Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how your childhood impacted your musical direction?
A: Tony – Originally I’m from Republic of Moldova. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which we ware a part of, we had tough times, with huge increase of crimes, poverty, inflation, energy black outs etc. People were loosing their jobs here and there, and were literally fighting to survive. At the same time new business men were bringing new stuff from western civilization to us, like different kind of goods, clothes, junk food, electronics etc. One of the coolest things was television with new channels like MTV, Discovery, Cartoon Network, National Geographic etc offered by some private companies. We got that cable TV first time in 1996 or 1997 in our home and it was like a miracle. Of course all these things were in English and that was very cool and motivating for a kid, like me especially, for learning English. At the same time the whole atmosphere of that time, of the adult’s attitude towards life, had impact on us kids too. Some kids were very aggressive, fighting and robbing other kids, who were weaker, forming gangs etc. So we had to protect ourselves in this tense air charged with bad kind of energy. As I was a very active kid full of energy my music taste was developing according to that fact and what was played on MTV. And of course what did I see there? Nirvana, Green Day, The Offspring etc. Their rhythms and chords were 100% matching with my heart beats an energy I had, and always turned on “fighting mode”. At some point I got into the scene of mountain bikers, downhill riders, inline skaters etc. Those active sports were the perfect way to release the energy I had and to decrease the aggression in kid’s minds. A lot of us fond of it at that time trying to repeat the stuns seen on the TV screen. And as we know almost all active sports were accompanied by rock and punk rock music. Thus my music taste was formed by that times and genres helping to get through it. As I still have tons of energy, fortunately my music taste remained the same. That’s why I’m totally into it and composing our stuff in the same direction. When I see what is happening now in the western world, I find a lot of familiar things, that give me flashbacks to my childhood – the grade of aggression in the society, gangs fighting in the streets, crime increase etc. It’s all the same. How can that be that even police is afraid to drive to some districts of London with only one police car? So I guess the musical direction that I’ve chosen is still modern and fits to the time we have now and I hope will help at least to a couple of people to deescalate the situation and let their power flow into something positive. This still impacts me and our music today.
Q: Can you describe the musical style of Mad Man’s Spirit in three words?
A: We’ll if we only talk about style and way of our expression it could be “energetic hard sarcasm”. But speaking about the genre I’d say “hard punk rock” referring to the music, because in some songs we have a bit harder sound than the original punk rock.
Q: How do you stay connected with your fans, and what role do they play in shaping your musical journey?
A: We have a couple of social media channels and YouTube channel, too where we get comments about what we are doing. Reading them gives us a feedback what’s good and what should we avoid. We also monitor the current music development and how the audience is about the punk rock music on concerts of other bands. But still we try to keep our own style, which makes us what we are.
Q: You have just released your debut self-titled EP, Is there a story behind it?
A: Tony: During my studies the university I was writing songs and composing music just for myself. Sometimes I showed those to my friends and student mates. They liked it much and were telling me I should make a record. I had no connections to the music industry and no money and time to go to the recording studio, because I was working part time in parallel with my studies. But some time ago my friends asked me what happened to my music and now, when I have time and better financial situation, why wouldn’t I record my music. I thought ok, so many people ask me and tell me, that it would be pity not to make a release. Thus I picked out 3 totally different songs for different tastes and decided to release an EP. It was not easy because the first record in the first studio did not satisfy my vision how the sound of the song they should have. Even mastering did not help much. I was a bit disappointed and left it for a while, till I got that obsession that I have to bring this story to an end. We got back to another studio, rerecorded the guitars and vocals. That was also a very hard and energy consuming work. Even in second attempt we relapsed, because on some point I started to loose my voice during recording and actually on the easiest song to sing. I was almost devastated that I’ll never finish my EP, and may be it’s not what I should do. But after a short break, drinking much water we managed to finish the recordings. The next question was who can do the mix and mastering. This is one of the most important topics to be solved, because the end result depends on it. I always think that, if you want to get the best result you have to work with the best people. So we contacted Tom Lord-Alge, who did mixes for a lot of stars of punk rock and rock scene. To our surprise fortunately he liked our music very much and agreed to mix it. We were so damn happy about Tom’s decision. It was like the greatest acknowledgement received from a Grammy winning professional that our music is good. The second moment of happiness was when Ted Jensen from Sterling Sound confirmed us to make mastering, also a Grammy winning mastering Engineer, who worked for e.g. with Green Day on their “American Idiot” album. After that I realised, may be there is something more in our music, than I thought in the beginning, and the hard path to the satisfying quality and colour of sound should be passed to become something great. Ok now we have the next hard step – to get it to the audience and to be heard, which is not to be underestimated.
