Mallory Knox: “I think a psychiatrist would have a fun time breaking this record down” 

Mallory Knox: “I think a psychiatrist would have a fun time breaking this record down”

Everybody grows up; it’s a fact of life – one that Mallory Knox frontman Mikey Chapman is becoming all too aware of. Twenty-seven years old and releasing his third album ‘Wired’, Mikey is finding that the change of pace suits him and his cohorts well – even if it means drinking green tea and self-confessing, “I’m not very rock’n’roll, man.”

This is clearly not the case. What he’s is doing is conceding to the unstoppable notion of time, something referred to immediately on ‘Wired’. “Clean, I think it’s time to come clean,” roars opening track ‘Giving It Up’, followed by a chorus of: “I feel like giving it up, I’ve done my time, I feel like giving it up / This time can’t tow the line, I feel like giving it up, I think about this every night.”

Getting to the point of their third album took Mallory Knox a bit longer than the swift turnaround between debut ‘Signals’ in 2013 and follow-up ‘Asymmetry’ in 2014. “In our defence, we had an incredible run with the ‘Asymmetry’,” laughs Mikey. “We got to go to some great places. We were holding out for those opportunities and waiting for the knowledge of the record to spread naturally, and with that comes time and patience.”

The five-piece from Ely, just outside of Cambridge, found themselves on the right side of success with their second album. Though they wanted to keep this streak going, there was also a need to shake things up. “As much as we had an incredibly fun time recording ‘Asymmetry’, we had something like three months to do it, and it ended up being a bit too much time,” Mikey explains.

When it came down to what the record would ultimately concern, he reveals: “An element that we reflect upon within the concept is the immediacy of modern day. For all its benefits and its wonders and the incredible lifestyle that it can bring…” he pauses and snaps his fingers. “It’s never this chance to bud, develop and grow.”

“There are so many facets of [being a musician],” he continues. “Anything from the actual industry and the politics of it to the band dynamic, development, and even the fans and their tastes. It’s a constantly changing creature, but it always has teeth. We’ve been very lucky in that respect; people have looked at us and maybe looked at the long game, but for young bands who want that opportunity, even in the six years, we’ve seen a very distinct shift to immediacy.”

Mallory Knox took all of those obstacles and channelled them into ‘Wired’. “We do address quite a few poignant issues on this one. We’ve always had a melancholy and a reflective vibe on songs and stuff, we’ve never been particularly happy-happy, but they’ve always been in a more abstract kind of way and never necessarily writing about specifics. You can talk about the loss of a love or whatever, and it will just be, ‘This has happened, it’s all it is, I can’t do anything about it,” he says in a mock-whinging tone. “And now it’s like, ‘Yeah, this happened’. I‘m a fucking twenty-seven-year-old man, what do you do when that happens? You don’t just dwell on it; you take responsibility for it, you grow, you develop, you move past it and work on ways of making yourself better.”

‘Wired’ is no holds barred regarding subject matter, you’ll even find a nod to antidepressant Citalopram on ‘Better Off Without You’, which highlights Mikey’s struggle with depression. “It was never an intention when we were writing it,” he explains, “but when I step back now and look at the album as a bigger picture, I find an underlying theme of accountability and taking responsibility – whether it be mental health, or love, or even social, political, religious scenarios we find ourselves in.”

“There’s an underlying theme of accountability and taking responsibility.”

“The band itself has such an impact on our personal lives and always has done,” he continues. “It’s affected relationships and lifestyle choices and all that kind of stuff; I suppose it’s part and parcel of the ‘rock’n’roll lifestyle’, whatever that means nowadays. It’s never just boyfriend and girlfriend when you’re in a band; it’s always a ménage à trois.”

Summarising this soundtrack for the maturing and the isolated, Mikey talks with complete conviction: “I think it’s quite a poignant thing for people who are coming up to their thirties. Whether you’re a musician or not, this is the period where you realise you can’t have that one extra beer anymore; you can’t say that to people anymore, you can’t behave like that anymore, you can’t think that way anymore.

“I’m getting to that point where I need to take account and responsibility and keep an eye on what I’m doing and work to improve myself in that manner, so I think that underlying thing permeates. Our personal lives have done so within the music as well, without us necessarily realising it. I think a psychiatrist would have a fun time breaking this record down.”

As ‘Wired’ is released into an increasingly uncertain world, Mikey has no qualms about its place in history. “Art is indestructible because it’s just an abstract reflection of our time and that will always be the case. Even in a thousand years time, there’ll always be someone in an abstract way reflecting.”

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