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BIO:
Sometimes you can go home. Just ask the iconic, idyllic
punk/pop stalwarts MxPx, who have returned to the almighty
Tooth & Nail Records for their exhilarating, dexterous
eighth studio album, Secret Weapon. Long on the
highly-charged, infectious anthems that made them scene
favorites and boasting a smattering of adventurous,
classic pop-inspired winners, the trio – consisting of
frontman/bassist Mike Herrera, guitarist Tom Wisniewski
and drummer Yuri Ruley – has delivered what can only be
called its most accomplished and cohesive disc yet.
As Secret Weapon uncorks with the 1-2 punch of the title
track and “Shut It Down,” it’s hard not to think
masterpiece as the Aaron Sprinkle (The Almost, Anberlin)
produced set unfolds. If Wisniewski is a little too humble
to agree with that notion, he does call the disc’s
double-whammy opening, “a face-melter.” Counting a guitar
solo from Bad Religion’s Brian Baker, “Secret Weapon,” the
incendiary, attention-grabber also finds MxPx wielding its
infamous, optimistic tack.
“We’ve always been a band that’s tried to focus on the
sunny side of life,” acknowledges Herrera. “But we try to
do it in a way that’s real to people and not cheesy. We
kind of embrace the dismal and the uplifting at the same
time. And “Secret Weapon,” the song and the album, sums up
where MxPx is right now.”
The aforementioned “Shut It Down” is an equally blistering
homage to the Clash replete with soaring choruses,
thundering drums and a vocal cameo from Sugarcult’s Tim
Pagnotta. Launched with the proclamation, “This is a
public service announcement with guitar!” – a line
excerpted from that seminal quartet’s 1982 effort Combat
Rock – its an endearing acknowledgment to Strummer/Jones.
“Aaron and I were listening to a playback of our song,
waiting for Mike at the studio,” Tom explains. “And it
just popped into my head. I was thinking of “Know Your
Rights,” so I started shouting it over the song. And
Aaron’s like, ‘Dude, that’s sick.’ So when Mike arrived, I
was like, ‘Okay, get in front of the microphone.’ And
that’s how we paid tribute to my favorite band ever.”
Suggesting kids give up their incessant texting rituals
and forgo time in the chatroom for time with their
families in the living room, the song’s message is a
thought-provoking commentary on technology’s impact on
society. “Everyone’s seen that cell phone commercial where
the whole family is sitting at the dinner table,” says
Tom. “The kid’s asking for the salt or whatever and the
dad’s just blowing him up on the text message. And he’s
like, ‘Dad. I’m right here.’ Sure it’s funny, but it’s
also kind of sad.”
Not so for the alluring contagion “Top of the Charts.” An
acerbic look back at MxPx’s frustrations with the music
business and its tenure at a major label specifically, it
just may be the band’s most accessible number ever. “It’s
absolutely based in reality and our experiences with the
whole major label world,” says Tom. “It was actually
written a while back, after we parted ways with A&M. You
know, they’d tell us, ‘Oh, the record’s perfect. It’s
great. Then two weeks later they’d be back in touch and
say, ‘Yeah. We don’t hear a single. Can you get back to us
with a couple more songs.’ Like, ‘I know you just spent
the past year writing songs but now can you pull an
amazing single out of a hat? Can you just do that for us
real quick? Thanks.’”
“It’s one of those things that we almost left off the
record because we didn’t want people to think that we were
jaded or that we blamed other people for us not having a
big hit single,” Mike explains. “We don’t blame anyone.
Things just sort of fall where they do and roll with it.”
That’s not to say MxPx hasn’t had its share of triumphs in
its decade and a half in operation. Founded in July 1992
by Herrera and Ruley, the Bremerton, Washington-bred
band’s line up has remained constant since Wisniewski
joined in 1995. Counting a series of alternative radio and
video favorites like “Punk Rawk Show,” “Chick Magnet,”
“Move To Bremerton,” “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” and “Running
Out Of Time” over seven extremely popular studio albums,
an array of EPs, plus one live disc and a DVD.
With their weighty back catalog of should-be smashes,
returning to Tooth & Nail – a label now running circles
around the conglomerates when it comes to getting rock
albums on the charts by the likes of Underoath, Anberlin
and The Almost – made perfect sense for its glimmering but
tenacious eighth album. After agreeing to record three new
songs last year for an expanded reissue of its B-sides
compilation, Let It Happen, the band and label founder
Brandon Ebel patched things up for good.
