On November 24th, Burn FM’s Marita Farruggia had a chance to chat with California post-hardcore band My Iron Lung before their show at the Oobleck. They talked about their first time touring outside the U.S. among other things.
So I know that you guys have been on tour with Vanna and Being As An Ocean, how has that been so far?
Matt Fitzpatrick (vocals/guitar): So far it’s been really awesome. We missed the first show because of a flight, but besides that the first show we did play, which was the second date of tour, was really cool. I think there were like four or five hundred kids there, so that was really cool to start the tour off on a good note.
Anays Torres (guitar): Everybody has been really kind to us and everyone gets along, so that’s always awesome.
Matt: Yeah, very accommodating.
I know you guys just put out your debut full-length album Relief earlier this summer. How have fans been receiving that?
Matt: So far, so good. We’re still playing a mixture off the songs off our earlier EP Grief and songs off the new record. But so far, kids have been stoked on it. A lot of kids have complimented us on it.
Anays: And we’re pumped on it too, which isn’t a bad thing.
So this is your first night of the tour in the UK. Are you excited for that?
Matt: Yes, very excited.
Have any of you guys been to the UK before?
Matt: No, none us have ever been here before. This is our first international tour as a band as well.
Danny Penwell (drums): We get to do all the tourist stuff, too. Like yesterday we saw the Eiffel Tower and just stared at it forever. I couldn’t believe it.
Matt: Really excited to go to London and Glasgow as well, that should be really cool.
Danny: Manchester too.
Anays: Yeah, we’ve got some friends coming down tomorrow that we’re really excited to see from around here.
Matt: Yeah, we toured with a band called Vales about a year and a half ago. They’re from up here. I think some of them are from Bristol.
What are you most excited to see while you’re in the UK?
Matt: I’m excited to eat a lot of cool food.
Anays: A lot of fish and chips.
Matt: Yeah, like I said, the people in Vales—we haven’t seen them since the last tour. A few of us got matching tattoos with them and we haven’t seen them in a long time so we’re excited to see them.
Danny: I’m excited to go to the Underworld too. Since I was younger, I’ve watched Youtube videos of bands playing there and stuff so.
It’s a really sweet venue.
Danny: Yeah, so I’m really excited to get to play there finally.
The World’s End is a really cool pub, that the venue is underneath.
Danny: Yeah, that’s what someone was telling us!
Anays: It’s underground?
Yeah, Underworld is below the World’s End, which is a really big pub and then there’s a chippy inside of the pub, which is pretty cool.
Anays: What’s that?
A fish and chips place, so you can definitely get some there.
Anays: Yes!
When you have downtime on tour, what do you like to do?
Anays: We like to go exploring. I think that’s the biggest thing. We just like to walk around and see what we can find and get in to.
Matt: Yeah, it’s been a completely different experience touring here than in the United States. The U.S., for us, because we know it so well, it’s a lot easier to navigate. Where here, we get lost really easy, but in a fun way. It’s fun to adventure and get lost and then try to find your way back to the venue.
Anays: Luckily we have a really awesome driver, or else we’d totally be screwed, probably.
Matt: A few of us read books a lot. Our bass player likes to play chess.
Anays: He just spent an hour and a half playing chess against one of the guys in Crooks.
Danny: And lost. Really badly.
If you had to describe the sound of your band to someone who had never heard you before in ten words or less, what would they be?
Matt: It’s always really hard, because we’re all influenced by a vast range genres. We all listen to punk, indie, metal, hardcore, post-hardcore…Pretty much all the sub-genres that fall under the umbrella of hardcore. From what other people have told me, we have hardcore elements, but we’re a little more melodic. So, I guess we’re melodic-indie-core.
Anays: Anything ending in core.
Matt: We don’t really try to stick to any one genre. We’ve never had any preconceived notions to write a song in a particular genre. It’s just whatever guitar parts we come up with or lyrics and we kind of feed off an idea from there.
I think it’s working out pretty well, so far.
Matt: Thanks. We’re going to be writing early next year, as well. Another full-length. We’re going to try and write a little bit on this tour and then we have another tour coming up in January and February with Silverstein in Canada and the U.S. It’s going to be the biggest tour we’ve done so far and one of the longest tours we’ve done. It’s going to be about eight weeks, I think. So we’re really excited.
