We chat with Mistress Mondays

All bands have a starting point. It is hard to imagine in this day and age, but even bands like The Beatles and U2 were young once. There is a constant sense of excitement when, as a punter, you see a brand new band you’ve never heard of before performing in their infancy and then seeing them go on to greater things in their career.

Mistress Mondays have an edgy, power pop style to them, reminiscent of great Australian bands from the past such as The Sunnyboys and international acts such as The Replacements and Big Star. During the month of February, they will be playing a Thursday night co-residency at Revolver Upstairs along with fellow local band Sherriff.

Band names. They have always been an endless source of fascination and discussion. One need only think of the infamous band fronted by local character Fred Negro, the name of which we probably can’t print here (Yes we can. It’s The Fuck Fucks – Ed). Mistress Monday lead singer Michael Staples explains where his band’s name came from. “It really didn’t come from anywhere in particular. The band was sitting down and we’re like, alright, we need a name. We were going through the lyrics of other influential bands we’ve all had. We were looking for a trigger word to give us ideas. We saw the word ‘mistress’ and one of the guys randomly said ‘Monday’. The name just stuck after that. It still makes me think of a strip club,” Staples says laughingly.

“I think that the best thing about the individual band members in Mistress Mondays is that we have incredibly disparate taste in music between us. However, at the same time, there is a lot of common ground in response to the music that we as a collective love. There’s that middle circle and everyone is changing on the outer. For me, bands like The Black Keys and The White Stripes that really inspire me, especially as a vocalist. Somehow, it translates completely differently with the music. Macca, our guitarist, loves his funk like Sly & The Family Stone and Parliament/Funkadelic. Our drummer loves a lot of 1970s progressive rock like Yes and early Genesis. That all gets thrown into the musical mix with the band.”

Lyrically, what inspires Mistress Mondays? “When I was young, even before I started playing and writing music, I used to be really into my poetry. Lyrically, I get inspiration from pretty much anything. I don’t really sit down and write for the sake of writing. If I have something on my mind, I just sort of go with it, mash it around a bit and eventually it begins to translate into a song.”

“It’s always been the dream to go as far as we can with the band. It’s a hard balance at the moment, a few of us are juggling real jobs and going to uni while trying to make our band happen. We are really starting to get on a good thing this year. We want to get better at what we do and take it as far as we can,” says Staples. “You’d love to give music a hundred precent of your time towards music. Who knows what you could achieve if the financial restraints and responsibilities of life weren’t a concern.”

“The best thing is when the band gets to that level when they can make a living solely off music. Only time can tell in regards to whether or not a band will succeed in the industry. Mistress Mondays almost stated off as a happy accident. It’s only in the past year we’ve really knuckled down and concentrated on making the band really happen.”

“As far as career progression goes, I think that we are really starting to hit our straps. We’ve recently recorded our debut EP. We are definitely in what could be best described as ‘young days’ at the moment.”

The band is looking forward to their co-headlining month long Thursday residency at Revolver with Sherriff. “We have played the band room at Revolver many times before. I don’t know what it is about that space, but we always seem to get the best sound there. It’s a bit like going home for us that place. I can’t really top the sound we get there. It’s one of those places that is so rustic and unpretentious and charming.”

Beyond that, “We’d love to play some of the bigger festivals over the 2012-13 summer,” says Staples. ”It’s a dream to do a sold out gig somewhere like The Corner. We want to give the band everything we’ve got.”

- Neil Evans

 Catch Mistress Mondays kicking off their residency with Sheriff this Thursday night at Revolver.