Mixtape Saints strip it right back on ‘Bright Lights Burned Out’

By Ben Tipple

Some time back, Leamington Spa outfit Mixtape Saints were on a roll. Forming in 2012, by their 2014 release of ‘Heavy Water’ the band were celebrating widespread acclaim and international radio play. Yet, mirroring the sentiment in new track ‘Bright Lights Burned Out’, life got in the way of success.

“The brakes were slammed on and we needed to take some downtime since life got pretty heavy for everyone,” Sam Moloney explains. “In short we all had a lot stuff going on with mental health/money worries/family/housing and employment problems etc. We weren’t able to tour and kind of ended up having a bit of break to try and sort life out a bit.”

Following the departure of their drummer, Moloney teamed up with guitarist Dan Keiner to record an acoustic EP. ‘Bright Lights Burned Out’ is the first track to emerge from the record, a definitive mantra to continue no matter what life throws your way.

“For me I guess it’s mostly about growing up and finding out that life can be pretty vicious,” Maloney continues. “A lot of the opportunities that we were told existed when we were younger just didn’t materialise, so this song is kind of about finding a way to get past that and maybe take something back for ourselves. To be honest I think most of our songs tend to be a mix of hope and desperation, which is just fine by me!”

Mixtape Saints have teamed up with fledgling label Little Rocket Records for the release of their acoustic EP. “After we stopped playing full band shows I ended up having a conversation with Mark (Bussey – Little Rocket Records) about maybe hanging out and writing some new songs,” Maloney explains of the partnership. “We’d played a couple of shows together before his last band (Guerrilla Monsoon) split, and at the start of the year we’d both kind of found ourselves with not much going on musically. Mark was working with Paper and Plastick records in the US at the time, and he was able to hook us up with a slot on a compilation the label was putting out. When Mark told me about starting up LRR and offered to have us involved we were obviously really keen! The guys have been really supportive both professionally and personally, particularly bearing in mind were not operating as a full band at the moment, and it’s been awesome to work with them on the ‘Bright Light Burned Out’ EP.”

It’s also allowed Maloney to hit the road again, taking the current guise of Mixtape Saints across the UK alongside playing a few dates with Wolves&Wolves&Wolves&Wolves and The Run Up in September. “It's been a long time since I was able to tour and I can't wait to have the chance to start playing live regularly again. Hopefully a lot more of that for the rest of the year! We've already been working on some full band tracks as well which it would be great to get out once we're sorted with a full time drummer again. All in all this all feels a bit like starting over, and that's a really cool place to be.”

The EP will be available through Little Rocket Records on the 16th September 2016, both on limited edition cassette and digitally.

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