As Madina Lake prepare to head back over to the UK later this week, I caught up with the lovely Dan Torelli for a catch up.
Hello there Dan, what are you up to?
I’m ill! You can’t make me laugh, because if I laugh then I cough really hard and it hurts! But at least I’ll get it out of the way before we get there. How’s it going over there what’s new?
It’s good, it’s just starting to get sunny at last, it has been snowing and everything this winter!
I know, that cracks us up so much because it’ll snow a bit over there and then the news will come on with something like ‘London shuts down!” haha.
Yes, that’s so true, now to business, what’s this I hear about a headline tour on March 25th?
We are extremely excited to be coming back to the UK and we have plenty of new things and new songs to bring over. I think the last time we headlined over there was last May so we’ve been working on coming back ever since!
We’re coming over with Mayday Parade as well who we did a tour with a few years ago, and they did amazingly over here after that so it’s going to be good to hang out with them again. We saw them again when we were recording our second album, we’ve seen them here and there, but it should be good.
And you’re playing Sonisphere too right?
Yes, it’s going to be crazy we’re so lucky to get that. We’re so lucky that every year we get to do amazing festivals, but getting that one was brilliant and we’ve never played it before so it will be great.
Your last time here was with Papa Roach, so do you think some of their fans will be coming back to see you on tour?
I hope so! When we did that tour there was such a huge mix of people in the crowd, it was like a rock show all the way through and each and every show was great, so we both mutually benefited from doing those shows together.
Totally, my stepsister went and she actually text me saying; “I’ve just been to see Papa Roach, you totally have to check out Madina Lake, they were supporting and awesome” and I was like ‘You’re sooo behind the times!’
That’s great! I mean, we’ve been so lucky with everything from getting the songs on the radio to seeing people coming out to see us. We haven’t played in such a long time though, the last time we played was in Japan before Christmas, and ever since then we’ve been working on new material, which is great that we had time to do that but it’s been a long time since we hit the road and actually played.
I think we did Glasgow at the end of January, but it was just for one show - it was amazing, we flew in, landed at 4.30pm, played the show and then left! It was a bit of a rush but it was cool. So we’ve done our relocation and stuff now but we’re starting to go nuts, we’re so accustomed to touring that we want to get back out there.
You seem to be on tour all of the time, when are you going to find time to write some new songs?
Well this is pretty much the first time since we wrote Attics To Eden really. It’s been working the same way ever since we wrote our first record really, Mateo our guitar player has a laptop with pro tools on it and he’s really prolific when it comes to writing; he’s always on that thing recording guitar riffs he’s come up with!
After the holidays in January we came back to Chicago and regrouped and had this amazing idea that we wanted to get out of the cold so we went down to West Palm Beach in Florida and rented a place, just because sometimes your surroundings and changing up your environment can inspire you. So we got out of the cold weather and went down there and all lived in the same house, woke up when we wanted, set up a little studio in the living room and just spent it jamming and recording all these ideas.
We left after about two weeks with about five songs we’re all really happy with,
Ooh, songs that we can here on the new tour?
I don’t know just yet, there are probably two of them that we will but they’re really fresh, they haven’t even been up online yet so its just whether or not we want to play something brand new that people are not aware of or should we marinade it a bit?
Get it up on MySpace and let the fans listen to it for a bit then knock them dead with it live…
Yeah! that’s what we usually like to do - if you start a new song and everyone instantly recognises it, that’s an amazing feeling, quite often when you play a new song and no-one has heard it it’s difficult for the music to translate live. Especially with the shows we do, we don’t tend to stand still and play very carefully! We’re a real mess, so I don’t think we’re the kind of band that can do that! We may hold of for a little while, there maybe a little bit but it’s definitely our best stuff yet.
So have you any idea when a full length new album will be out?
Well to be honest, I think we’ll release an EP somewhere around May which we haven’t done since The Disappearance of Adalia, that was before our first record, and I think it’s a cool thing to do, especially since a full album won’t be out for a while yet so this should give people something new until then. We’ll probably record the new record over the summer.
