Everything about Mute Math totally explained
Mute Math is a
Grammy Award nominated
American rock band from
New Orleans, LA that formed in 2003. Their music consists of many elements such as rock,
new wave,
electro,
psychedelia, and
jazz 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 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
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. (see
Teleprompt Controversy for more details).
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 didn't 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 of 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.
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 scheduled to hit stores sometime around the end of September 2008, almost exactly two years after the release of
Mute Math and four years after the release of
Reset EP. The band plans to hit the road once again in the Fall of 2008 with a re-vamped headlining tour to coincide with the release of the album.
On February 19, in an interview with Rider University's television show "Music and Interview Affairs", Paul Meany said they've 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.
Discography
EPs and albums
Singles
"Typical" (Teleprompt/WBR, 2007)
"Control" (Teleprompt/WBR, 2008)
Compilations
"Chaos" Aware 11 -Aware Records
"Transformers Theme" Transformers: The Album - Warner Bros. Records
"You Are Mine" appeared in the 2008 movie "Never Back Down."
Charts
Albums
Singles
NOTE: "Control" and "Peculiar People" appeared on CCR formats and charted for a short time before they were pulled from the CCM market.
Awards and Nominations
Awards
Dove Award 2005 Best Modern Rock Song - "Control".
Nominations
Grammy Award 2008 Best Short Form Music Video- "Typical".
Filmography
Flesh And Bones Electric Fun (Teleprompt/WBR, 2007) — DVD Release
Upcoming Documentary (Teleprompt/WBR/Goodwin Films, 2008) — Release details TBA
Tours
Spring 2005 - SXSW & The Reset Tour with Mat Kearney
Fall 2005 - The Music Is Much Too Loud Tour with Mae and Circa Survive
Winter 2005 - The Album Release Tour with Vedera
Spring 2006 - The Album Release Tour (Second Leg) with The Working Title
May 2006 - The Album Release Encore Tour featuring Under The Influence of Giants, Lovedrug, and other guests
Summer 2006 - Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Vans Warped Tour, V Festival
Fall 2006 - Fall Tour with Shiny Toy Guns, The Whigs, Jonezetta, and Club Of The Sons
Fall 2006 - Voodoo Music Experience & CMJ Music Marathon
January 2007 - Winter College Tour opening for The Fray
February 2007 - Headlining European Tour
Spring 2007 - SXSW & Flesh And Bones Electric Fun Tour with The Cinematics, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Club Of The Sons, and one show with Wolfmother
June 2007 - Headlining European Tour
Summer 2007 - Street Scene, Bluesfest, Bonnaroo, Virgin Festival (Toronto & Vancouver) & Reading Festival (United Kingdom)
Fall 2007 - Headlining Tour with Eisley, Pilot Speed, Voodoo Music Experience & CMJ Music Marathon
Winter 2007 - Exile In America Tour with Matchbox Twenty and Alanis Morissette
Fall 2008 - TBA Headlining Tour
Television appearances
February 3, 2006 - CBS - The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
- Notes: Television debut. Performed "Chaos".
September 19, 2006 - MTV News - You Hear It First
November 9, 2006 - MTV Canada - MTV Live
- Notes: Live show was only broadcast in Canada.
December 1, 2006 - ABC - Jimmy Kimmel Live
- Notes: Performed "Typical" and "Chaos". Paul snaps the neck of the red keytar later featured in the music video for "Typical".
June 14, 2007 - CBS - The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
- Notes: Performed "Typical". (2nd appearance)
July 2007 - MTV - Discover and Download
July 17, 2007 - CBS - The Late Show with David Letterman
- Notes: Performed "Typical".
September 18, 2007 - ABC - Jimmy Kimmel Live
- Notes: Live "backwards" performance of "Typical". (2nd appearance)
October 17, 2007 - NBC - Late Night with Conan O'Brien
- Notes: Performed "Break The Same".
Further Information
Get more info on 'Mute Math'.
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