Q: What is your favorite track from the EP and why?
A: Actually I like all of them, depending on mood and situation I’d choose one or another. For example to wake up faster I’d listen to the track “Lies”, because its very cheerful like a perfect energy shot for the day. When I drive the car and want to go fast, or ride my bike down hill some where in the forest I’d prefer “Fallen Angel”. It’s more dynamic and fits great for active sports and racing. Note: I do not encourage anyone to race on public streets, this could be dangerous for you and pedestrians. And if I need an energy kick in the afternoon I’d listen to “Pit Bull”. So it’s hard to decide for me, but may be for just like 1% “Fallen Angel” wins.
Q: Can you walk us through the creative process of producing the EP?
A: Before to go to the studio we all had to practice our parts a lot at home. We met for 3 or 4 rehearsals to jam together. I had to take vocal lessons to improve my singing and strengthen my voice. Because, actually, I’m kind of singer of need. No one else wanted or could sing in the band and we couldn’t find a extra vocalist. We went first time to the studio and the first result was very disappointing. The guitars sounded kind of deaf, no crystal clear sound. I don’t know whether it was because of the studio equipment or, recording engineers experience or we did something wrong. We hoped that the mastering could fix that, but unfortunately it didn’t. I still have those records and when you listen to them and compare with the EP it’s like day and night.
So I put it on the shelf for some time and got back to it in a pretty long period of time. And then that obsession came into my mind, that I have to finish the EP. We got back to another studio – Sky Studio in Munich, rerecorded the guitars and vocals. Huge thanks to Bobby, our recording engineer for his patience and sharing his knowledge and experience with us. That was also a very hard and energy consuming work. We relapsed for the second time, because on some point I started to loose my voice during recording and actually on the easiest song to sing, which is “Lies”. I was almost devastated that I’ll never finish my EP and may be it’s not what I should do. But as I already said, after a short break, drinking much water I we managed to finish the recordings. After that the mix and mastering that followed, were done by Grammy winning Tom Lord-Alge (mix) and Ted Jensen (mastering) form Sterling Sound. We are very grateful that they agreed to work on our EP. And at last! The EP was finished! Yeah! Now I’m happy with the sound.
Q: What has been the most memorable concert or performance for Mad Man’s Spirit so far?
A: The most memorable performance was one of the funniest and most awful concerts at the same time that we had. We were invited to play with other 2 bands in a club, which had strange names. I can still remember, one of them was called “Foetor Mortis” and the other one “Butchers”. I was not much aware, about, who is playing with us. This all was managed by that time by our second/lead guitarist. We just wanted to play somewhere in clubs, no matter with whom together. So when I entered the club I realized that this is may be not our audience.
We had to play punk rock in a club full of black metal fans. To say that it was just awful, is to say nothing. First we got only boo’s and middle fingers from the audience, so we were not highly welcome. But to the end of our performance, when we played a cover of System Of A Down’s “Toxicity” they loved us and were jumping, going crazy and had banging. This is when we got appreciation. This kind of experience showed us, that you still can find keys to the audience even in such obviously hopeless situation.
Q: Reflecting on your body of work, each song holding its unique significance, could you share a particular track that stands out to you personally? What makes that specific tune special, and why does it hold a place of pride in your musical journey?
