Malaki is a 5 piece metal band consisting of Shauna Lisse- Vocals, Josh Buma-Guitar, Dave Gentry- Drums, Ellsworth Turner- Bass, and Markus Johansson- Guitar. I was able to sit down with Josh Buma and Ellsworth Turner on the 2nd floor deck at the Crofoot Ballroom during Atreyu’s amusing sound check.
Side Stage: So this is the fourth date of your tour with Atreyu after a few days off?
Josh Buma: Yes, we had a couple pick up dates in Farmington, NM and Madison, WI two nights ago and now we are picking it back up. We got on this tour super last minute we had about two weeks to get all of our ducks in a row and we made it work. We had 3 shows with Atreyu last weekend, west coast dates. We had 5 days off and I had enough time to slice two tendons in my finger, and now we are back. So it’s definitely been an adventure and we barely even gotten started yet. We have the hurricane coming up to worry about in a few days too!
Ellsworth Turner- I thought hurricane season was over!
JB- It can’t stop us. We have 5 or 6 shows left with Atreyu. New York, Boston, Maryland, Pontiac, we haven’t played at any of these places before so this is really exciting for us.
Do you have your rain gear ready?
ET: No! I have a leather jacket and I lived in Cleveland for 3 years so I’ll be fine.
JB: I’m from Los Angeles, so I don’t own gear that repels rain. I guess I need to go buy some stuff.
ET: He’s already buying a North Face Jacket at this point.
JB: I have a pea coat somewhere.
As a band what is your biggest accomplishment?
JB: Probably this.
ET: This tour is pretty sweet. These are some huge, huge names in our industry. Especially in our Genre. Not only do we get to share the stage with them, but they have been stupid cool backstage. Hanging out drinking, talking. The first night on tour some of the guys in Atreyu left backstage to go meet some friends of mine who were dying to meet them. They didn’t even know me. It was just like Hi, I’m in the opening band they were like let’s go come on. They are just good dudes.
JB: We did shots with Wovenwar the first night
ET: And we finished a bottle with them the second night.
JB: Everyone has treated us great, we are not the bastard stepchild we feel like we are part of this tour for real it’s not like ugh ok fine.
ET: We are not the scrub in town. You get a lot of cats out there from other bands we have worked with some of the big names just don’t care. This is our place, that is our bus move along child. So this has been nice. It’s been a really good time.
So you just released an EP, are you going to do a full length record too soon?
JB: Honestly, we are probably going to continuously release EP’s. The goal was instead of releasing a full record it takes you two to three years to put out a new record. We are trying to put of 3 songs every 6 months or so and keep things fresh. We want people to always have a reason to go to our page. Check us out, come see shows, they are always hopefully going to hear new songs, there will be new releases. Things after a year or two can get a bit stale we are already tired of playing some of these songs that we have been playing for a while. We are looking forward to writing and playing all the new stuff that we already had recorded and demoed out. We are constantly trying to evolve. We don’t want to put out a record and completely change our sound. We want it to be an organic experience for both the listeners and us. We are basically doing it three songs at a time.
ET: In these days and ages of the internet there is no such thing as just releasing an album and having it be what it is. It’s going to get stolen. It’s going to get recorded; it’s going to get picked up. Then we are at the show and everyone knows every song already so there are no surprises left. I like this idea of giving you a taste. You come to a show and think “What is that song?” Don’t worry; we will get it to you soon. You got to get them hooked, it’s a little bit a drug mentality but give them a taste and they will keep coming back for more. Not to mention the fact that our stage show, out of all the bands I’ve been in this is one of my favorite performance situations there is not a still body on stage. We destroy things and I am excited about that. We are not Dillinger level yet, but we have some fun.
As a fan, it sounds better than a full length album. I do like that idea. Get me hooked!
JB: That’s the thing, if I was a fan and a band did that to me I would be a little annoyed. I would basically run through the three songs and then be like “Ok, now what?” and then you are just basically waiting. That is the whole point. Make them want more. It’s a much more close experience because you are always having to come back and experiencing new stuff. Some of the guys have sort of fought me on it a little because it’s not the traditional way to do things. There is no such thing as the traditional way of doing things in terms of it being successful. It’s always well, why don’t we try this? Who knows if it will work, but it can’t work any less than what has been the standard the last 30 year, which no longer applies in reality though. Especially if you are an up and coming band. Atreyu put out a full length record. People will flock to it and buy it. If you are an up and coming band you have to maintain interest for as long as you can. It’s like “Oh, I remember them sort of”, two years later after you put out a record. That’s not fair.
ET: just like the guys in Wovenwar, shout out to them by the way. They were another band once upon a time and had a huge following. Now because they have a new name and a new singer they have to re-earn some levels of trust. Which in my opinion they don’t need to worry about because they are amazing. They are awesome on stage. When you are the new cats, there are no labels left that will say here is X amount, go take care of business. It’s us grinding every inch of the way. We got to make it work one way or the other.
JB: That’s the other thing is what we do all our own records too. We engineer all our own stuff. We have our own studio, that I built over the years. There is more power in the hands of the artist than has ever been before but, also there is a lot more room for people to fake it, and make recordings that don’t reflect the reality of the band. Everything we have done is organic. We have real drums, real tones we are not sitting there pitch directing every little thing. It’s as organic as you can make a record these days. And still sound sonically like you’re competing with everyone else that is out there. We are a self-sustained band. Our drummer owns a merch company. He designs and creates all our own merch. I record all of our songs. There are a lot of costs of being in a band these days that we thankfully don’t have to pay the full freight of. We can focus on other things, like paying for gas to get to Pontiac, Michigan!
ET: Luckily we have our own van and don’t have to rent a van every time.
JB: With all the recording costs that we have probably saved over the years I was able to buy a van for the band. We can sort of shift the costs into the things we need to be a touring unit as opposed to who is going to pay for our recording, who’s going to produce it; I hope it comes out well. The more creative control we have over the process the better it’s going to be. The happier you are with the product.
What do you take with you to keep yourself sane on the road?
ET: A flask of Bourbon. I’m not even joking.
JB: Bourbon, yes well at this point a jacket. I’m from southern California; I didn’t even bring a jacket. We were driving to Farmington and I was like wait is it still warm in October? I’m usually warm until November and we were driving to Farmington and Madison and I realized what I am thinking… I am such an idiot.
ET: I am from California too but was raised in North Dakota and lived in Cleveland. One of the boys is from Chicago another lived in Cleveland as well; our lead singer is from Wisconsin. We are all used to it. Our sunshine thin boy over here is like this is cold out here. So yes definitely a jacket and some hot coco, and some bourbon to spike the coco.
Is there anything you would like to pass on to your fans?
ET: I want to say Thank You, Thank You; Thank You to every fan that has come to a show, stuck around afterwards, met us, and shook our hands. Of course Atreyu, Wovenwar, Beartooth some of the best dudes in the business and nicest as well so much thanks to those guys for letting us be around.
Off topic if you like the show and see us on tour with Atreyu we have a live DVD that we are releasing October 20th. There are a lot of people that we haven’t gotten the chance to play in your market yet. If you want to see what we are all about and own a piece of it you can buy it in our merch store on October 20th. We have a new EP that came out last month called The Black EP. We have another EP that we already released called The Blue EP and we have tons of Merch! Available on www.malaki.com
