By ERIC SCHELKOPF
On its debut album “Motion And Picture,” Chicago band Miirrors delivers an album that is both musically and emotionally adventurous.
The band will perform at next month’s Andersonville Midsommarfest, 5200 N. Clark St. in Chicago. Miirrors is set to take the stage at 8:30 p.m. June 10 on the Center Stage.
Tickets are available at andersonville.org/events/midsommarfest.
Miirrors was formed by singer Brian McSweeney and drummer Shawn Rios. I had the chance to talk to McSweeney and Rios about the show.
Q – Great talking to you. Chicago-based Pravda Records released “Motion And Picture” in March. It’s great that you’e on this label. For one thing, it’s local. For another thing, there’s a lot of great musicians on it and it seems like this label supports many different genres of music.
Rios – They really do, and I’m grateful for that. There is no interference in creativity and at the same time, they really get involved in you, not only on an artistic level, but also, on a personal level.
Q – This was your debut album. Did that put a lot of additional pressure on the band as far as making the album?
McSweeney – Not really. We started making and honestly, finished making the album on our own and independent of a label.
So we really didn’t feel any pressure from anyone necessarily. I guess any pressure would have been self-imposed on account of our own kind of expectations and standards.
And I feel like we would bring the same kind of pressure and expectations on ourselves, whether it was album one or album five.
Rios – I agree fully with Brian. I think the only other pressure we felt was in answering the question about what a live show looks to us and how do we reflect that and how do we reflect the album live.
That’s been equally important to us. I think we thought of a live show the entire time we were making the record. I remember many times being in the control room and being in a session with Brian and even some of the other guys in the band and trying to see what that would sound like played live and how would people receive that.
But internally, like Brian said, the only pressure we had was self-imposed, which is a good thing. It’s great to go to a label when your record is finished.
Q – I am sure the both of you have heard endless comparisons of the band to Radiohead. What were your goals in forming the band in the first place? Is Radiohead a big influence for the band?
McSweeney – I would say that a few of us in the band are big fans of Radiohead. They are one of our influences.
I would say that we have very wide ranging influences. But yeah, they certainly are an influence.
Q – Also, it seems like the band’s name has a meaning to it. Is there a meaning behind the band’s name?
McSweeney – One night Shawn and I were hanging out at a bar after rehearsing and we were just having a conversation about how human beings are mirrors to each other. When you’re talking with someone, their response is basically based on what you’re saying.
So when you hear that person’s response, they are mirroring back to you who you are. We are all mirrors to each other.
Q – One of the songs on “Motion and Picture” is your reimagined version of Jeff Buckley’s song “Gunshot Glitter,” which has received rave reviews. As far as what you wanted to do with that song, did you have certain things that you wanted to do with that song to kind of make it your own?
McSweeney – Yeah, I feel like we did. I feel like we accomplished that.
The original version very much felt like a demo. It very much felt like something that was in development.
There are sections that certainly go on and don’t feel like they’re complete. We had an opportunity to work with Jeff’s drummer, Matt Johnson, on that.
Before we were in a room with Matt, Shawn and I sat down and listened to Jeff’s original demo.
We put it into Pro Tools and we toyed with it and came up with different ideas. We had some idea of what direction it was going to go, so we weren’t going into completely blind when Matt Johnson was in the room with us.
We still had some things to figure out. We just kind of chiseled away at the song as we went. Like most art and like most music, it’s the process of just doing something and then taking a step back and responding to the thing that you just did and then just going from there.
So that’s really what we did. We started with the drums and the bass and then we just went from there as far as deciding what the next steps would be.
Q – And did you expect such positive feedback? Because everybody is just loving your version of the song. Did that take you by surprise at all?
Rios – Yeah. It’s difficult because you’re stepping I think on what some people might perceive is hallowed ground.
But to us, it wasn’t. Matt had made a comment to us when we began finalizing the arrangement. He told Brian, "This is what Jeff would have wanted. This is something that Jeff would essentially be OK with."
Obviously, those are big shoes to fill for more than one reason. He was someone that we really admired and really loved. We had come to know all of his music.
We really wanted to complete in a sense an idea that we started. We thought that would be a fun project for us.
I would hope that people would like it and that they would see it as an honest approach and that we served it well.
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