“It’s no secret that years ago we had a pretty well
publicized falling out with them but it’s been a long time
and things have healed,” Tom says. “We sort of picked up
where we left off.” Fresh off the completion of an
amicable deal with respected indie SideOne Dummy, MxPx
began seriously considering Ebel’s offer to rejoin his
label.
“I would say that helped our decision,” Herrera says of
Tooth & Nail’s powerful industry position, “but it wasn’t
solely based on business. A lot of it was based on
redemption and wanting to right some of the wrongs and be
righted for some of the wrongs that were done to us. We
felt like this was our way to rebuild everything. I think,
if anything, regardless of the success of this record,
having that relationship with Tooth & Nail again is going
to do wonders for our career, our personal lives and the
well being of the whole camp.”
Similarly karmic was the decision to re-team with
Sprinkle, who handled production duties on MxPx’s 1994
debut Pokinatcha, after he worked with Tom, Mike and Yuri
in the summer of 2006 to append new material to the
aforementioned bonus edition of Let It Happen. Because
Wisniewski didn’t join until ‘95’s Teenage Politics,
replacing founding guitarist Andy Husted, he says, “Aaron
and realized that although we were friends, I had actually
never recorded with him.”
“But he comes from the same mindset as us musically, and
he had a lot of great ideas,” Tom adds of the sessions in
Sprinkle’s Seattle facility. “And not only is Aaron a man
on the rise, based on his credits, he’s able to help
deconstruct a song and put it back together in a way that
makes a lot of sense.”
Case in point is the adventurous instrumentation the band
fused to “Punk Rock Celebrity,” a hard charging rocker
that takes a unique left turn at the bridge, integrating
piano and a wall of brass. “Mike came in with the song one
day and said basically it’s two songs stuck together,” Tom
explains. “Once we put it down, we thought triumphant
Beatles-y horns and piano would make the song. So once the
horn part was perfected, we brought in the horn players.
And it worked really well.”
Less designed to poke fun at the punk rockers you see in
the gossip rags than to poke fun at the similarities of
the bands littering the music scene. “If you look through
Alternative Press, every new band looks like every band
you’ve seen before,” the guitarist laughs. “It’s kind of
the return of ‘80s hair metal in a way. Except now it’s
the sideways haircut and the Cyclops look; just slight
variations on the same get-up. And we’ve never been like
that, one of our favorite bands ever was the Descendents.
And they never bought into that image over rock thing. It
was all about the music. There was no pre-planned image.”
From the riotous, circle-pit anthem of “Contention,”
clocking in at under 90 seconds and which Mike says he
wrote “in whole in all of fifteen minutes,” to the stellar
harmonies that elevate the lush, splendid “Sad Sad Song”
and pay honor to The Beach Boys, MxPx finds the perfect
balance of dichotomy and consistency on Secret Weapon.
“Take everything away, the bassline and the lyrics and the
melody was all it was,” Herrera says of the germination of
the song, which features former Superdrag frontman John
Davis on backing vocals and keyboards. “All of the ‘oohs’
and ‘aahs’ kind of came afterward. It just seemed like
with that type of song it had to be something completely
different. It couldn’t be a punk song. It had to be kind
of oldies sounding. And I think punk and the oldies era
fit well together, and of course, The Beach Boys’ – that
fits like a glove.”
From the explosive closer “Tightly Wound,” which boasts a
guest contribution by Benji Madden of Good Charlotte, to
the upbeat punch of “Here’s To The Life”, the men in MxPx
– who were handed the Keys To The City of Bremerton last
year – have delivered the strongest record of its career.
“We don’t take each other too seriously,” Herrera
explains, talking about how the band has endured through
the years. “We like to travel and play music and do all
the things you get to do being in a band, save for long
plane rides. This band is sort of a microcosm of how a lot
of people live their lives. And “Here’s To The Life,” kind
of speaks to that. “Here’s to the life that we always
never wanted.’ Like, This may not always be how we planned
it, but it is what it is. We might as well enjoy it.’”
With that credo in place and Secret Weapon under its
sleeve, 2007 seems certain to be the year that Mike, Tom
and Yuri conquer the world. Onward and upward, MxPx!
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