Mumm-Ra (band)

Mumm-Ra

Mumm-Ra are an English indie rock band originating from Bexhill on Sea. Their name originates from the main villain of the 1980s cartoon, Thundercats. They first rose to public attention when they performed with the NME Awards Indie Rock Tour alongside The Automatic, The View and The Horrors, and were featured in the January 2007 edition of NME as one of ten bands who were "guaranteed to soundtrack" 2007.

History

Beginnings (2000-2006)

They have been quoted as saying that music was their only way to escape from the closed community of their hometown. Despite this, several references to Bexhill on Sea are made in their lyrics and the band seem quietly proud of their heritage. An amusing note to this end is that the band appear almost indifferent when questioned in interviews about the possibility of playing at Glastonbury, but when their hometown's 600 capacity De la Warr pavilion is mentioned, they show considerably more excitement.

Biography

Mumm-Ra are a band of modest ambitions. All they want out of life is to be like no other band on the face of the planet, to stretch and contort the very fabric of what we mere humans know as 'music' and to write tunes that make the supernatural wonders of the damsel with a dulcimer in Coleridge's Kubla Khan sound like The Horrors with cholera. Oh, and rock like bastards.

"We wanted to make something quite diverse," says singer James 'Noo' New. "All through the manifestations of Mumm-Ra we've always had a pride in trying to do things that sound different, have different ideas. It's quite hard to balance all the sides and obviously at the same time write brilliant songs."

And yet they've made it look effortless. Like no other band on the planet? How many other bands about to release their debut album can recount a seven-year history including attempted suicide at gigs, electrocution, armed robbery, getting pelted with teabags and twenty-minute sitar solos? Let's consider the facts...

Mumm-Ra were formed ('they' being Noo, bassist Niall, drummer Gareth and guitarists Oli and Tate) at the age of fifteen as schoolmates in Bexhill-On-Sea, a town which had only previously had brushes with 'rock'n'roll' during its more incontinent tea dances. To their school-mates they were The Spods Least Likely To Ever Be Cool, Let Alone Form A Kick-Ass Rock Band, and as the put upon local outcasts they'd have wholeheartedly agreed: delving into the seedy underbelly of rock was far from their hairy noggins as they spent their lazy teenage days hiking, drinking tea with the Major, playing Monopoly, Scrabble, crazy golf and Manhunt and dodging insults from the hoodies around town (their contemporaries called them The Hair Bear Bunch or simply "gay").

The band, they insist, "just happened" because they got bored and picked up guitars - more of a 'club' than a band the formed before any of them could actually play their instruments; at first they didn't have a drumkit so Gareth played tambourine. They even spent six months coming up with a name before plumping for that of the baddie from Thundercats: not only the least cool moniker since Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine but one which no venue in the land could actually spell properly.

"We go to different venues and no-one can spell it right," says Oli. "At the Barfly last time it was Mumrr-a."

It only got stranger. Short of major international gig venues in Bexhill, Mumm-Ra were forced to play their shambolic early shows in town halls, mates' barns and rowing clubs. The gigs were beyond bizarre: at one 'mini-festival' the band took to boiling a kettle onstage, causing one particularly off-kilter girl in the crowd to believe they were brewing up some kind of hallucinogenic and call the police before proceeding to smash her head against the wall and slit her wrists in front of the band.

At another, due to faulty wiring in a venue known only as 'Rory's Barn', the band were repeatedly electrocuted onstage to the delight of an audience consisting only, in faithful Shining style, of two identical twins. And every gig would end with a lengthy experimental jam entitled 'Cobbler Cobbler', which generally saw members of the crowd clambering onstage to join in to the point where the gig would sometimes be finished by a band consisting entirely of audience. And woe betide anybody that dared leave the band the sitarist who fell by the wayside some years ago hasn't been heard of since, and their ex-keyboard player is currently residing at Her Majesty's pleasure after a foiled attempt to hold up a petrol station with a fake gun.

"The guy went 'this is bullet-proof glass'," says Niall, soberly. "He would've got away but he crashed on the way home."

Then, after four years of such mayhem, in 2005 Mumm-Ra noticed a thick fug of competence creeping over them. The songs they were writing were no longer aimless prog wibblings but hardy, nay thrilling pop concoctions with Flaming Lips-ian wafts of psychedelic majesty about them - songs like Song B, Out Of The Question and What Would Steve Do? (although, as we'll see, it wasn't called that yet) fused forceful alt-rock with glacial space atmospherics. Not only had Mumm-Ra accidentally and against all laws of rock nature Gotten Good but their years of psych-pop fumblings had made them an extremely special band.

