A band who lean hard into their glam metal and '70s rock vibes, Materia blend mandolins and violins together with hardcore drumming minus the standard electric guitar. As they declare, 'Materia heralds the end of the age of guitar'.
With their debut album already recorded (and being prepped for release later in 2022), Materia debuted their sound last year via the infectious 'Slipping Away'.Now they're ready to unpack their next single, 'Greenland'. "'Greenland' was initially inspired by Trump offering to buy Greenland," begins the band.
"At first it was just so ridiculous to us that someone was trying to purchase another country yet we couldn't just laugh it off because attempting to 'purchase sovereignty' is a part of our own Australian colonial history.
"We wanted to comment on what it might mean to feel free in the modern world and what makes a country 'valuable' – the unexploited resources that we dig for or something else?"
The story of how Materia came to be... how did you guys meet and what's the plan for the band as you attack 2022?
Tim and Habibi go way back from high school days, and both met Jason at uni. Jackson came onboard through a favour to Jase when the trio decided to start a band and had already written album one.
With the whole album recorded already, this year's plan is to keep punching out releases. We've got four more singles to release (including 'Greenland') before we drop the album. There might be some sneaky studio time as well for the last quarter.
The band fuse together rock, punk, glam and hardcore styles. . . but with instruments not usually associated to such genres. Can you walk us through the maelstrom of ideas that flow together to create the Materia sound bedrock?
The four of us have a unique influence and musical history that *really* flavours what we each bring to the compositional table.
Jason loves The Cat Empire (you'll be missed guys!) and brings a lot of out of the box textural ideas to the table, but despite his best efforts he is the most 'conventionally rock' out of all of us with big Hendrix and Mayer influences – he brings a lot of riff-based writing.
Tim has an insatiable thirst for harmonic knowledge; his classical music training goes hand in hand with his passion for Muse (we're coming for you Matt Bellamy). It's when Tim flicks his hair and sings a bunch of Bowie songs do you realise how glam he is at heart.
Habibi brings the punk. Cut the flab from songs as much as possible, re-compose your part every time you play it and often play out of tune but always with passion. Jokes aside, his background is mostly folk, jazz and improvisation which helps the band to get the writing juices going.
Jackson is the hardcore influence. Nearly all his bands (current and past) are hard, fast and loud. He's a monster on the kit and brings so much energy to the room that speaks Kublai Khan more than Zeppelin. Even when we give him screwy polyrhythms or weird song structures he keeps blasting out clean, beautiful rhythms.
Further to the last question, on your socials you declare 'Materia heralds the end of the age of the guitar'; care to expand on that (haha)?
I mean the age of guitar has been over for a while – we're just here to make sure everyone knows haha.
To be honest though, Materia is really just an experiment. We wanted to take alternative stringed instruments and push the edges of what a rock band can be.
Any chance of a future Materia song that's written on a six-string acoustic?
Six-string violin? You betcha.
The band released its debut single 'Slipping Away' in late 2021 (it's like a mix of The Offspring meets St. Pepper-era Beatles – if that's possible); as a debut release, what did you want to present to the listener as a first impression of Materia?
People always throw out comparisons to another band they know and they're all completely different. We've had Zeppelin, Killers, Jane's Addiction and New Order to name just a few.
We launched with 'Slipping Away' because its the most 'Materia' sounding. Our other songs were written with specific sounds in mind but 'Slipping Away' is composed so uniquely to our instruments and personalities – it's just distinctly 'us'.
Fast forward to now and you're prepping the release of 'Greenland', the group's next single; how does this track showcase the development of the band's sound?
'Greenland' is a demonstration of us steering specifically into Led Zeppelin and that 'classic rock' sound.
Each track on the upcoming album is a proof of concept that we can do what's expected of guitar/ bass with violin/ mandolin before we push things further. It's also a bit of a showcase song – big vocal moments and TWO solos (drums and mandolin).
The story behind the song relates to Trump's plan to buy Greenland; how did that subject matter lend itself to a songwriting treatment and what themes did the band want to explore?
Harkening back to the days of '70s rock we wanted to explore the ideas of rebellion and freedom – where long hair and loud music were a statement and not so much the norm.
We liked the irony in Trump's offer in that Greenland's name originated as a sales pitch to convince Viking settlers to live there. We wanted to emulate that idea musically, so the verse comes across fragile and minstrel-like to sell (warn?) the listener while the chorus comes crashing in with that nostalgic sense of rock & roll free spirit to state how things really are.
Picking up on one of the band's social media vids – when is Jackson getting a tattoo (and what is he getting)?
This year hopefully! It'll be a Kublai Khan calf piece.
Each band member also have their own side-projects on the go; do those outlets weave their way into the creative synergy of Materia (if so, how)?
The band actually began with Habibi making his own electric violin and trading violin tips for guitar tips with Jason, who had started seriously pursuing learning the mandolin.
Jackson is in several other bands and a veteran of the industry and is un-ironically Materia's guiding light when it comes to all the hoops a new band need to jump through to make it.
And finally, aside from Tim's truly humbling catalogue of lyrics and snippets, he runs a successful YouTube channel which makes in-house video editing a dream.
It's footy season... which tribe does each member roll with and how excited/ pumped are you respectively for the season ahead (fyi, go Swans!)?
We have at least one random Souths guy, Jason goes for the Rabbitohs. And for Tim, he is also a Swans supporter Go Swans!
Best local takeaway joint for a midnight feed that will leave you with a food coma?
Kebab Yeah! has kept the band fed MANY a late rehearsal.
Which fictional character best describes your personality? Tim is the Black Knight from Monty Python – he's got the kind of wit that would sustain him through multiple maimings.
Jason is Gandalf (the gray!) because he's constantly moving and shaking, and encouraging people to go outside their comfort zones to pursue their goals.
Habibi is the raptor(s) from 'Jurassic Park'. Mostly because he pretends to be one, sound effects and all. Or a gremlin from 'Gremlins'. Actually, definitely a gremlin, keep him away from your drink [after midnight]!
Jackson is his own fictional character – he's just too good to be true.
Last show you binge-watched? Parks and Rec – they're pulling it from Netflix in a week so had to binge it all. Again.
Thanks for your time; anything else you'd like to add?
Shoutout to the wonderful artists we've worked with to make this all possible. Andrew Bromley Photography for the amazing shots; Emma Mallows for the graphic design; Julian Schweitzer for his work producing and mastering; and big shoutout to INLND for their hard efforts with PR.
