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Manic Distortion.
 "I have had a lot of people say to me that the sound of Manic Distortion is raw and unique, and I mean we have bad gigs and we have good gigs, but people always seem to think that our sound is fun, exciting and spontaneous. You can tell that there is something happening with the moment, and that's a big part about how I feel about music in my personal life."
Adelaide based trio Manic Distortion are set to launch their second, self-titled CD-EP both locally and interstate. As if this wasn't enough for the moment, I am also informed that they have just finished writing a full length follow-up album as well, and have almost completed their second film clip. As Manic Distortion pride themselves on experimentating with their sound, it's not surprising to find that no two songs on any of their recordings have the same format, feel or direction, as Steve Manic explains.
"This second EP is quite different from the first one in a lot of ways, and the stuff that we have just recorded on the album is certainly a lot different again, but I mean the production is a lot better as I have been producing it myself," Manic explains. "Our stuff is pretty diverse, like it's sort of arty, rocky, punky; we do a lot of full-on hardcore too. I used to play in a band called Nihlism and the drummer for this was the singer in Nihlism, and he does a lot of vocals as well."
It is clear after talking with Manic for only a short period of time that in many ways he aspires to resurrect some of the classic aspects of recording.
"We just recorded in the studio and the engineer said to me that we are the first band in three years that wanted to record live," he laughs. "These days it's all about layering down drums and it's about making it perfect and making it clinical. All of the good music that came from the1960s and '70s, it was all about the moment, but we've just lost that now. Like in the '50s there wasn't mixing or anything like that, it was just about the band sounding good as they were, but these days we have the ability of making anything sound good, and able to correct the pitches on people's vocals and that, but when you hear a voice crack or a guitar go out of tune, it sounds more human."
Expanding on the topic of Manic Distortion maintaining a 'real' feeling to their music as much as possible, Manic reveals the method by which he collected material for the new CD-EP. "Two of the songs were just jams really. Like, on the third song I just pressed record and walked into the band room, and the rest of the guys would be starting to mess around and I would say 'yeah, keep going', and then I picked up my guitar and played along, and before you know it they turned out to be the best songs on the EP," he laughs. "Even with the songs which are considered to be the more structured songs, there are jams within the songs. Our stuff is pretty loose, it's sort of hit and miss, and I like the fact that we don't always do the typical sit-down-discuss-and-write process with what we create."
Given Manic's disdain for the current state of music, it's not surprising to hear his analysis of Adelaide's live scene at present. "I think that there are few really good bands around in Adelaide, and I think that there's a lot to be said for the grunge and the punk movement. It was about freedom and about putting out whatever it was that you had, and these days it tends to be very typical and clichˇd and about trying to be something," he explains. "I mean, grunge and punk became mainstream, but the original theory was just about being yourself, and I fucking hate most of the music that's around at the moment because it's just manufactured, Americanised, plastic punk crap in my opinion... Now you're lucky if you get paid even a couple of hundred dollars [for a gig]. It's all about venues cutting costs by having DJs I guess."
Adam Hood
 | Manic Distortion launch their self-titled CD-EP at the Crown & Anchor on Sat 21 May with Fire Witch and The Tremors. |
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