MASK Blog - How to piss a band off! (The story behind ‘Mayday’)

How to piss a band off?

Answer: Give everyone involved the song for them to record the entire instrumentation and then realise its in the wrong key and say “can you do that entire day’s work again please…” - whoops!  (Mayday was not getting off to a flyer)

There were a few icy stares and I made tea all day in an attempt to rectify what was a monumental fuck up. Live and learn.

‘Mayday’ was one of three songs recorded in a two-day session at Milbank Studios (Sadly Milbank is no more - sad times!)

It’s a bit of a mongrel of a song made up of bits of unused material that was lying around and we love it.

Never in my life have I been so late with lyrics for a song, in-fact the big red recording light was coming on and I didn’t have anything resembling a second verse! If you listen to the song closely you can hear my vocals coming in just a tad later than they should - simply because I was making it up on the spot…

I actually have come to love this aspect of the track and it gives the song a bit of edge I reckon.  I actually try to replicate it when playing it live and its a struggle to be honest.

As a song-writer you want to catch the BIG fish i.e. the big songs and I always put myself under immense pressure to create something bigger, better and more meaningful. Sadly that can strip away the true meaning of why we started our band in the first place - to make a sound amongst mates and to enjoy it what we're doing…

And so, ‘Mayday’ is a reminder to let go of all that needless pressure and to have fun!  The song is about the state of music today compared to our glory days years ago.  It's also a cry for help from us because we often feel little fish in a huge musical ocean - who doesn't  love a good under-dog story!  

P.S. The talking you can hear at the end of the track is us returning from the shop to find Michael our producer going mental with the bongo’s…

We didn’t realise he was actually recording on the song and below is the transcript;

Us: “We thought you were just jamming?!”

Michael: “Haha - Bongo John!”

Nuts… Good times! Such a fun song - we hope you love it as much as we do.

Mayday on Spotify

Mayday on Apple Music

Mayday Video 

Watch us live in Belfast this Saturday (28.09.19)

Peace out,

H from MASK

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