Mac Saturn talks First Headlining Tour & New Music
February 21, 2023
The Detroit band, Mac Saturn, is quickly on the rise with their unique sound and the release of their 2022 EP “Until The Money Runs Out”. We sat down at Dallas’ House Of Blues to discuss their first headlining tour and the possibility of new music.
Q: What’s been your favorite part about touring so far?
A:
Carson “We probably all have a different answer for it. I’d say the best part, if I can answer for everybody, is seeing all these new places that we haven’t seen before. All these different cities, especially because this is our first tour, we’re seeing a lot of places for the first time, all the different food, just traveling.”
Nick “Being a tourist without being too much of a tourist, being able to be in all of these places to play”
Mike “And to be able to do it with each other too, that’s the best part. If we were doing this by ourselves, we wouldn’t really be that cool. But the thing is we’ll be talking about this shit that we’re doing for ya know, the whole rest of our lives.”
Nick “It’s great to be able to do it as a group ya know and it keeps the band together too. You get to experience all these things and see all these things on the road and any hard things that may come up, you have someone there.”
Q: What’s one word you’d use to describe your first headlining tour?
A:
Carson “Sweaty, overwhelming.”
Nick “Unbelievable, beyond expectations, extraordinary .”
Evan “Extravagant.”
Nick “Extraordinary.”
Carson “Overwhelming. Something that exceeded our expectations.”
Evan “Surprised.”
Nick “It’s exceeding our expectations.”
Carson “The response, especially because these are a lot of cities we’ve never been to and don’t know anybody in and a ton of people are coming out. Ya know, a little group of people or a big group of people, everybody has the same amount of a good time. Ya know what I mean? From what we feel like. No matter how much different the crowd is, geographically or size wise ya know? Whoever shows up that night, it’s just an incredible crowd. Everybody’s singing along, dancing, having a good time. Especially in the colder parts of the world, some of these smaller cities we went to in the winter, they’re thankful. It’s a small town in the winter, they’re telling us that no one is coming up there.
Nick “Yeah that’s probably the craziest thing. Like the positive feedback that we get from our audience night after night. I think it feels like you’re building a relationship with them in such a natural way. To see people make friends and come to multiple shows together and doing stuff with friends, that they made at the last show, in the last city. Giving people the excuse to sort of do their own traveling and have their own good time. That’s been super cool too. Like I said, the side effect of us doing our thing.”
Mike “Being able to host that. Like a safe space for everyone to go.”
Nick “Yeah exactly. To give all these people a place to go.”
Mike “And express themselves as much as we are, like dressing up.”
Nick “Yeah everyone kinda shows up all decked out, which is cool ya know.”
Mike “They’ll let it all hang out, it’s sweet.”
Nick “To see a culture forming around all the work that we’ve been doing and all the music we’ve been working so hard, that we write. There’s a real culture forming around that, ya know the way that we love bands, is really, I don’t know how to even out it into words.”
Carson “And it’s growing person by person. We’re literally building a fan base. We’re unsigned, we’re literally building it person by person, by person, you included so. And everybody that you reach on this means so much to us and literally every single person that hears about us through this or anybody else.”
Nick “We don’t have any big money backing or a label that’s pushing our marketing or anything like that. It’s literally just us getting in the van and going and playing wherever will listen and we’re very very grateful. Gracious beyond measure. Grateful for sure is the word.”
Q: So can we expect new music this soon?
A:
Carson “Absolutely”
Nick “I fuckin hope so.”
Q: Are we talking an album or an EP?
A:
Carson “Well that’s what’s kind of up in the air right now. We’re thinking of going a couple different routes with it. We’ve got four decades worth of music ready to be released.”
Angelo “And it will all be released some point.”
Nick “And you can hear any of it, any night, at any show. It’s not like all the songs aren’t finished, they're ready.”
Carson “Yeah that’s one big thing, they have to come to the show to see a lot of the extra songs that aren’t out already. But, we do plan on releasing music this year, much more music this year.”
Q: Is the creative process different from what it was for your guys’ last EP?
A:
Nick “No.”
Carson ”No.”
Nick “It’s bulletproof, it doesn’t change.”
Q: What is your creative process usually like?
A:
Carson “ Well it pretty much stems from us living together and being together all the time. When we are home in Michigan we live together. Especially the last two years when we were forming and getting this thing going. We played together everyday and just worked through each song everyday and just kept writing, adding, changing, it’s a big process. We have a song and then we run it through the process that he's saying hasn’t changed.”
Nick “It’s become more refined I’d say. The process hasn’t been like, ‘oh we’re on the road and now it's different to write a song’. I feel like there’s a time to do this and to do that, ya know? This informs a lot of the creative work that we do, but to be able to do that, you need to be really present and be aware to what you’re experiencing everyday; you just kind of take that to the bank when it’s time to go to the studio.”
Evan “The songs are like a living thing. Where it’s like, you know, someone just comes in with an idea and we present it to the group. We each kind of water it and grow it.”
Nick “That’s a great way to put it. There’s a good balance of that.”
Q: Who would you say influences your music the most?
A:
Carson “That’s the question because I think we’re one of the truest forms of a band. Especially in this day and age, where each person brings an answer to that question and that changes based off of what we’re all listening to lately. Our influences are always changing. I think for each of us.”
Nick “For rock bands nowadays, sometimes people have to think of them as a replica of something else and sort of equate a band with a band because rock music is kind of, maybe, a revival thing now. I don’t think that, I challenge people to not think about rock music that way. Try and look at rock bands as this new thing that is happening now, instead of ‘Oh they're like the new this or the new that’. So we kind of approach it because we have such a spectrum of influence, it’s really hard to say ‘oh this band is what we try to emulate’ because we don’t really try to emulate anyone. We are all inspired by music in our own way. We try and just bring that into the room and see whatever comes out. It’s not so much trying to replicate a painting from the past, as it is finding the essence of what made that great and how we can make it relevant to our time, that we are living in right now.”
Carson “We draw from everything in terms of genre. So much more than music, it’s also film, art, food, fashion, and history. It goes very, very deep.”
Nick “And traveling informs all of that.”
Q: Are there any particular milestones you’re looking forward to reaching as a band?
A:
Nick “I’d say our 100th show, it’s our return home show and our last show of the tour and playing 100 shows as a band feels like a pretty significant group milestone. I’m really looking forward to blowing it out that night for everybody”
Carson “And also finishing our first tour. Getting through it, giving everybody the same quality, great show that we have just been this whole time.”
Nick “Every night”
Carson “Once we get through that then that'll really be big and we’re going to build off of that for the rest of the year. Tour is really starting our year out and we are already performing at such a higher level then we thought we would, at this point in the year, and it's only February ya know. So it’s exciting. This year is going to be insane.”
Interview & Photos by Blake Crandall
