Madina Lake interview
Madina Lake
Through And Through
Alternative rockers Madina Lake were on the road nearly all of 2007. The Roadrunner Records band began with a headlining tour plugging the spring street date behind From Them, Through Us, To You, followed by a full summer run on Linkin Park’s Projekt Revolution Tour, then a whirlwind trek to Europe and back to America for an outing with Mayday Parade.
Appearing: January 4th at Metro in Chicago.
Despite taking a brief breather to celebrate the holidays, the high-octane foursome are picking up right where they left off in ’08, starting with a warm-up weekend in the States (including a homecoming concert at Metro) before diving into an expansive international run supporting Coheed And Cambria on the Kerrang! Tour.
“It’s been almost scary to come off the road because you have to assimilate to an entirely different lifestyle,” admits bassist Matthew Leone, who, along with his twin brother/frontman Nathan, guitarist Mateo Camargo, and drummer Dan Torelli, recently returned home for the first time since their national debut hit stores in March. “For the first couple of days, no one knows what to do or how to handle what life used to be like and all of us get a little nervous about it. But it’s been great to have time with loved ones for the holidays, relax a bit, and not wonder where you are for the first 10 minutes after you wake up in the morning.”
The Chicago-based band won’t be sleeping in their own beds for much of the new year, however, thanks to two months in Europe, a continent where the band’s popularity is growing wildly thanks to a Kerrang! “Best International Newcomer” Award. The honor comes on the heels of several introductory shows throughout the U.K. in late 2006 alongside the likes of Paramore and Gym Class Heroes, which led Madina Lake to several more sold-out returns as headliners the following year.
“The audiences and Kerrang! really embraced us off the bat, so I’d say that combination really catapulted us to a quick level of success,” suggests Matthew. “When a fan buys a ticket to check out a show [in Europe], they go to see the entire show and you don’t find anyone rolling in late. They go in wanting to enjoy every band, rather than just passing the time until the headliner comes on.”
Even though American audiences are notorious for having more fickle tastes (and even shorter attention spans), Madina Lake had no trouble reeling in throngs of newcomers during Projekt Revolution, which seemingly broke the band in the States. Besides making the most of the coveted alt-rock roster (that also boasted My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, HIM, and Placebo), the outing served as their introduction to top-level touring.
“It was really fantastic because we’re always inspired to be in the company of Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance, who are bands we’ve respected our entire career,” Matthew says of the “unforgettable summer” that included the band’s jam-packed second stage set at Tinley Park’s First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre. “So between keeping that type of company and having them embrace us, it was seriously surreal and we were like kids in a candy store. It was like a childhood fantasy to wake up, play a huge show on the best sounding equipment, go have a beautiful catered meal afterwards, and then catch sets by Linkin Park and MCR every night!”
Even with the guys’ adulation of the other artists, they still have several artistic ideas of their own. On record, the gang combine influences as diverse as the aforementioned with Nine Inch Nails and ever-so-slight flourishes of Muse to deliver fist-pumping anthems of aggression, like the disc’s quadrant of singles “House Of Cards,” “Here I Stand,” “One Last Kiss,” and “Pandora.” The songs translate to the stage with overflowing insistency, often extended by Nathan stagediving, exploding balloons, and confetti cannons.
While spectacle is certainly a major component of Madina Lake’s M.O., it doesn’t come at the expense of substance. The disc is loaded with an underlying storyline that could almost be interpreted as a concept album, though social commentary overrides self-indulgence. “The CD tells the story of the [fictional American] town Madina Lake in the 1950s,” explains Matthew. “We set it up to be a microcosm of American pop culture where the town socialite goes missing at the annual gala ball and the town reacts to her disappearance. The moral of the story is the value shift in America from love and family to vanity, wealth, and materialism.”
The band further darkens the seemingly cerebral tale with several examples of their own struggle, including the loss of the Leones’ mother to a fatal car accident during their early teens. Instead of dwelling on the angst and sorrow of the situation, the pair turn toward positive reflections and correlate the tale of Madina Lake to their real-life family bonds.
“The CD covers the gamut of the human spirit and human emotions and it’s very real,” Matthew continues. “There’s nothing contrived that one of us hasn’t experienced, which a lot of people have told us makes this record really easy to relate to. When it comes to what me and Nathan experienced [growing up], you realize moving forward with a positive frame of mind isn’t an option — it’s a necessity. You lean on the unconditional love of your family for survival and that came from having an amazing dad and three really supportive older sisters. And now that we’re in the band, everybody’s been really supportive, which gives you all the more confidence to explore any passion you have.”
Just because the Leone brothers have an actual fraternal bond doesn’t make the other members feel any less involved. In fact, their live chemistry is just as apparent backstage. “Dan is seriously one of my favorite drummers and a person who we connect with musically and personally,” says Matthew. “Mateo has this uncanny ability to make magical melodies, but also make us all feel good. All four of us speak the same musical language and share the same ideas about life, so we’re really lucky to have found each other.”
Such a rosy sentiment was probably put to the test with so much time spent in close quarters. Madina Lake, however, have the opposite of cabin fever and are looking to crank out another album to get them back on the pavement.
“We’re moving forward with [Roadrunner] in our corner and plan to have a new record written and recorded within the next six months,” Matthew says, “which could release in the first quarter of ’09. We’re not going to rush it or put out anything less than our previous effort. There’s no telling if it can take place in that time frame. If it does, fantastic, and if not, then we’ll wait.”
Wait in the car, that is.
— Andy Argyrakis
