Returning for their 7th album, punk upstarts THE MENZINGERS will return to the North East soon enough with new album ‘SOME OF IT WAS TRUE’ and a show at Northumbria Uni on the 8th feb. Damian Robinson spoke to vocalist Greg Barnett to find out more.
The first singles from the band, including Lead single ‘Hope is a dangerous little thing’ have been ferocious. Is that a good indication of the sound of the album?
Yeah it is, we started this album about two or so years ago and the more we work on it the more it sounded like how we sounded right at the start of the band. It was quiet raw and very immediate and that feels really good.
That was a deliberate attempt to get back to a certain style?
We weren’t really trying to do anything expect to be ourselves and to create music that felt true to us. It’s interesting that the album has come out perhaps a little different to the last few albums and feels a lot more direct. Maybe there was something in us which made this album, naturally, feel louder and have more of that live energy in it but whatever it was we enjoyed recording in one or two takes, not overthinking the recording process, and trying to capture live energy on the take.
You’ve started on your tour, what’s it been like to play some of the new material live?
It’s been really fun and the new songs have fitted into the set really well. At first, as with all new songs, you have to get used to playing the songs live and to find out what you need to do to make them work in a live setting. But we’ve done that now and the recent tour we did sound really good and the new songs fit right in, which is always nice.
You’re about to embark on a European Tour. As a band known for playing live, how are you feeling about getting on the road?
We’re really excited, we played in Newcastle just before Covid I believe and we loved it and are really excited to get back. Often when we tour there’s a few venues we play and we might not get to play outside of those cities but with this tour we’ve made sure to play places where we don’t always get to but where we like to hang out. We had pretty much a full day in Newcastle once and we had a great time, some of the band went and hung out at the coast and had a blast- so it’ll be great to come and play and hang out.
The Menzingers play Northumbria Uni on the 8th Feb.