A: “Fallen Angel” is the one, which is very close to me and who I am, because it tells a part of my story of my childhood and time being teenager and younger adult, my being part of a gang, sometimes fighting others for some stupid things, which aren’t even worthy fighting for. It deals with the questions, what are the roots of the aggression in a person, what to do with the plenty of energy that young people have. I don’t believe that people are born evil. The environment where they live and grow up has the major impact on personality and its behaviour. And instead of judging maybe it makes more sense to help one to find himself in this life and steer his or her power I positive direction. Bad deeds can also be a cry for help, for getting attention to the problems, and not necessary of the evil nature of a person. Nowadays we still have a lot of people in the same situation, which I was in. And this is also task for the society and our leaders not to exclude those people from social life, but try to help them and give them a chance. If one lives in a broken neighbourhood, ruled by crime and violence, what can we expect from young people to become, and what king of their behaviour? So, may be let’s try to fix that first and help people locally in each country for itself, before we look what’s happening outside. Sometimes I have a feeling internal issues are forgotten and no one wants to deal with them, people are distracted by some topics from far away and here in our home the whole situation gets only worse. From music and technical point of view this song has got some interesting parts and features that I like to listen to and play very much. To be able to play the guitar parts you should know your instrument a bit better and have a bit higher than the beginner’s level. At the same time the music of “Fallen Angel” doesn’t sound too complicated and difficult to understand.
Q: Exploring the diverse creative processes within the music industry is always fascinating. Could you provide insight into Mad Man’s Spirit’s unique approach to crafting music? From the initial spark of an idea to the finished song, how do you navigate the creative journey and bring its musical concepts to life?
A: Tony: As I’m the initiator of this whole project, the main responsibility is on me. You
can call me crazy, if I tell you how the music comes into my mind, but it is as it is. The most interesting music I usually get from my dreams, while I’m sleeping. I have a lot of nice colourful dreams and can pretty often remember those. Sometimes I dream of playing and singing some songs on the stage, seeing the crowd going crazy. Or I hear some music in the dream playing on the radio, or I’m running in the city singing something new. I try to catch this groove and ideas and that literally catapults me out of the bed, no matter what time it is 1 or 3 a.m., I record it. Before I got my first smartphone, I was recording the melody and the text on my Sony Walkman MP3 player. Now I use my smartphone, taking a short video, while singing the melody or the lyrics. And then I get back into the bed and sleep further. Sometimes I get new melodies, when I’m in the shower and some music is playing in the background. It comes to interference of noise of the water in the shower with the music in the background, what makes new songs appear in my head, almost on their own. There is also some crazy story about a song, which I guess could also be an interesting piece of music, may be even a hit (not recorded professionally yet, but ready as a sample). I was cleaning our apartment with the vacuum cleaner, and it was buzzing in a strange way, so I heard out a melody in its buzz. I turned it off immediately and ran upstairs, took my guitar and wrote the whole song from the beginning till the end in like 10 minutes. It was the fastest song -writing ever. As you can see my muse follows me everywhere and the trigger can be everything what makes any sound. But generally, I send my draft music files to band members, they play a while, do some changes, create their parts and then we align again. Celsn(drummer) has always music in his head. Sometimes he uses some drum parts from his metal band experience, like double pedal for the bass drum, which makes our punk rock, maybe even more interesting. After the final online alignment, we rent a rehearsal room for a couple of hours, sometimes in London, UK, sometimes in Munich, Germany, depends on who is where at that time, and play the stuff.
Q: As we wrap up our conversation, looking ahead, what aspirations or dreams do you have for Mad Man’s Spirit, and what message would you like to share with your fans as they continue to accompany you on this musical journey?
A: Till now the biggest dream is that our music gets heard by the right audience, which really cares about and appreciates punk rock and rock music. We hope they like what we are doing. The next step would be maybe playing on Wembley in front of 70.000 fans. The message to the fans: if you really like our music, don’t be lazy follow us on social media, write us comments and interact with us. This will encourage us to bring out our first full LP, with a lot of cool songs sharing tons of energy with you! Actually we have enough of songs for 3 LPs. But first we need get feedback, if you like what we are doing. And after that, of course we hope to see you on our concerts with a bunch of nice songs and go crazy with us together, celebrating music as one of finest things in life!
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