Mike Mains Coming to Spark Art Space Thursday

CNY Alive had the opportunity to interview Mike before his performance.

What got you started in Music?

I was always really obsessed with music at a very young age. I was chained to, as I called it, the boom box.  I just grew up in love with music. I remember my grandmother would always listen to country music, Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton, all those songs were just like slowly dripping out of our speakers and I wanted to know more about, you know, the stories, who are the people that are singing the songs and It never occurred to me that I would grow up one day and write something. I just really enjoyed them and then as I got older I got into playing drums, but my dad wouldn’t let me get a drum set. I started writing poetry in eighth grade because I thought well this feel like a good release as any to get some of that sweet teenage angst out of my system and I just never looked back.

When did you make your first recording?

I was sixteen years old when I made my first record, well my first legitimate band recording and we recorded it an analog tape.

When was that?

That would have been 2002.

What musicians or any people inspired you to write the songs are or become a performer?

The first and foremost guy, a fourth-grade teacher who was a drummer. I wanted to just be a musician play drums and I sucked at all the stuff he tried to teach me so every once in a while he would just grab his headphones and his cassette tape player and have me listen to Jimmy Buffett, Yes, or other old rock bands that he listened to and had me sit in the back of the class and just write out the lyrics and write what I thought about, so he really plugged in my curiosity into an electrical socket and set everything on fire.

Then after him it was the band teacher at my high school Mister Buckley, he would let me and my buddy come in and jam before the bell rang in the morning so I would get to school at seven o’clock, classes would start about seven thirty or eight sometimes and I would rip the drums out of the closet. My buddy would crank up his amplifier and we’re just jamming and it’s seven fifteen in the morning this guy’s barely jumped into his first cup of coffee. I would want to kill me if I was him. I was never really in any of his classes, but he just fueled my love of music, and then in terms of song writing when I was in 8th grade that’s where I would say I really got serious about writing songs and Blink-182 was another inspiration

This is not your first tour correct?

Yeah we’ve been at this for eight years now.

How do you feel about touring?

Goodness, I love it and I hate it.

I love it because I love taking in new towns and cities. Seeing old friends, you know, as much as we’ve been able to travel.

You know being in a city that you’ve been to several times throughout the years you can have these little pockets throughout the country that feel like home and their own unique way

What gets miserable the older you get the longer you do it is, traveling. No matter how comfortable you are when traveling, it takes its toll on you mentally physically and spiritually. So I try to be as healthy as I can when we are on the road.

Tell me about your new album.

So, I’ve got a new album that will be wrapped up in June and then we’re slated to release it in the fall.

Just extremely proud I have been working on the songs for four years.  I have an amazing producer. my wife who is also my collaborator she’s very involved with the editing process of everything. We’ve spent years crafting the songs and getting them to where we want them to be and it’s my best work yet. I think it’s gonna resonate with people.

INSERT LINKS TO GET ALBUM

Spotify.

Band camp.

Social media platforms streaming services the whole whole nine yards.

Mikemainsmusic.com.

 

What can we expect at your show at Spark Art Space?

 

What I try to do is have a really visceral, vulnerable and transcendent experience

God to me isn’t some dude with white hair, God to me is that thing that happens when people are in a room together we’re all one or all connected, and we feel like there’s something about us, around us, inside of us that’s all stitched together for this brief moment in time maybe it’s thirty minutes maybe it’s forty five minutes. I’m interested in kicking the dust-off people’s souls long enough for them to experience that and remember. We all have good days, we have bad days but I want to bring people back to that sense of wonder and sometimes that’s a tragic song and sometime that’s a happy song sometimes that’s a more melancholy song but that’s what I’m interested in doing.

Mike and his wife Shannon will be at Spark Art Space this Thursday, May 10th

 

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