The Other Side of June Divided: An Interview with Melissa Menago
For Philly-based Alt-rock outfit June Divided, a chance in the spotlight came quickly and unexpectedly after having formed as a band in early 2010. Since the release of their EP The Other Side of You in February of last year, the group, composed of guitarist/singer Melissa Menago, guitarist/keyboardist Chris Kissel, drummer Keith Gill, and bassist TBA (bassist Rich Mancinelli having recently split from the band), has made a music video of the song “Bullet”, played on NBC’s The 10 Show, driven across the country to play SXSW, and rocked out at the 2011 Warped Tour.
“When we wrote the EP we weren’t really thinking ahead, didn’t think about cameras and photo shoots.”, says Menago in regard to their music video. “The limelight is the other part of this job that I almost didn’t think would happen. I didn’t ever think I was going to be able to do a music video like that. It literally fell into our laps.” The band plans to start work on their full-length album in February, which will be financed in part by contributions through fan-funding website IndieGoGo.
Menago talks about the process of recording their extended play, her apprehension toward being in the cross hairs of a photo lens, and the group’s unforeseen fast track to success.
Michele Zipkin: How did you guys initially come together as a band?
Melissa Menago: To pass time during the job hunt, me and Chris started writing music after having written an album together in college. We were drinking one night and jokingly decided to put an ad on Craigslist for a drummer. The next day I woke up and thought, what if I actually did that? I wasn’t expecting to get any responses… I initially didn’t get back to anyone who answered the ad, but this one guy who responded seemed really smart and interesting, and it turned out to be Keith. We discovered that he lived right down the street from us, so we met up, we really clicked, and he’s been a part of our lives ever since.
MZ: How did you go about writing the songs on the record? How did it all come together?
MM: We weren’t really taking it seriously in the beginning, it was just kind of for fun. The producer who we worked with got in contact with us and said “I heard you’re starting a band, and your stuff in college was awesome. Can you send something to me? The label my studio’s working with is putting together a compilation, and I might be able to get you guys on it.” And even though we were barely a functioning band yet, we sent him one of our songs, “Bullet”, our single, and he liked it. We went out to Soundmine Studio and recorded it with Alec Henninger and it came out great. So we wrote five more songs, which turned into our EP, and recorded those with Alec in September 2010.
It took a while to get our CD out, so we played a lot of shows in the interim trying to raise more money. We didn’t release the album until February 2011, and since then, it’s been wild. We didn’t even realize what we had until we saw the finished product, and even then, we didn’t really know what we wanted to do. We had some shows lined up, but we were a new band, so we didn’t expect things to go totally smoothly. Our producer hooked us up with our manager, Lenny, who also went to Drexel. He’s almost another member of the band because he’s so involved- sometimes he steps in to play bass when our bass player can’t make it.
MZ: What kind of doors opened for you once you hooked up with your manager?
MM: Lenny stepped in around September ‘10 when he saw us in a show we were playing. He immediately wanted to work with us. It was good, because I was always on the tech end, not the business end. I kind of know how the business works, and was just trying to manage until we met Lenny. It was really thanks to him that we’ve had such success. He got us into SXSW, we played on The 10 Show, and got radio play on WXPN.
During our 14-hour car ride down to SXSW when we were in between Arkansas and Texas it was just miles of nothing, and we were bored and tired. All of a sudden, Lenny’s phone goes off and it’s a producer from MMR telling him that they were playing us on their station in a few minutes. So Keith had an MMR app on his iPhone, so we plugged it into the car radio and listened. We also played Bullet on the Live at 5 show on 104.5 the day of our album release in February, which we celebrated at Kung Fu Necktie. Then we just really started playing- we played in Pittsburgh, New Jersey, Arlene’s Grocery in New York, Dewey Beach Fest in Delaware, and the Warped Tour, which we played by winning a battle of the bands.
MZ: What is the core meaning behind The Other Side of You?
MM: The song “The Other Side of You” came to be our title track because playing in the band literally brought out another side of us. A lot of people keep telling me “Oh, it’s great, you’re chasing your dream”, and I’m always like, Dream?! No, this wasn’t a dream. I never thought I was going to do this- I never wanted to be a performer. For the music video, I thought I was gonna sh*t myself- I was terrified, and so were the guys. They’re really laid back, they’re really in it for the music. When we wrote the EP we weren’t really thinking ahead, didn’t think about cameras and photo shoots. The limelight is the other part of this job that I almost didn’t think would happen. I didn’t ever think I was going to be able to do a music video like that. It literally fell into our laps. Photo shoots- I’m still terrified.
“The Other Side of You” has a duel meaning, and we chose that as the title track for that reason. It’s about personal relationships, but not necessarily romantic relationships. I’m not that big of a romantic, and I like to leave our stuff up for interpretation. I want listeners to interpret our music the way they want to relate to it.
MZ: What’s the dynamic like when you’re recording in terms of throwing around ideas?
MM: That’s my favorite part of recording. Keith really likes the live [recording] stuff. Alec is very minimally invasive- he doesn’t really change a lot, and never wants to mess with the concept of the song. So it’s a peaceful process, the whole thing. We got really creative with “The Shadows”, there’s a lot of extra percussion, we even had a friend hit a couple drums, and credited him on the album. Any given day in the studio may not be the easiest day- you might have a line or a lick that you’re stuck on.
MZ: Do you find that your relationship to the songs you’ve written changes over time?
MM: Sometimes it stops me mid-song, and I’ll have to rewrite something. The band has come to learn that sometimes when we stop working on a song it’s because someone has grown or changed. Keith said to me when we were working on a song- “I think I’m looking at this the wrong way. I think I need more time with this.” And I said dude, go for it.
MZ: How would you classify your own sound?
MM: We’re not an angst-y band. Our new producer was comparing a lot of our new stuff to Thrice, who he really likes. We’re a lot more poppy than they are. We do some cool arrangements- we’re working on a new arrangement of “Bullet”, which is a little Ryan Adams-y and little like Brand New.
MZ: What’s the origin of the name June Divided?
MM: I actually didn’t want to keep the name June Divided. Keith and Chris wanted to keep it. It really started when we were writing songs together for a college project. Our professor basically told us he’d fail us if we didn’t come up with a name before the term was over. We were graduating in June and our lives were changing, and our “June was divided”. So we were like, hey if we don’t come up with a name now, we’re going fail this project. So we used it as a name and it turned out that a lot of people liked it.
The quartet will once again play several dates in this year’s Warped Tour, so stick around for info on times and locations. Keep your eyes peeled for updates from the band as they embark on their full-length record next month, with help from adoring fans. Check out junedivided.com for information on how you can be a part of this amazing project.
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Great interview! My name is Alec Henninger, however, not Alan Hettinger
Consider it fixed, Alec
Sometimes words get fuzzy on voice recorders…
No worries!! Thanks!