Specials

My City Burning: the best is yet to come

posted by: David on 25 November 2009

A year ago I reviewed the self-released EP White Lies, Black Eyes by My City Burning. I liked that release, so I was wondering what the band had been up to since then. Turned out they were doing great! Check out the interview I did with singer Igor.

My City Burning have been around for three years now. How have you evolved since then musically?

I think that in the three years we’ve kind of found our steady ground. We’ve always had the – well, I wouldn’t call it a philosophy, but you know what I mean – that “if it kicks ass, it stays”. Basically it means looking for a certain energy. You can write a perfect by the book hardcore or metal song, but if it doesn’t grab you, it doesn’t matter. So we’re just taking bits and pieces from everything we like to achieve that. I think the last 3 years we have just sharpened that.

A friend of ours came over from the States recently and checked out one of our shows. He said we “Buffaloed him from Sweden to Boston” and drew comparisons to Snapcase, Every Time I Die, Raised Fist, In My Eyes, Death Before Dishonor, stuff like that. Pretty sweet names to hear say of course, though I think we have some more metal riffing in there.

Seems to me that it’s pretty hard to mix old school hardcore with thrash metal. Still you succeeded in doing just that. Did this combination of styles work out right from the start?

Actually, the mix came pretty naturally. Maarten, our drummer, has always been into oldschool hardcore. Ramon, our guitarist, is really into metal. And we all like fast stuff and cool riffs, so the combination was really there already from the beginning.

What are the best things that happened to the band in the last couple of years?

I think it’s hard to pin point the best things that happened to the band. I mean, the highlights are obvious to pick out – playing support for Machine Head, Hatebreed, Pro-Pain, Death Before Dishonor, Integrity, Poison the Well, etc, but those were also accumulations of all the things we did before that, and all the work we put in.

I guess the first best thing was going out on a small tour to Italy, and finding out we didn’t want to kill each other after almost a week of constant farting in a confined space. (go figure; you go on tour to the land of pasta and pizza and all they serve you is beans and onions)

The follow up best thing has got to be the tour we did with Raging Speedhorn. We both arranged half of the tour, so it was hard work, but we had so much fun with those guys on the road. We’re actually still in touch with them, even though the band doesn’t exist anymore. For instance; Gareth introduced us to the guys from Palm, a Japanese band, who we’re exchanging a tour with early next year. (Europe in May, Japan in November!), and we’re playing a show with Bloody Kev’s new band on that Euro tour. Also, Gareth is playing in Victims now. We’re bound to do some shows with them sooner or later.

The best things are yet to come, though. We’re in the studio right now in Germany - All the drums are tracked, guitars are being done, and I just completed day 1 of recording vocals. All the songs are awesome as hell! I can’t wait to see where this record takes us.

Any downsides at all?

The only downside, if you can call it that, is that I spend so much time on this band that I’m broke almost all of the time. Haha

How does a crowd that paid to see Hatebreed or Poison The Well when you guys open up for those bands?

On pretty much all the shows we opened for bigger bands, we get positive responses from the crowd. It doesn’t always go off like crazy, because people don’t generally move to lesser known bands in the Netherlands – you know how it is. But every show we get a lot of people coming up to us, saying it was awesome. I also keep running into people with MCB shirts at shows. haha

My City Burning got endorsement deals from Ibanez and Peavey. How does something like that work? Do those companies approach you or do you apply for an endorsement?

Well, I keep myself from the whole endorsement deal, since I don’t really have any gear to attain, being the singer and all, but it basically like; either you’re a known band and they come to you, or they don’t know you yet and you have to convince them. We applied to some of our favorite brands and they saw the potential they were looking for, so they were happy to endorse us.

Are those endorsement deals encouragements for you, since big brands are interested in your band?

Yeah, of course! In between working your ass off, playing shows for beer and change, and working some more, it’s reaffirming to get some acknowledgement from the outside world from time to time. If only just as proof to yourself that you’re actually going somewhere. Next to that, we get some pretty sweet discounts on gear we feel gets our sound out the best!

