Breaking Free Of Society With Minsk’s Tim Mead
Minsk are one of the most exciting bands driving forward on the scene today. With a stunning performance at Psycho (And a very fun soundcheck!) the band pushed ever forward on their path to world domination. Already cult favorites in the close-knit post-metal scene they seem to be pushing towards something greater. Their frontman Tim Mead was extremely thoughtful in this interview, sharing a diverse range of opinions and opining on the importance of music, a revealing of the artists mind if there ever was one.
How the hell are you?
I’m good. It’s been kind of a crazy weekend but I’m happy that we played and that it went pretty well. There was lots of build up to it.
After playing a great show like tonight how do you feel?
I feel good. It felt like we spent a lot of time working up to this show because we haven’t played much this year so it’s a relief especially that we all felt good about it. So I feel ecstatic I would say. We try to be happy people.
That’s rare for a band on this fest!
(Laughter) That’s why you play music right? To try and make yourself feel better about the world.
You had a bit of silly soundcheck going back and forth with the audience – where did that come from?
I don’t know how that happened. I didn’t intend that to happen but people were yelling back at us, it was fun for sure.
It’s surprisingly lighthearted given the musical context…
It’s not a representation of where we are at all the time. I think that’s a good observation though. It’s contextual. This is such a party atmosphere. I guess maybe the music you write sort of reflects part of your personality that are dominant or not or maybe are at times. You can compartmentalize. We attempt to have some sort of a dynamic trajectory within each song. That’s sort of a reflection of exploring the highs and lows of building an atmosphere. That seems logical.
What are you trying to communicate with Minsk?
That could go so many ways. We’re trying to give the listener an interpretation of what it’s like to be us in this world and reflecting that wide range of experiences that happens. We’re trying to do something where the end result is for people to feel some sort of positivity. It can be channeled through something very somber sounding.
Is that what attracts people to your band?
That’s a hard question! (Laughter) Maybe. I like people to come away feeling with something constructive that they can apply to their lives even if it’s just forgetting about the constant barrage of bullshit that everybody faces everyday seemingly. There’s always something out there to make us as humans feel like shit so if music can be the way for people to not feel that way anyway and Minsk can be a conduit for that that would make us very happy.
I use almost that explanation for why I do music stuff, “I want to kill myself a lot, this makes me want to kill myself less, I want other people to want to kill themselves less”
I feel that’s built into how society is set up. Society wants you to feel less power than you actually are. It wants to take that from you.
What about Western society makes you feel that way?
You could apply it to the way mainstream religions are geared towards making you essentially feel guilty about being born. Consumer society – if you’re not following the success ideology that’s completely hollow… richness is not found in that kind of success necessarily. Getting together with likeminded people even if it’s in a crazy place like Las Vegas that proves there’s a richness to these people getting together and enjoying things. My viewpoint on government is that it strives to crush people and make them feel like they are not capable of living a full life without being protected or whatever it might be. That sounds like a trite answer but to me that’s another thing that is striving to make us feel like incompetent shitheads and who aren’t capable of bringing ourselves happiness on our own terms.
What do you love about music?
That it’s transcendental. That it’s uniting. I heard a podcast recently with Robert Flynn and he’s a masonic artist and he creates beautiful art with all sorts of crazy meanings. He was talking about how music taps into parts of our brain that visual art can’t. It’s something visual primal and this guy was saying it touches the same receptors as eating and sex do. It does something nothing else can. It makes you feel like you have some kind of hope. You have other people out there who feel like you do and you’re not just flying in this world without any purpose.
