“I Like School”

Moron Says What?! has just released their debut EP, but they’re having a bit of trouble understanding the whole music business thing. We had a few laughs together over some cupcakes and found out a bit more about the band’s future plans, fans and the Pop Up EP. 

For a band whose music is the type that makes you want to shake, sing along and laugh out loud, Moron Says What?! is incredibly shy. Lead singer/drummer Alessandra even admits she’s gone through periods where she really hates the band’s music. She says, “I have phases where I’m like, ‘This music sucks, it’s so not what I’m into’, and then other times where I’m like, ‘We’ve created a song that I can listen to because I really like it’.” Their song ‘Wikipedia’ is proof of the band’s shyness towards its own music. Loved by the public, the band doesn’t like it so much and tries to shelve it at every possible opportunity.

So with ‘Wikipedia’ in the past, Moron Says What?! has just released their debut EP with four songs of equal awesomeness. Two of the songs (’Sleep’ and ‘Gringo’) have been floating around in lo-fi form for a while now, but one song in particular instantly stands out. ‘Nathalie, Touch Me There Again’, written about the girls’ mutual high school friend, is one of the most interesting and fun pop songs of recent times and speaks for a new generation of emerging musicians inspired by mainstream pop artists like Katy Perry, The Jonas Brothers and Rihanna. While the band creates its music in a more conventional band format, all playing synths, guitars, bass and drums, the lyrics bend more towards the lighter side of pop music. Alessandra, who writes all the lyrics, says she wrote the song “because she (Nathalie) was mad at us because we didn’t have a song about her. We’ve kind of known her since primary school… All the lyrics in that song are 100% true, like when I wrote that song she had just gotten a haircut and I noticed but didn’t say anything and then later in the day she said ‘You guys suck, you didn’t even notice that I got a haircut.” Alessandra admits, “It’s a love song.”

The incident that lead to Nathalie’s jealousy is referenced in the song ‘Gringo’, when Alessandra sings “My friend wants me to move to Ponsonby but I’m slightly broke. She bought a dress for fricken $38 dollars, it wasn’t even a joke.” Alessandra explains, “That’s actually about our friend Ema, that’s why Nathalie got mad that we didn’t have a song about her. That song was actually mocking Ema, it’s derived from a conversation we had with her where I said, ‘Oh, I wish I lived in Ponsonby like you Ema,’ and she said ‘Why don’t you just move to Ponsonby?’, and we laughed.”

The band recorded its EP with Damian Golfinopoulos in his upper Queen St studio and, using some swish effects, managed to work on a sound that disguised Alessandra’s shyness towards her vocals but captured the band’s raw energy. Recording was a pretty tough process both financially and time-wise. Being unable to play shows in bars severely limited their ability to raise money, coupled with going to school all day which limits their time to work; it was only because of a paid appearance on the TVNZ 6 show The Gravy that they could afford studio time. Funnily, their fondest memories from the studio was not actually recording the music, which they say didn’t take too long, “There was just a lot of things to do at the studio that occupied us, like the stuff on the walls and the giant wooden penis that Mikey (ex-Mean Street drummer) made.”

Packaging the EP was a combined effort, cutting and pasting pieces of cardboard together in the shape of a sandwich. The CD has an image of a slice of tomato printed on it and slides between images of lettuce, cucumber and cheese. When you open up the case, the song titles pop up in a pyramid shape, hence the name Pop Up EP. Unfortunately an official release show for the EP hasn’t happened, partly due to the lack of all-ages venues in Auckland city, however they did have them on sale at Camp A Low Hum in February, but strangely, they say, “We sold more t-shirts than EPs”. It is also on sale via the band’s myspace page, Alessandra says, “I think we get quite a few people asking for them, but it’s more when we get the money in our account.” Gabi (guitarist) adds, “People say they want one and then don’t actually pay.”

You can purchase an EP by emailing the band on moronsayswhat@gmail.com – they cost $10 (NZ).

Moron Says What?!- Nathalie, Touch Me There Again: MP3

Moron Says What?!- Myspace

Posted by Nick Fulton under New Zealand