Interview: Mousey Chats About New Album ‘My Friends’ + Tour

Ōtautahi’s Mousey aka Sarena Close talked with Indira Neville (The Biscuits, Drop Zone) about ideas orbiting her new sophomore album My Buddies, which debuted at the quantity 10 place on the Top 20 NZ Albums chart. Do not overlook Mousey continuing her release tour with band this month in Wellington, Auckland and Dunedin [tickets HERE]…

For a bunch of motives Mousey’s April tour is a big offer.

Initially, Sarena Shut is pregnant. She tells me about her coronary heart palpitations, clogged nose and sore back again. Then she laughs, “The being pregnant glow is a myth.”

Second is that this tour is the very last with her latest band “We all know it. We can experience we’re about to drift off and do distinct things. There’s no drama. It’s just time for it.”

Sarena says the tour has develop into a way to mark these sizeable activities. But then she will get simple, “Obviously nevertheless it would not be occurring devoid of the album.” The album is the third and main section of the massive offer. It’s the cause I’m speaking with her.

My Buddies is Mousey’s next launch, adhering to 2019’s award-nominated Lemon Regulation. As the title suggests it is about friendship but not in a conventional sweetness and gratitude form of way. As a substitute it explores the serious-lifetime complexity of owning close friends and how it can come to feel safe and brutal at the exact time.

Sarena talks about getting drawn to charismatic ‘Michael Scott-types’ but that this isn’t superior for her, “I’ve been set by means of the wringer.” Now she seeks ‘safety’ in her friendships. But security is not the same as best “A risk-free individual to me has the resources to deal with conflict when it occurs. They have boundaries, they have an understanding of, apologise appropriately, give and get forgiveness.”

This is the gist of My Mates. The songs are about becoming permit down by individuals you love, but also that the enjoy presents a way to function through. Every single keep track of is about a distinct friend and a unique incident. The descriptions of the two are truthful, even blatant. The tune ‘Rachel’ for example, is in fact about another person known as Rachel “People are horrified and worried about this. I’m generally asked if she minds I employed her actual title. But she’s trustworthy and vulnerable and is familiar with what took place. It’s open up on her end. That is what my mates are like, most likely why they’re my pals.”

Would I be jealous if I were a close friend but did not get a song? She does not think anybody feels like that and jokes “it’s in all probability mainly because every tune on the album’s detrimental!”

I experience it’s essential to ask about her encounters in the Aotearoa NZ songs sector. How she reconciles a require for basic safety with this frequently male, in some cases predatory setting. Sarena credits her husband and supervisor Chris for assisting her. She describes him as good, quiet, superior with admin and men and women “It implies I get to decide on who to interact with. Without him I just wouldn’t do it.”

We shift on to explore tunes additional usually. She has an fascinating theory about those who “play songs for sport” and these who are artists. Playing for sport is about getting a theoretical musician, being as traditionally, technically limited, skilful and remarkable as attainable. An artist nevertheless “is another person who’s in the centre,” for whom truthful expression and creativeness are the important points. Her mate Lukas Mayo of Pickle Darling is the case in point she presents: “He’s not a singer he’s an artist. He has a massive following on Bandcamp, but for lots of individuals his tunes would be like those people abstract paintings they believe are bad, in which they go ‘I could do that’. He’d never make it on American Idol.”
 

I’d brought up American Idol before, questioned what music from My Good friends she’d audition with. It was perhaps a dumb concern and Sarena is justifiably strident in her response “I’d by no means audition, and they’d under no circumstances place me on the display. None of the excellent songwriters would have produced it through the very first round. Can you consider Aldous Harding on American Idol? David Bowie?!”

“They want something palatable and superficial with Instagram seems. They perform tunes for activity and are ‘in for the chop’. They don’t want artistry. They want an entertaining second.”

Sarena passionately drives her place residence, “I signify the Beatles bought crushed in a expertise contest by a spoon player! Can any individual even believe of a spoon player now?”

There are no spoons on My Buddies. While partaking, the album is resourceful, complicated and particular. Mousey is an artist. She doesn’t enjoy tunes for activity.

Mousey – My Friends Album Launch Tour

Thursday 7th April – Meow, Wellington w/ Mitch Zachry*&#13

Friday 8th April – The Tuning Fork, Auckland w/ Bub*
Friday 22rd April – Dive, Dunedin w/ Neive Strang

Tickets out there Listed here by using UTR&#13

*Tickets available from https://www.mouseymusic.com/

‘My Friends’ is out now through Winegum Records / Rhythmethod — CDs, tapes, and limited version translucent green vinyl accessible by way of Mousey’s Bandcamp page Listed here.