Warning! If you must label The Music, just don’t call them metal. Yes, don’t call The Music metal… make sense?
“We’re not metal, we don’t care about metal! It’s loud, it’s not metal, that’s totally wrong,” says guitarist Adam Nutter when asked if they have any of the decadent genre’s inklings.
If anything, the four-piece from Leeds are redefining what loud is by means of a prolific sound that mixes a little Janes Addiction, Rush and Led Zeppelin into a dignified electric groove/rhythmic/dance rock outfit. Sound interesting? Wait till you hear lead singer Robert Harvey’s voice.
Harvey’s shrieking howls sound like someone’s got him by the balls, but it still maintains that muscular presence of a Geddy Lee or Robert Plant to summon back late 70’s arena rock fervor atop inexcusable metal comparisons. It’s an eight-track flashback with a modern twist, that had defined The Music as the future of rock. Alongside Harvey’s boyhood chums, Nutter lends the crushing guitar chords atop Stuart Coleman’s bass and Phil Jordan’s powerhouse-beats.
The Music first took shape in late 1999, when the band were appetent teenagers hoping to blend their favorite genres of rock, soul, funk, dub, and electro into a more aggressive party of sound verse many of today’s shaggy post-punk counterparts.
Their self-titled 2003 release featured a hodge-podge of loud groove experiments that quickly garnered them attention as leaders of the return to rock movement. The album was a hit, praised with numerous stellar reviews, and The Music earned spots opening for Coldplay and The Vines. But as success came quickly in Britain, The Music has struggled to garner a following in the U.S.
“In the U.S., there’s a lot of awful shit bands out there getting play and it’s tough for a band like us to break through. We are in a battle against this god awful music,” explains Nutter.
Despite the resistance of many uneducated ears in the U.S., things are finally picking up steam for The Music following a recent opening slot for Incubus and the recent release of their second album, Welcome To The North. Produced by Brendan O’Brien who has worked with Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine and Bruce Springsteen, The Music have made an immediate leap in the songwriting department. O’Brien has worked to capture the enigmatic live quality of The Music performances with a more refined and mature musicianship.
Nutter is quick not to credit the band’s turnaround all to O’Brien as he states, “we wrote the album first and then we had Brendan on board and all these reviews were all about Brendan’s massive influences and all that. So people who say we wrote those songs because of his being around are wrong.”
With the introduction of a few slower numbers – alongside the stormy rockers and tribal rhythmic rockers like “Breakin’” and the slashing guitar barrage of “Freedom Fighters” – The Music depicts their true strength in Harvey’s vocals and Nutter’s larger than life guitar effects. Although the band is barely out of their teens, they are still growing, amidst much room for improvement in the lyrical department. It’s this timing that keeps The Music still waiting to grow, but right now they are playing in a safety net, without becoming too major or too trivial.
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Nutter says the rather blatant name of his band sprung from their early origins when they formed in high school but never had a band name. When a record label executive approached them about getting signed and asked the obvious question, “well what’s the band name?” The band members couldn’t think of anything so they decided on “The Music.”
“It best describes what we are about. We’re not interested in fame or money or any of that shit,” says Nutter. “We just want to play music. We’re about the music. We’re not trying to impress people, we just want to make music and live our lives.”
However you describe these young Brits, just don’t call them a damn metal band. After all, they’re redefining the possibilities of being loud. Just make sure you keep your ears open wide.
