Who are M E A T?
Words by Sarah Morrison
Top Photo by Kirico Ueda
Meet M E A T, an experimental rock act from Hackney Wick in London, UK. Although no musical content online, the band have built up a reputation amongst the underground London music community. We caught up with members of M E A T to discuss Fish Island and the Hackney Wick community, the band ethos, and working with Pete Maher.
Tell me a little bit about Fish Island in East London. What is the creative atmosphere like?
Fish Island is a place that has inspired artists for generations. For us, and many artists before us, it gives a space that allows artists to explore and develop their creative skills. When M E A T began we all lived on Fish Island, rehearsed there and did our first performances there. Without the help and encouragement of our local creative community, I doubt we would have had the confidence or the opportunities to get out and start playing in venues around London.
“The Warehouse” has become sort of an iconic burrow within the Hackney Wick arts community. What makes this space an ideal place for others to construct their projects?
Space is the key! The Warehouse has a lot of it; room for people to build projects, space for bands to rehearse and perhaps most importantly Vicious Collective’s Sunday Service; a monthly performance night which invites artists to come and try out new projects in an open and accepting space. Our frontman Zilcho Hamblin has been a long-serving member of VC and he has helped curate as well as performed at Sunday Service. The Warehouse and Sunday Service is a hub for creatives to meet and collaborate, and so many wonderful musicians and artists have passed through from Meggie Brown, Sleep Eaters, Bruno Wizard, Silver Apples, Warmduscher, Alabaster Deplume and Nuha Ruby Ra the list goes on….
Has gentrification had any sort of riff to the area?
I believe the riff began with God’s gentrification of Eden. What the LLDC are doing is some sort of poor biblical sham, a desperate attempt to steal culture and hard creative work and turn it into financial gain, directly opposing the ideals of the community itself so... yeah?
When did you collectively gather and begin to write music under M E A T?
Zilcho, Conso and Hands actually first met at school if you can believe that, and we have been playing music together for over ten years, but M E A T first started as a band without our synth player Oski around three years ago with a show at the Moth Club. We supported our long term friends Arrows Of Love. Nima and Nuha Ruby Ra From Arrows Saw us do an improvised performance at Vicious Collective’s Sunday Service and offered us the show. Back then we were doing completely improvised sets. Things have changed somewhat now, but we keep a certain amount of that ethos in our live sets by chaining each song together with improvised flurries of sonic texture.
What are things that inspire your writing? What makes you dig deeper to learn more about the direction you want to head with your music?
We are constantly listening to music together, going to see live shows and showing each other new material to delve into, but I think most of the writing happens when we are all in a room together and we just start playing. Ideas tend to form really quickly that way. In terms of the direction we want to head in, it’s ever-evolving.
When we first started M E A T it was under the collective idea that we could dip into whatever styles we wanted and bring them all together. There was no pressure to attempt to create a specific vision. We were all fed up with going to see live bands, hearing their first two songs and then not getting any more surprises for the rest of their sets. I guess that's why we started with fully improvised sets, where even we didn't know what was coming.
“The King in My Heaven, The God Among Men,” can you delve into the meaning behind this phrase and what it means to you? What resonates with you when you hear or think of this?
(Zilcho Answering)
The poetic imagery that this line conjures for me is not dissimilar to the way I feel when performing live. However, the song Somium (to be released soon) is actually about dreaming. That lucid moment when you realize that you are in a dream and you gain a sort of godly possession of the space you're inhabiting and the rupture that occurs when your consciousness tears you from it.
Lyrically I have always been inspired by the Writings of Ovid, from Metamorphoses to the Erotic Poems. There is a form of mythical storytelling within, that I can’t shake; the underlying feeling of power which comes from within all of us. I love trying to tap into this with our music.
Why conceptualize your music around this ethos? What are you presenting or asking others to explore?
The only thing we hope to help others explore is their own creativity. We don’t want to be knocked down by all the negative energy that is out there right now, suppressing artists from putting themselves out there and sharing what they do with the world. We are all creatives at heart. We believe this is as important to human existence as anything else. It's a part of what makes us who we are, so find your community, share your work. If our live shows and our music can help inspire people to do this then we have succeeded.
You worked with Pete Maher (Patti Smith, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Jack White), how did you meet and what about Maher made him the right choice to experiment and explore avenues with?
Well, Patti Smith and Nick Cave are just a couple of musicians who have inspired us collectively as a band for years. We have had a little bit of time off of live performances to record or first EP which has been a beautiful time, working with various people. When we started looking for someone to master the tracks, Pete was recommended to us. We heard the wonderful masters he had done with our dear friends Sleep Eaters and Nuha Ruby Ra and we loved them. Plus, he's doing a lot to help unsigned artists.