Life of a successful, cutting edge metalcore band is a never ending process. Memphis May Fire not only continues to define, refine and remain relevant in a metalcore landscape that has gained in popularity and seen massive growth over the past several years…they have become the benchmark.
Late 2018, Memphis May Fire released their sixth album, Broken, via metalcore label Rise Records. Following the release of Broken, the band hit the road with Atreyu and Ice Nine Kills. The album has continued to build momentum as the band does what it loves most…touring and thrilling fans worldwide.
The fanbase continues to strengthen as the band participated in this year’s Vans Warped Tour 25th Anniversary festivities as well as becoming an important piece of the inaugural Rockstar Energy Disrupt Festival. The Disrupt lineup will see multiple changes throughout the 25-city summer tour enticing fans to check out more than one stop.
As the band prepared for the Rockstar Energy Disrupt Festival, they released their cover of the Linkin Park classic “Faint,”. Their approach was to keep the cover true to the original as singer Matty Mullins handles the parts of both Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington.
Memphis May Fire is Matty Mullins (vocals), Kellen McGregor (lead guitar), Jake Garland (drums) and Cory Elder (bass).
Music Madness Magazine caught up with the voice of Memphis May Fire, Matty Mullins, after the band’s set at the Rockstar Energy Disrupt Festival’s Hartford stop.
Music Madness: You guys have been busy this summer. You go from being a part of the Warped Tour that is coming to an end while kicking off something new with the Disrupt festival.
Matty: Yeah. It’s crazy man. I think that Warped Tour is its own thing. I think a lot of people wanted a recreation of Warped, something different that would take its place. It’s a whole different story out here. Less bands, only two stages, stuff like that, but it’s cool, man. We’re just excited for an opportunity to do something during the summer. If it’s not Warped, we gotta do something.
We could do a club tour, but being out here with bands like Thrice and The Used, bands that we have respected and loved for so long is an honor.
Music Madness: Absolutely. Has it been bittersweet with the Warped Tour ending? MMF has had their share of Warped Tour summers.
Matty: Yeah, man. I mean, Warped was awesome. We’ll always miss it but this year has been very cool. We did the Jersey Warped. Then we’ll do the Mountain View Warped as well, which will be really cool. There was like 35,000 people at the Warped in Atlantic City. So, sick man.
Music Madness: Very cool. Once the Disrupt festival wraps up…what do you guys have planned for the fall?
Matty: Nothing in America that we’ve announced yet. We’re doing an October festival in Germany. That’ll be pretty cool. It’s just like a one fly day, but not a whole lot that’s been announced.
Music Madness: Understood. Congrats on the new album, Broken. How has it been received by fans on tour this summer? I know your sets have been a good mix of old and new stuff.
Matty: Yeah. We’re six albums deep. When we’re putting together a set list, it’s like we try to cover all the bases. Try to play stuff from most of our albums. Our new record was wildly different than anything we’d done in the past. So, we knew we were going to get some backlash for that.
We’re doing exactly what we wanted to do with that record. We’ve had a song that was a top 20 active rock radio for six weeks straight. Now we are on single number two, very early in the process and we are already in the top 40. We wanted to write a record for radio and we’ve accomplished that. Regardless of the backlash, we’re excited about it and also looking forward to what we’ll do next.
Music Madness: The new album touches on some real life issues…was that by design?
Matty: Yeah. I’ve always been inspired by life, man. When people ask me what I write about, it’s like, life. All of our songs are wildly different and conceptually I just like to be inspired. I think that everything is a song if you view it that way, you know.
Whether it’s something that happened to me or something that happened to a family member, a close friend or something that I’ve just observed that I feel like a song needs to be written about…I think that the song is there, the song is always there.
I just try to be real and try to write songs that could be anthems for people going through the toughest parts of their lives and hopefully inspire them to better themselves.
Music Madness: Successful bands, always seem to have that one album or song that they point to that defines them. Has MMF had that moment?
Matty: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, especially with the new record…the goal with that record was to reach an audience that we’ve never reached before. I think there’s a lot of people out there that have never heard the name of Memphis May Fire and we want those people to hear our music.
They can determine whether they’re into it or not, but we just want to reach that audience. So, we’re always looking to grow. I would say for us, the band put out an EP without me. Then when I joined the band, we put out a full length album. After that we did another EP. Then our next full length album called The Hollow was really when we started to get the recognition, started to get better tours and just had people that were interested in what we had going on.
Yeah, man. Six full length albums deep now, and looking forward to number seven. We’re just excited to continue growing, playing for new audiences and hopefully supporting bands that can bring us into rooms where people don’t know who we are. That’s the goal.
Music Madness: That’s what it’s all about, right? How have the crowds been on this Disrupt Tour?
Matty: We started out on the lighter side. People didn’t really know what to expect with the tour. Just wondering if it was like Warped. Some people didn’t even know it was happening. Warped Tour had such incredible presence. They didn’t need the press.
Music Madness: Right.
Matty: It’s like you just knew Warped Tour was happening. With Disrupt, I think that maybe they had assumed that people were just going to know it was going on when they didn’t, or the people that had heard about it were a little skeptical, is this going to be the same thing?
Now there were a couple of weeks in, it really seems to be on the up and up. I feel like a ramp up is happening. Attendance is better than it’s been the whole tour. People are coming out and being stoked and they’re out here all day. They’re not just coming later in the day. It’s cool man. We’re excited to be a part of this kind of like test phase of this tour. Like I said earlier, just honored to be doing this summer tour.
Music Madness: During your set you mentioned that “Rock isn’t dead.” It seems like over the past few years, metal, has become more experimental and you guys are included in that. The changes in your sound and music.
Matty: Totally.
Music Madness: It’s definitely brought in a whole new group of fans that had no idea that metal was so diverse and experimental. I’ve noticed that metal fans seem to be more diverse and open to change, as far as music goes, versus fans of other genres.
Matty: Oh, Dude…all day long. I mean, there’s no shame in our camp. It’s like we write heavy music, we play heavy music, we tour heavy music, but the second the new Taylor Swift drops, we’re bumping it. We’re listening to whatever dude.
It’s like we’re just inspired by music, writing, different people doing different things and it’s awesome for us to just explore all these different worlds in music. I think you’re right. I think that you’ll find a lot of people that are intrigued by heavy music or that are involved in heavy music that will be just as excited to listen to other things. Whereas, in pop, hip hop and all that I think that the people can be very genre specific. There’s those people in rock and roll too.
Out here, I think that not everybody starts in heavy music. I think there’s a lot of people that are kind of excited about everything. They hear a heavy band that gets a message across to them that they never really felt before. So, they get into it, but still, they’ve got their interest in other things. I think that heavy rock, metal, metalcore, whatever, I think it’s all very diverse. I think that our fans are diverse. I think they’re educated and I think they love all different kinds of music.
Music Madness: It’s funny…now you have this genre with like a subgenre of subgenre of a subgenre. It’s crazy.
Matty: It is, man.
Music Madness: How can fans keep up with all that is MMF?
Matty: Yeah. Just stay up with us on social. It’s Memphis May Fire on everything…Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. You can find us anywhere on the Internet. My handle is Matty Mullins. Just keep up with it and we’ll tell you exactly what’s going on when it happens.
Interview and photos (Disrupt Tampa) by Steve Carlos and photos (VWT and Disrupt Hartford) by Rich Russo
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