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This summer, I broiled in an amphitheater parking lot to see if it was still worth it to attend Warped Tour. For the most part,
it was not -- with the sole exception of the UK's
Marmozets. Back in July, I described the quintet as such:
"The singer moves like Mick Jagger and can fucking wail, and the rest of the band locks into a groove while also just pounding out riffs. The low end sounds like Rage Against the Machine, but above it, the group rocks like nobody else. It's hard to explain, but suffice it to say, it roped in everyone who walked by. People were positively gobsmacked, and rightly so. I've never seen quite so many audience members shake their heads in disbelief at a discovery like this."
It still stands. Marmozets released their debut full-length,
The Weird and Wonderful Marmozets, back in September on Roadrunner Records, and it's massive. They're currently touring in support of it, as part of the Journeys Noise Tour with Issues, I Killed the Prom Queen, and others.
I was lucky enough to get a few minutes on the phone with singer
Becca Macintyre last week, and a we talked about Marmozets' music and how it affects their audience.
Rock Star Journalist: Why would you say your music is the way it is?
Becca Macintyre: It's just the combination of what everyone wants to write, I guess. It's really hard to explain. We just write the songs that we want to, to be quite honest. Jack and Will [Bottomley] are the ones who have more influences in terms of music. Me, Sam, and Josh are all just kind of like, "Eh." We don't have that many influences. We just write what we want to write.
Does it help being in a band where's there's the shared experiences of two sets of siblings?
Oh, yeah. It's the best thing. We ended up becoming a band in high school, and we just kept with it, until we were just like, "We want to take a shot with this. This is our life."
Mamrozets has built its name by just playing so much. Does that help build the band – both in terms of popularity and musicality?
Of course, 'cause you're living and breathing it. The more that you do that, the more the people are going to see you, and we really care about that, because we just want to show people what we're made of. It's almost like – we really believe that our music can help. It goes beyond what kind of genre we are exactly and into whether kids are going to love it. It's up to them whenever we play a gig, and that's just awesome.
After Warped Tour, we did a tour with Lonely the Brave, and we swapped each day who would headline. It was a joint headline, and Lonely the Brave are an amazing band, as well. To go back [to England] and play to a thousand and up kids, screaming at us, it was quite a scary thing to go from where every single day, you played to a few dozen, and you had to catch people as they came by, and then – to go back to Britain and play to a thousand kids who are going absolutely insane for your music, and then to go back to America and start all over again.
And then to go back to England – I just believe that every time we go back to England, it's just going to be a bigger crowd. I hope that it'll be the same every time we come back to America – more kids will understand us and come watch us.
That was an interesting thing you mentioned – music as a thing to help people. Marmozets' songs have a hopeful aspect to them – am I catching what you're aiming for, there?
Yeah. That is. We come from such a messed-up generation – that's what I believe, anyway. There's a lot of greatness coming out of it now, but I just feel like everyone's been brainwashed into society and the way that everything is. And with the music – the music that's being shoved down kids' throats these days – we kind of find it as a joke, and that's what helps us to keep going.
All the fan mail we get at the moment is like, people who are going through depression feel like they're giving up on life, and they write to us saying that our music helped them get through that situation, and it's like, "Oh my gosh." You can't ask for anything like that, do you know what I mean?
For kids to think of going that way, and then to buy an album that's encouraged them to get on through life, it's like, "What the heck?" I think that's what music should be about. That's what we believe, anyway.
That's a really touching thing – that you're as influenced by the people who listen to your music as the people who listen to your music are influenced by you.
Exactly. We wouldn't be where we are without people buying our albums, coming to our shows, and wanting to hang out with us. That works – it's a win-win situation. We can't do it all by ourselves. If you can have a message about something behind your songs, that helps people, that connection's a straight thread. I'm not on stage, with half my clothes off, you know what I mean? That's not what we believe. People come to a show, we talk about real shit that people need to touch hold of.
Your stage presence – which is what drew me in to your music in the first place – is very dynamic. It's like you're a high priestess or a band leader conducting something.
I'm just – I feel like I'm an emotional person, like I'm fighting. I feel like I'm always having to fight, and I can't wait until the day where I'm just, like – I don't feel like I'll ever be able to relax. I can't relax. My mind's always thinking all the time, and I just want the best for people because, growing up, everyone goes through their shit, and I just feel like I want to fight for people who are part of the weird and wonderful world of the Marmozets, I guess. That's what I feel like I have a responsibility to do: not just make money from music. There needs to be a joy behind it all, I guess.
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Marmozets play the Granada in Lawrence tonight as part of the Journeys Noise Tour, with Issues, I Killed the Prom Queen, Ghost Town, and Nightmares. Doors for the all-ages show are at 6:00pm, and more information can be found here. The Noise Tour runs through the end of the month, and more dates and information can be found at Marmozets' Facebook page. 
When you get a cassette by a band called Sitar Outreach Ministry, and you know nothing more than whom it was released by, you put it in the tape deck the instant it shows up in the mail. So it went with Revolution In Dimension 5 the band's release on Magnetic South.
It's probably the most novel thing a band could do these days, but it's not the unusual nature of Sitar Outreach Ministry's music or the novelty which sets them above anything, despite their Soundcloud featuring covers of the Velvet Underground and Bill Withers.
However, it is those covers -- and, more specifically, the breadth of music which they represent -- that gives a clue as to why this one guy from Bloomington, Indiana, is such an interesting cat to listen to. There's psychedelic swilring going on here, obviously. To think otherwise would be ludicrous.
It's the fact that there's some warmth and soul going on that's made Sitar Outreach Ministry's tape become my go-to for lousy days. Putting it on and letting everything swirl and drone from my speakers pretty much kills any negativity I might have going on. Is it even possible to be in a shitty mood as you hear the Spider-Man theme raga-fied and reverbed almost out of context?
Nope.
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Sitar Outreach Ministry's Revolution In Dimension 5 can be found on Bandcamp or as a physical edition red cassette, limited to 75, from the Magnetic South store. 