Raging Speedhorn, Machine Head, Pro-Pain, Hatebreed, Poison The Well, Integrity, Backfire, No Turning Back... you’ve played with a lot of ‘big names’. What band brings back the best memories? Any cool tour stories to share?

Raging Speedhorn was the most fun I think, but that might be because of the fact that we played a tour with them, so you really get to know people a bit. The other tours I did – also with my previous band – were just us, going on the road by ourselves; way different vibe.

On the positive tour story scale, I’d say we all had a good laugh at a certain gas station incident in Italy. We were on our way to a show and decided to get some coffee and freshen up to a certain degree. Anyway, Ramon and Geert (from Fire Walk With Us, who was filling in on bass at the time) go into the restroom to take a shit. They were talking a bit through the wall and going about their business. Then suddenly Geert starts screaming and moaning that it’s the best shit ever. In Dutch, mind you – all the Italians heard was people making animal like sounds in the toilet. Haha. When they came out of the toilet, about 20 people turned their heads in unison to see who the hell was making the sex noises. Priceless.

Is it true that Robb Flynn personally asked you to open for Machine Head? How did he know about My City Burning?

With everything in life it’s about who you know, I guess. We have some good friends who know Robb personally. They asked him to check us out when there were plans to tour Europe. We didn’t really expect anything, but then BAM! Two days before they played in Luxembourg we were contacted by their management to see if we could make it to the show!
Crazy, man.

Your EP ‘White Lies, Black Eyes’ gets positive reviews all over the place. Is there any news about labels that are interested in the band?

We’ve been in touch with some labels, but we haven’t found our perfect match yet. It’s hard to find a label that can get you places, but will also leave you the freedom to carve your own niche, I guess. We’re not exactly a band you can slap a sticker on and sell to the kids. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we’re a bit too diverse.

The song ‘Black Hearts Unite’ is about unity in the underground music scene. Do you feel there’s too much hatred? Will there ever be unity?

I wrote that song as a response to the recent movement in mentality in underground music. With all the deathcore, emocore and whatnot bands that are popular these days, there’s a counter movement going on with bands going back to 80s hardcore or just more punky hardcore. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing, but there seems to be an underlying hatred sometimes.

Now I’m not saying we should all cuddle by the fire, but a mutual respect would be nice sometimes. When I discovered hardcore in particular, but with metal as well, I had the feeling I stumbled upon something ‘more’, you know... Like I finally found something real. And I think that a lot of people who listen to underground music found something they were looking for in their part of the underground.

Most of your lyrics are pretty personal. Is it hard to read and sing the lyrics when you know the story behind them?

I’d say it’s a mixture of feelings; on one hand, the lyrics are hard to read again, were hard to write, and there’s always a slight sting when I sing them again. Actually, the lyrics on the upcoming record are going a bit deeper and get a bit more personal even; stories of love, lack thereof, loneliness and strength. But it’s like that dude from Ruiner said; “Give me 20 minutes to sweat out the feeling”. Every time I’m on stage I turn the negative stuff into something positive – I guess it’s a therapeutic thing.

You’re a pretty DIY band, with a guitarist who records and mixes the music and a singer who can create beautiful artwork. Could you imagine bringing in someone else for those jobs?

Since everyone in the band has a strong opinion about everything concerning the band, the DIY thing has really worked out for us so far: we created our own sound, design our own stuff, book our own shows.

That control does consume time like crazy, though. And we’re always considering if each option is best if we do it ourselves or bring someone in. For our upcoming full length, for instance, we’re in the studio right now – we’re in Germany for that and putting our music in someone else’s hands.

Like I said, we have a good idea of what we want; we did the pre-production ourselves, we’ll do the artwork ourselves as well, we picked out the studio after careful consideration, we will always be in control of everything in the band, but we feel this might be just the step we needed to take, to take this to the next level.

Interview by David.
Pictures taken from the My City Burning Myspace by Paco Weekenstroo & Kamil Kura.