So finally as we spoke not so long ago, I’m going to finish with some random questions; What were you doing last night at 11?
I was sleeping! So unexciting I know but I’m a total recluse these last few days with this cold. It’s bad too because Mateo and the guys went out the other night and I missed and exciting night apparently because he came back at about 3.30am and he was mugged! He had his wallet taken with his green card and everything, he’s from Columbia so we have to go through all these issues at the border, so we had to make sure we had everything in order for him yesterday.
What are you going to do after this interview?
I’m going to grab the guys and we’re going to go to a rehearsal studio and get ready for the tour and go over the old songs and decide on the set list.
What’s the last film you saw?
I saw Zombieland and it was amazing! You have to check it out! There’s a cameo that I was completely surprised about - Billy Murray! It wasn’t on the cover or anything and he makes this amazing appearance in the middle of it!
What’s the last thing you bought?
Probsbly some records, I bought Cage The Elephant, Dead Weather - Jack White plays drums on that record and its super cool.
FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison
As Madina Lake prepare to head back over to the UK later this week, I caught up with the lovely Dan Torelli for a catch up.
Hello there Dan, what are you up to?
I’m ill! You can’t make me laugh, because if I laugh then I cough really hard and it hurts! But at least I’ll get it out of the way before we get there. How’s it going over there what’s new?
It’s good, it’s just starting to get sunny at last, it has been snowing and everything this winter!
I know, that cracks us up so much because it’ll snow a bit over there and then the news will come on with something like ‘London shuts down!” haha.
Yes, that’s so true, now to business, what’s this I hear about a headline tour on March 25th?
We are extremely excited to be coming back to the UK and we have plenty of new things and new songs to bring over. I think the last time we headlined over there was last May so we’ve been working on coming back ever since!
We’re coming over with Mayday Parade as well who we did a tour with a few years ago, and they did amazingly over here after that so it’s going to be good to hang out with them again. We saw them again when we were recording our second album, we’ve seen them here and there, but it should be good.
And you’re playing Sonisphere too right?
Yes, it’s going to be crazy we’re so lucky to get that. We’re so lucky that every year we get to do amazing festivals, but getting that one was brilliant and we’ve never played it before so it will be great.
Your last time here was with Papa Roach, so do you think some of their fans will be coming back to see you on tour?
I hope so! When we did that tour there was such a huge mix of people in the crowd, it was like a rock show all the way through and each and every show was great, so we both mutually benefited from doing those shows together.
Totally, my stepsister went and she actually text me saying; “I’ve just been to see Papa Roach, you totally have to check out Madina Lake, they were supporting and awesome” and I was like ‘You’re sooo behind the times!’
That’s great! I mean, we’ve been so lucky with everything from getting the songs on the radio to seeing people coming out to see us. We haven’t played in such a long time though, the last time we played was in Japan before Christmas, and ever since then we’ve been working on new material, which is great that we had time to do that but it’s been a long time since we hit the road and actually played.
I think we did Glasgow at the end of January, but it was just for one show - it was amazing, we flew in, landed at 4.30pm, played the show and then left! It was a bit of a rush but it was cool. So we’ve done our relocation and stuff now but we’re starting to go nuts, we’re so accustomed to touring that we want to get back out there.
You seem to be on tour all of the time, when are you going to find time to write some new songs?
Well this is pretty much the first time since we wrote Attics To Eden really. It’s been working the same way ever since we wrote our first record really, Mateo our guitar player has a laptop with pro tools on it and he’s really prolific when it comes to writing; he’s always on that thing recording guitar riffs he’s come up with!
After the holidays in January we came back to Chicago and regrouped and had this amazing idea that we wanted to get out of the cold so we went down to West Palm Beach in Florida and rented a place, just because sometimes your surroundings and changing up your environment can inspire you. So we got out of the cold weather and went down there and all lived in the same house, woke up when we wanted, set up a little studio in the living room and just spent it jamming and recording all these ideas.
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