College was winding to a close, there was only one thing for it: get a manager (the aforementioned Steve), bash out some demos to some record labels, hole up in a rehearsal space in a barn used to house real-life working tanks and "give it a year". It took a few weeks: the response was so overwhelming that two showcase gigs were hastily arranged at the Tunbridge Wells Forum and Crowhurst village hall and the A&R contingent descended on rural East Sussex pubs waving chequebooks in one hand and orienteering maps in the other begging for directions ('left at the sheep, right at the blind man', etc).

Snapped up by Columbia, Mumm-Ra decamped to Grenada in Spain last year to record their debut album with legendary producer Youth, complete with his rather sinister methods of teasing out Mumm-Ra's darker side.

"When we were recording he set up a giant projector in the studio and it was night time and he played The Wicker Man," says Noo. "So as we were playing it someone was getting burnt."

Not that Mumm-Ra's inner darkness needed much coaxing. During recording the band were repeatedly hit with tragedy. Their manager sadly passed away (hence the band naming their debut single What Would Steve Do? "although the song's not about him at all. We just called it that because we thought he'd love it"), as did Noo's father, imbuing the record with an underlying sombre Arcade Fire elegance (check out Light Up This Room, These Things Move In Threes and Down, Down, Down). An elegance which, paradoxically, lifts an otherwise great pop album into the realms of the sublime.

A record that stretches and contorts the very fabric of what we mere humans know as 'music'? They're getting there: there's certainly a lot of preliminary prodding and tugging on These Things Move In Threes. Alongside rampant pop ricochets like She's Got You High, Out Of The Question and Starlight you'll find quirky, quaint rural rock like Song B, epic post-rock tear-jerkers such as Now Or Never and all-out Sigur Ros orchestral grandiosity on Down, Down, Down and The Sick Deal. It's a pop record with a Hulk at its heart, a veritable Thundercat of tuneage. Whatever its impact, These Things Move In Threes is definitely among the most novel, accomplished and stunning debut albums you'll hear in 2007.

"I'm worried it might be too big," says Noo. "It's slightly bombastic but I don't think it's way out there. You could see it as a big record by a big band or you could see it as pretentious little 21-year-olds thinking they're the Floyd or something."

Back from Granada, Mumm-Ra honed their stagecraft on tours with the likes of The Kooks and The Kaiser Chiefs between stints polishing their album in Abbey Road studios, finding their single releases - What Would Steve Do?, The Black Hurts Day And The Night Rolls On EP and Out Of The Question - creeping steadily towards the coat tails of the charts. All preparation for These Things Move In Threes to launch them into the rock stratosphere.

"I'm ready for the big push now," says Noo trepidously. "It's all ready, the album itself we're all happy with that, it's exactly how we hoped it would sound and we're ready for the roller coaster ride."

These Things Move In Threes (2007- Present)

The band released their debut album on May 28 2007, with three singles, Out Of The Question, What Would Steve Do? and Shes got You High prior to this. The band are currently writing material for the second record.

Members

• James "Tate" Arguile - Guitar
• Niall Buckler - Bass, vocals
• James "Noo" New - Lead Vocals
• Oli Frost - Guitar, vocals
• Gareth Jennings - Drums
• Tommy B - Live Keyboards

Discography

Mumm-Ra discography
Singles	Out of the Question, What Would Steve Do?, She's Got You High, Starlight

EPs

• The Dance in France (self-released 8 track E.P 2005)
• The Dance on the Shore (self-released 8 track E.P 2006)
• What Would Steve Do? (self-released 7", April 2006)
• Black Hurts Day and the Night Rolls On EP (CD + 10", July 2006)

Trivia

• Mumm-Ra have a toy duck as the band's mascot; "Matthew the Duck", who lead singer Noo often uses as a prop in live events.
• Used To Be part Of The Bexhill based Organisation called L.I.T.V
• Gareth Jennings came back to Bexhill on the 15th of July 2007 to appear on Bexhill FM, the RSL (restricted service licence) that operates for a week in Bexhill in the Summer. A whole hour was dedicated to Mumm-Ra, where the breakfast show presenter Richard Harris played a whole hour of their music, as well as their Inspirations, and talk about the general Mumm-Ra band and their second album. The interview was also conducted by Declan Nye and Jonathan Higgins.

External links

• Official site
• Mumm-Ra at All Music Guide
• Mumm-Ra at MySpace
• Mumm-Ra at NME
• Interview at musicOMH.com
• Interview at Rocklouder