the UK.” This is particularly so as they don’t have a label in the US at present, after the recent close of the excellent 5RC.
HLLYH was released in the US on their own Team Shi label. Jeff: “Team Shi is really about us collaborating with friends.” The idea of the collaborative project was ignited when “the vocalist couldn’t play a show and it just ended up with all crowd members being asked up on stage to sing… it was like Karaoke Shi.” explains Jonathan. The collaborative and DIY ethic runs throughout all areas of the band’s work from the live shows and records to artwork, music videos and t-shirts (the latter, by the way, are the greatest band tees, simply reading ‘I’m Glad You’re Alive’).
Jonathan: “I think The Mae Shi is what all of us put into it.”
Henry Rollins recently cited the band as one of his favourite artists of present, which is clearly something of a big deal. Bill: “It’s great to have Henry on board. Rollins is my favourite era Black Flag, I only realised when I was older, My War changed my life...” The Rollins love-in is cut short for a moment however, the group temporarily distracted as our attentions turn to the first passers by: a gaggle of women that have clichéd hen party written all over them and six foot inflatable man in tow. Bill provides a commentary, deadpan: “A woman just walked by with a naked inflatable man with a penis”. Whilst newest member to the group, Jacob, chips in acerbically “Girl’s night out! Woo!” which is pretty much the most he says in the interview. After a bout of laughter Jeff picks up the Henry Rollins thread again: “And it’s great because he’s involved with radio now and all the stations in LA are commercial and wouldn’t play The Mae Shi.”
The LA music scene seems impossibly exciting right now. Although rather than a scene as such it’s pretty much just a bunch of bands linked together via The Smell, an infamous music venue. Jeff declares the venue “a great place to play” with enthusiasm whilst Jonathan continues, “There’s all these all ages venues in LA and community centres and speakeasies”, saying that these different types of venues encourage bands to find “different ways to connect to the crowd”. Which may point to how The Mae Shi’s own incendiary live shows came to be, along with those of the bands which they are often linked. The band all chip in to give praise to those emerging from the scene including No Age, Mika Miko and Abe Vigoda. Jonathan continues to describe the sense of community between the bands.
The band have started work on a follow-up EP to HLLYH, although that’s coming along slowly between their hectic touring schedule, Jonathan: “We’re lazy is the news on that. In fact we have a song about how lazy we are on it, which is funny. The EP is all working towards the next full length though which should be ready next June.”
Later the band play the greatest gig of the festival. The crowd packed between sofas before the stage, spend part of the gig under a sheet handed out by the band – band members themselves appearing beneath the sheet to cry out their songs. Rebecca of label mates Slow Club is invited on stage to sing her acoustic cover of Run To The Grave, leading the band into their own dynamic performance of the single. Overall, it’s an electrifying set that’s over way too soon.
