Mute Math (sometimes typeset as MUTEMATH or MuteMath) is a Grammy Award nominated American rock band from New Orleans that formed in 2003. Their music consists of many elements such as alternative rock, new wave, electro
... Mute Math (sometimes typeset as MUTEMATH or MuteMath) is a Grammy Award nominated American rock band from New Orleans that formed in 2003. Their music consists of many elements such as alternative rock, new wave, electro rock, psychedelic rock, and post-rock with ambient vocals. The group consists of Paul Meany on Rhodes piano, bass, keytar, keyboards, samples, vocals, and more recently, guitar; Darren King on drums, samples, and programming; Greg Hill on guitars and vocals; and Roy Mitchell-Cárdenas on bass guitar, upright bass, and bass drum.
History:
Formation:
Mute Math started in 2001 as a long distance collaboration between Paul Meany in New Orleans, Louisiana and Darren King in Springfield, Missouri. The two had known each other from their work together in Meany's previous Christian group Earthsuit. Occasionally Paul would receive instrumental demo CDs from Darren King. Fairly impressed with his efforts, Paul contacted Darren and asked if he could mess with the demos a bit, adding some ideas of his own. Darren obliged and the two would set in motion a sort of songwriting ping-pong match that would carry on for several months until Darren was asked to return and replace yet another drummer for Earthsuit as the band began to quickly dissolve. After Earthsuit finally disbanded, King moved to New Orleans and began to talk of a possible collaboration with Meany. The two worked on demos and played a handful of shows under the moniker "MATH".
With the recruiting of guitarist Greg Hill, the trio worked in their New Orleans home studio writing and recording a whole new collection of songs. Paul immediately played the demos for longtime friend and producer Tedd T, who fell in love at first listen. The trio continued to work on demos with Tedd T for a possible EP while playing shows with another Earthsuit member in Adam LaClave's art-rock group MACROSICK.
Reset EP:
After months of considering different options for their new venture, the group decided to do things on their own and officially changed their name to "Mute Math" after discovering that "MATH" was already being used by another group. Meany recruited Tedd T and lawyer and former Earthsuit manager Kevin Kookogey to form Teleprompt Records as a way to independently control Mute Math releases. Teleprompt entered into an agreement with Warner Music Group in 2004, releasing Mute Math's debut Reset EP that fall. The band left MACROSICK to begin touring to promote the release, using popular social networking sites like MySpace to spread word of the group. As their fan base grew, it began to see its shows sell out in Los Angeles, New York, Nashville, Houston, Dallas, and Phoenix. They chronicled their shows and updated their video blogs on a nightly basis and finally recruited permanent bass player Roy Mitchell-Cárdenas, another Earthsuit member, in the winter of 2004. The band sold over 30,000 copies of Reset EP before the album went out of print in 2006.
Mute Math:
“For us, we just try to keep it simple. We're obviously a band; that's really all we ever wanted to be from the very beginning without catering to any particular genre or political or religious agenda. We just want to make music with no barriers.”
—Paul Meany - Boise Weekly - April 11, 2007
In January 2006, the band set out on a tour in support of their self-titled debut album. It was independently released in response to Warner Music Group's decision to distribute and promote Mute Math primarily to Christian retailers through its Christian label Word Records, a breach of the contract that was forged with Teleprompt preceding the release of Reset EP.
The special edition of the album was only available as a "tour-only" release until it hit the Internet on Teleprompt's online store, selling more than 10,000 copies in its first month. Mute Math landed on the covers of Billboard and Pollstar being featured in Alternative Press, Paste, and Spin as well as on the MTV News program 'You Hear It First'. The group continued to tour vigorously, playing shows to crowds of thousands at festivals such as Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Van's Warped Tour, V Festival, CMJ Music Marathon in New York City, and Voodoo Music Experience in their hometown of New Orleans.
After months of legal wrangling with parent label Warner Bros. Records regarding marketing and representation, Teleprompt settled litigation out of court in August 2006 with a re-negotiated contract with Warner.
WBR re-released the band's debut album Mute Math on September 26, 2006. The fully remastered album features reworked tracks from their Reset EP and a bonus limited-edition live EP. The album debuted at #17 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart.
The band returned to the road in early 2007 with opening dates for The Fray, Wolfmother in various cities and a brief headlining tour in Europe. Flesh And Bones Electric Fun, an exclusive live DVD was released on March 20, 2007 with an accompanying 43-city North American tour that ran through the first of May.
The band also received some unexpected publicity on American Idol when contestant Chris Sligh sang "Typical" on the show's Top 24 episode.
