INTRODUCING: Mother Vulture
MOTHER VULTURE have been a level of undefinable since their inception. With Mother Knows Best turning heads back in 2022, their second record Cartoon Violence has put the world on red alert. Blisteringly hard energy, they flit from desert rock and hardcore to psychedelia and more throughout the record. We caught up with guitarist Brodie about the band’s a delightful lack of concern for expectations and how that in turn has made them into one of the UK’s most exciting young talents.
The record pulls you into this crazy world that MOTHER VULTURE have built up for their listeners. “We’ve had the title for the album Cartoon Violence for like quite a while, so we knew it was going to kind of be based around that. And that just kind of like inspired the idea of like tuning into some dystopian corporate TV programme and you’re like changing channels and like we keep just like popping on. It just adds a bit of fun to the album, which is kind of what we’re about and just makes things a bit more exciting. And I love a good theme; I like something that’s been thought out and put together. I think me and Chris always really enjoyed listening to an album where you sit down and it kind of takes you to another world. Like maybe the intro tells you you’re somewhere that you’re not like the QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE album Songs for the Deaf – it’s that kind of vibe.”
There’s even a little Easter-egg from previous tourmate, SKINDRED’s Benji. “They’re really nice guys and we just like got in touch with Benji and asked him and he was straight up like, hell yeah, you know, let’s do it.”
From singles Slow Down and Treadmill to surprise fan favourites the mammoth The Masquerade and La Matadora there’s such a broad selection of massive sounds on offer that it’s hard to know where to place MOTHER VULTURE. “I mean, look, we’re kind of a band that not everyone was going to like this album,” Brodie is very much a cheerful realist on the popular masses potential reception to Cartoon Violence. “It’s eclectic and a bit weird; it’s putting a lot of things together that maybe some won’t think work together – but we have to be true to ourselves. And when we were making this album, the one thing that we were always going to be is like authentic. We wanted to just make this ridiculous, epic kind of grand album that was just like loads and loads of fun. We didn’t have a song limit, we’re just going to do what we want, as we always do. I think we’re all super proud of it.”
It is all that and more. Bombastic at times, euphoric, animalistic. It’s a crazy ride, one that the right people will absolutely fall in love with. “Our music is as heavy as I as anything I would ever listen to,” Brodie explains about the band’s apparent disregard for writing by a genre-rule book. “But it’s just it really is just what happens when we get in a room and start putting it together. You know, what you’re hearing is our four tastes of music just coming together quite naturally. It is a lot to do with the tones and how Georgi sings and how Matt drums that it makes the songs what they are. We’ve been told before, that the fact that we aren’t a singularity, that we don’t follow a particular genre, kind of like makes us maybe a marketable or difficult to put on tours and stuff like that. But we don’t know any other way to do it. It’s just what we are.”
MOTHER VULTURE’s output feels all the more genuine and exciting for this, with a record overflowing with banger after banger, treat after treat. “Yeah we thought instead of trying to go in a certain direction to make ourselves easier [to pigeonhole] we’re just going to lean into it. [For example,] you know, Chris wanted to do this kind of Spanish infused, funky-rock instrumental. We didn’t put that in because we thought, you know, is a good filler track or it was like something that would be novel. He wrote that song because he wanted to write it. He’s you know, he’s got ancestry that is Spanish and he felt in his blood and that’s who he is. And it’s a great song. So why not put it on the album?”
The authenticity of MOTHER VULTURE from live shows, to this incredible new record speaks volumes for their passion and enjoyment of . “We just we can’t help just doing what we love you know? And because we’re all we’ve all got a collective music taste, the ethos behind the songwriting is we just write songs that we would like to hear on the radio.”
Cartoon Violence is out now via self-release. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS127 here.
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