We’re thrilled to share this exclusive interview with NYC’s The Midnight Callers who are celebrating the release of their album Rattled Humming Heart today. With a captivating blend of retro rock and power-pop The Midnight Callers have emerged as a rising force in the music scene.
In this interview, we delve into the inspirations behind the album, their journey as musicians, and the experiences that have shaped their sound. Take a listen and stream Rattled Humming Heart while you do—but be warned, it’s the kind of album that’s bound to get stuck in your head and be on repeat for the next month!
Hey guys, thanks for joining me! How are you celebrating the release of your new power-pop record, Rattled Humming Heart today?
Work, work, and more work! Martin and Chris are doing a live acoustic performance for a radio station tomorrow morning on 91.5 WMFO, and then tomorrow night we’re celebrating the release with a show at the C-Note in Hull, MA.
Your music has a distinct guitar-driven sound that resonates with fans of indie rock, but borrows a lot of influence from power pop and even glam rock. Tell me a little about that. Those are two genres you don’t see a lot and yet, it works really well the way you do it.
Our generation grew up with all the best rock music of the last 50 years jumbled up on our CD players and iPods. When I was a kid I had a mix my father had made for me that started with “Layla” by Eric Clapton, the next song was “Hazy Shade of Winter” by Simon & Garfunkel, and the next song was the James Brown cut of “Night Train.” We all had that sort of experience because of the technology that was available in our adolescence, so I think we’re all very comfortable taking a mix of rock-adjacent styles across the decades and smashing them all together.
Instagram and TikTok especially have become essential for artists to connect with their fans. How do you leverage Instagram to showcase your music, engage with fans, and build a strong online presence (all while trying to make music!)
Trying to balance communicating important news and updates about the band with the more personal side of social media can be really tough. We try to have a mix of news, live video, silly updates, and getting-to-know-us moments so that the audience that we are reaching is simultaneously learning about what the band is up to but also learning more about who we are—a bunch of loud, retro, kind of dorky smart-asses just trying to make music we love and hope others love it along the way too.
From what I can tell, you maintain a lot of DIY ethos and sensibilities. Can you speak to that and if that DIY ethos is important to you and the success of the band?
If you’re going to be an artist working in a genre space like power pop that is retro and a little bit dorky, authenticity is very important. It’s possible to be authentic in other ways, but for us the DIY ethos matters as a path of least resistance to knowing that what we’re putting out there in the world is true to who we are.
Your music blends retro influences with a modern twist. How do you strike a balance between vintage sounds and modern techniques to keep things relevant?
It’s always a struggle to be more than the sum of your influences. Something new often comes from putting pieces together in a new way, so we all rely on the fact that we have different musical backgrounds and passions to push ourselves in new creative directions.
Since we’re in full on music festival season, do you have any dream festivals or events you’d love to perform at?
We’re all from NYC so Governor’s Ball would be a blast, it would just be so cool to play at a hometown music festival!
We all know how important supporting local artists, bands, and brands is. Can you discuss your involvement in the indie music community and the importance of grassroots support?
It feels like there isn’t nearly the same market of people actively looking for new music to check out as there used to be, so bands have to build their own scene a little bit and the best way to do that is to collaborate with similar bands to build fan bases together. We’ve been very lucky to get to participate in some cool showcases for original power pop like David Bash’s International Pop Overthrow music festival.
We very much all have a “rising tide lifts all boats” attitude about the scene at this point, rather than seeing ourselves in competition with other artists in our genre, or especially on our record label, we see them as teammates. Whenever we book a gig our first thought is ‘who can we add from the label to join?” We played an awesome show with the Grip Weeds last summer and played with The Anderson Council in July at Drew’s Place in NJ.
Let’s talk about vinyl for a minute. Do you have plans to release your music on vinyl?
Yes! This album has a run of limited edition colored vinyl. Chris and Martin are both vinyl collectors so on a personal note it is a huge thrill to see our music in that format, and it fits with our kind of retro vibe.
Are there any artists or bands or brands that you would love to collaborate with?
We have and will hopefully continue to share bills with other modern power pop acts like Kris Rodgers and the Dirty Gems and our label-mates, The Anderson Council, and those are always a good time. A dream of ours is opening for a band that we are big fans of, like Cheap Trick or White Denim.
What can new fans expect from you next? Is there a tour in the works?
We’ve got quite a few dates scattered throughout the summer, and more in the works! We’ll keep announcing them on our website (https://www.themidnightcallers.com) and Songkick. The other exciting thing we have coming up is the release of a track that we contributed to this summer’s JEM Records tribute album, celebrating the work of Ray Davies. That will come out on August 11th, and we’re really psyched for it.
Thanks for taking the time to talk with me! Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Thanks for chatting with us! The best place to keep up with all the news and happenings in the band is Instagram, so please give us a follow and let us know how you’re liking the new album!
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