Meanwhile In Bat Country are an epic sounding band who are based in Bristol. With two singles now out (‘A Universe Is Near and ‘The Smoke That Thunders’), they are so pumped to keep putting out cinematic numbers to leave us wanting to be in a Tarantino film! Here they are talking about the birth of the band and coping with COVID-19 situation.
How did you all meet and what led to creating the bands awesome name?
We’ve known eachother for over half a decade now and met after being in various different musical projects. Paul and Will started to write together in 2018 and MIBC formed from there. As for the name, we wanted to hit on something that sounded like some grandiose spaghetti western film, combined with the mystery and repetition we felt we were living amongst at the time – subsequently best described by Hunter S Thompson’s ‘Bat Country’ line from Fear and Loathing. The idea was that all the songs we wrote would be performed from the perspective of being in ‘Bat County’, then Will noticed a sticker above a pub door that said ‘Meanwhile in…’, naturally completing the puzzle.
Your music sound very cinematic, are movies a big part of your life?
Yeah especially at the moment! We’ve always been interested in cinema, particularly Tarantino, Scorsese and Sergio leone. Some of the soundtracks to those movies are amazing, Bernard Herrmann’s Taxi Driver score and Morricone’s weterns.
I think we love the idea of creating a sound that could fit with a scene or create some narrative.
What would you sight as influences and how much do they impact you on your music?
Between the band there is quite a varied amount of influences in regards to writing the music. We love the types of records, which have constantly shifting dynamics and weird structures, so I suppose the biggest impact for us is the unpredictability of a ‘mood’ in a song. Paul McCartney always has a great style, where he will sing something devastating in front of happy arrangements. Which is where you really start to hone in on the idea of ‘Escapism’ and the ability to go somewhere else. That is really important to us.
What are the key things to make sure the music sounds just as epic for the live shows?
Practice and taking time to focus on details. We often have rehearsals where we just focus on a single song for a few hours straight instead of just running our whole live set. It really helps to orchestrate the music into something that sounds completely together. There’s six of us, so getting all of our sounds to gel and act as a single organism is crucial. We make an effort to make particularly dynamic songs, so when the big loud sections come in, they feel just that much more exciting.
Also, a talented sound engineer, nice sound system and good venue always help too!
What’s your biggest tip for dealing with the current isolation we are all facing due to the virus?
We guess the biggest tip would be to try and stay connected with friends and family by whichever means possible. A phone conversation or a video call can go a long way in helping to keep a positive mindset.
As a band it can be a little frustrating at times as we’d love nothing more than to be in the same room and making a lot of noise. We have tried to use our time off effectively and view this as a time for adding lots of song ideas to the ‘to do list’ and polishing others that already feature. This weird bubble we are living in seems to be a good time to discuss, in more depth, all things band related that we can’t discuss when we are making a racket. Plus there are a ton of great films and series to watch; between ‘Tiger King’ and ‘Ozark’; we are loosing our minds.
Stay safe everyone!
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