I had the pleasure recently of interviewing Tairrie [B] Murphy, the vocalist and frontwoman of Los Angeles’ hardest and heaviest rock and rollers MY RUIN, a band with a super DIY ethic that I greatly admire and support. Their new tour rolls into the UK in March.
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GD: Which song from your new album ‘Ghosts and Good Stories’ would you most likely enjoy singing (or screaming) along to during a road trip with Mick?
TBM: We usually don’t listen to our own music on road trips. We prefer to listen to a mixture of old school gangster rap and 70’s rock compilations to get us from point A to B with a little bit of classic metal and low rider oldies in between! ;)
GD: Do you prefer working as a two piece in the studio? If so, was recording ‘Ghosts and Good Stories’ a more enjoyable experience than your last album ‘Throat Full of Heart’ where it was a full band recording or the album before that ‘The Brutal Language’?
TBM: It depends. Truthfully we find it to be easier and more time efficient to record this way simply because Mick writes all the music, demos it and knows the parts inside and out. Mick co produced our last 3 albums and with each one it was such a totally different experience in the studio. On ‘G&GS’ we recorded over an extended period of time and tracked the vocals and music in two different studios. The process was a little more meticulous and thoughtful than our previous albums because we didn’t have my arm almost getting ripped off in a freak car accident with me being hospitalized like on the eve of our first day in the studio like we did on ‘TFOH’ and we didn’t have our rhythm section quit on us in the middle of recording like we did on ‘TBL’. Who knows what the future holds. Someday we might record with a band again but for now it is just the two of us behind the scenes.
GD: Mick is regarded as something of an underground guitar god. This has become increasingly evident with his Neanderthal work and the last couple of My Ruin albums. Do you think he deserves more recognition in the rock press or do you think it’s better kept this way?
TBM: Mick is an extremely talented multi-instrumentalist and I would love it if he got more recognition as a musician in general, not just a guitarist. He has been featured in Guitar Player Magazine several times over the past few years and even been referred to as a “Best Kept Secret” by the editor Michael Molenda and listed in their “ Top 40 Most Underrated Guitarist of All Time” along side of some of his personal idols like Rick Derringer and Ronnie Montrose. I think he has grown into a great producer over the years and definitely deserves more attention for what he does musically because he works extremely hard at his craft and always has. He’s one of the few musicians I have met in my life who is not arrogant about his abilities. He’s humble and prefers to let his playing speak for itself which I really respect. Besides My Ruin he has recorded 2 full albums & a new 3 song EP for his metal instrumental side project Neanderthal and released 2 albums with me for our side project The LVRS which is cinematic spoken word set to doom style musical soundscapes. We have always been a DIY type of band and it’s frustrating sometimes that he is not more well known in the industry when there are so many guitarists with half his skills getting mad love and major hype & props out there and some really do not deserve the fame but the fact is that we do not have big team behind us with a manager, publicist and label promoting him or My Ruin for that matter so we do the best we can do on our own. It’s always nice to be recognized for your talent and gifts as an artist and the people who know Mick feel the same way I do about him.
GD: A lot of bands can be quite mysterious about life behind the scenes. My Ruin are very intimate and personal with their fans, something well documented with your online presence, but has there ever been anything you later wished you hadn’t posted online?
TBM: Of course. We’ve learned over the years that while the internet is a great way to connect with fans of your band it can also get very weird and scary in the blink of an eye and this has happened to us a few times. I joined Facebook to have a more personal connection with the fans of our band and while I love certain aspects of it, there are many things about it that freak me out. Sometimes fans and even friends can get very creepy with me and cross the line in my inbox or on my wall and that’s when it becomes uncomfortable.
GD: Are you relieved to see Matt LeChevalier back behind the kit? How is he enjoying playing Mick’s drum parts recorded for the new album live?
TBM: We are extremely happy to have Matt back in the band. We love Frenchie and were sad when he had to leave in back to France in 2007 because of visa issues. We had just recorded “Throat Full of Heart” and filmed our “Ready for Blood” video so it kind of threw us for a loop at the time but we stayed friends and when he found out about our upcoming UK tour and also the fact that his good friends from his hometown [Headcharger] who he has also played with were supporting us he wanted to be a part of things and we were excited to welcome him back to the family. A good drummer is very hard to find, especially in this town where there are so many people who seem to do a better job hyping themselves up and talking than actually rocking. Matt is probably the best drummer we have ever had in the band and the most professional. He’s got a unique style that is all his own and when he arrived at the studio for the first day of rehearsals he nailed everything perfectly down to the last fill because that’s just who he is. It was great to hear songs from the new album come to life for the first time with the band and Matt really respects Mick as a drummer as well so I think he is having a blast playing Mick’s parts. The guys are actually jamming together on a killer new Neanderthal song that just came about one day between the three of them very naturally when they rehearsed w/o me and it blew me away. I want them to play it live on our upcoming tour.