"Typical":
Mute Math's first music video, for "Typical", premiered on YouTube on March 21, 2007. The video was directed by Israel Anthem and features the band performing the song backwards. The video made it on the New York Post Hot List and registered more than 100,000 views in less than four days. It took three weeks for Mute Math to learn their parts backwards. When asked whether singing backwards or drumming backwards was more difficult, Paul Meany answered, "Darren had it the hardest."
"Typical" was also released as Mute Math's first radio single on April 10, 2007. As of late June, the single started receiving major airplay in Modern Rock and is quickly rising up the Mediabase Alternative chart jumping from #115 to #65 and was also the second most added song on Alternative stations the week of June 13, 2007. The single then jumped to #36 the first week of August 2007, a position it held for six weeks before it moved to a peak position to #35.
The group made limited appearances at various summer festivals in mid-2007 in order to work on writing and recording material for their forthcoming sophomore record. The band's debut performance at the Bonnaroo Music Festival coincided with their second appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.
The group appeared on Transformers: The Album, released on July 3, 2007, performing the "Transformers Theme" in conjunction with the live-action film directed by Michael Bay (although the song did not appear in the film) and made a television appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman on July 17. The group was in the running for MTV2 and Virgin Mobile's Book The Band vote to open for the US Virgin Festival in Baltimore, Maryland in August (Aiden won the Book The Band contest).
Mute Math's debut album reappeared on Billboard's Top Heatseekers Chart on August 4, 2007 at #28, while the single "Typical" debuted at #39 on Billboard's US Modern Rock Chart the same week.
The band hit the road in support of the single in September 2007 with support Eisley, which included two television appearances. The first was September 19, their second appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. The show aired a taped performance of the band recreating the video the single "Typical" that was taped in front of the studio audience and then played back in reverse for the broadcast. Their second television appearance was their debut on NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien performing "Break the Same" for the first time on television on October 17.
On November 12th, 2007 Atlantic Records announced that the band would join Alanis Morissette on Matchbox Twenty's Exile In America Tour which kicked off in Hollywood, FL on January 25, 2008 and ran through mid-March. On December 6, 2007, the group was nominated for a Grammy Award for their short form music video for "Typical". "Control", the second and final radio single from Mute Math was released January 15, 2008. The music video for the single was filmed in Nashville in January, but its distribution was halted due to copyright issues in regards to a previously released clip from a European group. The band also released the companion album to their 2007 live dvd, Flesh And Bones Electric Fun: Mute Math Live, via iTunes on January 29, 2008. "Typical" was added as a downloadable song for the Rock Band series in early 2009.
Current Status:
The group is currently writing and recording their second full length record in their home studios in Nashville and New Orleans. Their second album is tentatively scheduled for release via Teleprompt/Warner Music Group in August 2009, about three and a half years after the release of Mute Math and almost five years since the release of Reset EP.
During the recording of the album, short videos have been posted to the band's Youtube profile. These videos document the work going on in the studio, including street interviews where New Orleans locals are shown samples of the album (which cannot be heard in the video), recording their reactions. Any clips of actual music from the new album is presented in such a way that it only hints at what the album will eventually sound like.
On February 19, in an interview with Rider University's television show "Music and Interview Affairs", Paul Meany said they have been 'writing feverishly'.
A March 13, 2008 interview with the OC Register quotes Paul Meany in reference to their new album, saying 'Our goal is to embarrass the first record, that's what we're trying to do here, and I think we're on point to pull it off'.
On April 4, 2008, Goodwin Films announced they were working on a documentary film about the making of Mute Math's new record. No further details have been announced regarding the release of the film.
On August 2, 2008, in an interview with The Morning Call, Meany spoke about the new record. "We want to keep it in the oven and make sure things are ready to go," says Meany. "Anyone who thinks first album is perfect will hate this [new] record. If you heard the first record and liked some stuff about it [but] think things could improve, you may like it. It's important for us to change up the formula. We thought we were writing [the new album] for the last 2½ years on the road, but found out we weren't. We just started three months ago."
On January 14, 2009, King said in an interview that after a break for the holidays, they would "get back to recording in hopes of having everything done in March so that the album can come out in August. It has taken way longer than we would have ever imagined but we’re just not done with it yet." Additionally, he mentioned that the album was Mute Math's first album which involved collaboration among all four members of the band.
The group released a new song called "Spotlight" on the motion picture soundtrack for the movie Twilight to favorable reviews. The song will be the first single from the upcoming record. The single will be released digitally and on limited edition vinyl on February 10, 2009. The group performed "Spotlight" for the first time on The Tonight Show on January 15, 2009, featuring guest appearances from LaClave and Allen from Club of the Sons and Jeremy Larson, all of whom have worked on the upcoming album.
The title for the sophomore record was confirmed as Armistice on May 27th, 2009 in an interview on InsideBayArea.com and then confirmed on the same day on the Mute Math forums.
