What musicians chose as a central narrative in their music can, obviously, hold significant importance. A recent survey into the core reasons musical artists chose particular subjects to write about suggested that delayed gratification values such as legacy, rather than immediate chart placings or money, were a much heavier motivating factor. Whilst nothing ever lasts forever, it seems like the majority of artists are keen to leave something behind. Something important. Something to be remembered for.
Is creating music the desire to impact popular culture immediately, or is it more about creating something so impactful that you are remembered long after you’ve gone? Should we hold a culturally impactful piece like Las Ketchup Song in as high esteem as a less impactful, but potentially more meaningful, track like Tainted Love? Who gets to decide?
If legacy, and cultural impact, drives a musician’s output more than chart positions then one of the hottest underground bands around are Meatraffle; a South London collective who put politics, and ideas about collectivism as their central ideology. Previous banger ‘Brother’ not only created a sound piecing together savage guitar rock, funky basslines and Blockhead style vocals, it also sought to talk about the type of love never sung about – platonic love.
“The mainstream tends to talk about love being between two people in a sexual relationship” offers front Raffler Zsa Zsa Sapien “yet it doesn’t really talk about the love between two friends or two relatives, the type of love that is grounded in something that you might have in common with someone. These are the types of love, and the types of relationships, we need to talk about more in society; I’d be nothing without my friends and my band mates and the people who support me when I need help.”
Looking to impact others, and leave a legacy, the Meatraffle have also grown quiet the reputation as a ‘must-see’ live band full of wild guitar driven moments and spontaneity; something we’re hoping to see when they make their first appearance in the North East at the Cluny. “It’s funny that we’ve developed this live reputation because if anything we’re not staged or overly rehearsed in any way” continues Zsa “I suppose, talking about this out loud, what that does give the band is a slight sense of danger and an ability to go off in tangents, whether that’s extend a song slightly or take the mick out of ourselves. We tend to react to a crowd and change our styles on the night”.
Gearing up for more releases in 2020, and a tour across to the States for SXWS, Zsa maintains that Meatraffle are more a band trying to lift us all up, rather than just themselves “we can’t wait to get up to Newcastle and connect with people who may have slightly different backgrounds to us but will have the same struggles and desires and ambitions with their lives. Until then we’ll see what it’s like at SXSW, though I think it’ll be filled with people that are just too good looking”.
They may not be a household name, yet, but give this band time; they’re playing the long game.