GD: Introduce us to your new bassist. Where did you find him and how is he fitting in?
TBM: Our new bassist is Luciano Ferrea. He is originally from Argentina but now a resident of Los Angeles. He’s rad. Mick, Matt & I first saw him play back in 2007 when his then band Beggars Ball opened a show for us we played on Mick’s birthday at a club called Safari Sam’s in Hollywood. When we started to put the new rhythm section together for the tour we decided that instead of putting the word out we were looking for a bass player and having to deal with a ton of freaks which is usually the scenario when searching for musicians, Mick and I just started thinking about who we knew or knew of that would fit our vibe musically and the band as far as image wise. We both remembered Luciano and felt he was a perfect fit so we decided to try and track him down online and meet with him. He’s cool as hell and adds the perfect low end. It’s nice to have someone in the band that actually smiles, has a positive fun attitude and wants to rock with us. Our new rhythm section is tight and My Ruin sounds like a brick wall at the moment.
GD: For the live shows this time around will we be hearing more medleys? Is “The Beauty Medley” going to make a return?
TBM: We’ve got so many songs now it was extremely difficult coming up with a set list this time. We are playing 5 songs from the new album and a few from all of our previous albums with a couple surprises thrown in that we haven’t played live in a while. The Beauty Medley has morphed into a new show closer featuring “Burn The Witch” and “Beauty Fiend” and we are also doing our cover of “Have a Drink on Me” which we recorded last year for Metal Hammer Magazines AC/DC 30th Anniversary tribute CD because our song/video has gotten such a great response. We’re all really digging on our current set list and hopefully our friends and fans will as well when we debut it.
GD: Your upcoming “Ghosts and Good Stories” UK tour in March is your first time back playing live since your ReligiosiTour of the UK in 2008. You have publicly spoken about the fact that things went down on this previous tour that forced you to do some serious soul searching because you were not sure you wanted to continue the band at one point. You and Mick also got married a few months after the tour ended. What made you decide to record another album and move forward?
TBM: That tour left us both numb in many ways and when it ended, a few long standing relationships in and around the band ended with it. It forced us to look at My Ruin and ourselves and deal with some serious issues and concerns we were both having on a professional and personal level in and around the band. My Ruin has always been our rock love child, it’s our baby and we have both worked so hard over the years to nourish it and watch it grow. We’ve been a DIY band since day one and on some levels that makes certain things easier but on other levels, it makes everything harder. We have never had a real label that supported or understood us musically and most of the managers, agents and publicists we have hired over the years to work with us were worthless for lack of a better word. I was doing their jobs the whole time and sometimes still do today. Kicking against the pricks gets exhausting at times but this is what we love so we do what we have to do so it can continue. When Mick & I got married it definitely shined a new and positive light on us and inspired us to be creative again. We signed a deal with Tiefdruck Musik and recorded and delivered the best album of our career which has gotten incredible reviews. Unfortunately the label owner turned out to be a dishonest, unprofessional, manipulative soulless beast that sabotaged its release before it even came out and had a chance to breathe. We have since cut all ties with him and his label and moved on to the next chapter of our musical path which we have been keeping a very close guarded secret that we plan to announce publicly sometime after the tour.
GD: Can you tell us a little about your support bands Headcharger & Sanctorum who will be joining you this time on the road? How do you know these guys and how did this come about?
TBM: Headcharger are a French band we met back in 2006 when they supported My Ruin on a few of our dates in France during our ‘Summer of Hell’ tour. They are actually really close friends with our drummer Matt who grew up in the same city and has toured with them as well in the past on drums. They’re a cool band and really nice guys. We asked them to be on the tour because we thought they would be a nice addition to the line up musically. It’s our chance to introduce them to the UK. Sanctorum are close friends of mine & Mick. We met them in 2008 when they came on our ‘ReligiosiTour’ with us. We had a real camaraderie with the guys and their manager Terry Sly on the road and it developed into a good friendship over these past 2 years. They’re a killer underground British metal band and they also have a new album coming out in March called ‘Semper Fidelis’. We’re looking forward to sharing the stage with both bands. It’s going to be a nice family reunion and a lot of fun.
Thanks to Gareth at Ruins of Ayanez for for taking the time to speak with us and his continued support of our band and music!
xo
Mrs M
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