Andy: What we try to do is to allow some space for the listener’s imagination. For example, when you read a book, more happens than just capturing the story and that’s it. You visualize characters, you start to feel and think different about each character and most of all every book brings other moods while reading. That’s the way we work with music. The goal is not to tell the listener how he should think about things, it’s more like giving him a base for his very own interpretation of what’s going on - I’d like to call it “my unique Mely-album”. In this way it is a kind of conversation.

AD: The track titles of “Portrait of a Porcelain Doll” are strange – “Bricks against Porcelain Dolls”, “Don’t Wake the Sleeping Dog” etc. Can you explain what the theme of the album is?

Andy: As I said, we try to let things a bit undefined. So it would be the wrong way to explain exactly what we thought while writing the songs. The main theme is the psychological influence of violence within a family especially the influence on the weakest link, the child. The deal is not to show how kids get beaten up, it’s more important to show that kids often can’t understand why their parents are fighting, why mummy or daddy is angry, why they are drunk, and so on. Obviously simple to answer, but what if you are 5 years old and the boundaries of your world are those two idols? The title “Portrait of a Porcelain Doll” explains best what’s going on. A workaround title would be “that’s why this character became a fragile one”.

AD: I felt changes of mood not just within the album but within tracks. At times it was mellow, reflective, dark, sad, sinister and even threatening. Yet I wouldn’t say it was depressing. What sort of moods were you aiming to convey?

Andy: That’s why we choose the word mel(anchol)y for our bands name. People often think melancholy is the same thing like depression, but it has nothing to do with it. Depression is a disease, something to consult a doctor, not a good thing for a musician. You can’t be creative and busy out of a depression, that’s impossible, because a real depression makes even the easiest things too hard, too heavy to get them done. Melancholy on the other side is as important as happiness is. For me it is a natural relationship like there’s no life without death or no light without dark. You have to be sad, reflective,… sometime, just to be able to see happiness as a good thing. You could say that melancholy prevents you from getting depressive. So what we try to capture are all types of moods, which one comes up within a song depends on the mood that is behind the happening/the theme we’re writing about.

AD: So how would you describe the album? From the style, it doesn’t sound like a happy one.

Andy: It’s definitely no fun-punk-album that’s right (-; dark grunge is a style which possibly fits best, but I don’t like to classify music into all these sub-genres. For me this album goes exactly around the adjectives you used in your last question and because of all those moods it is something that makes me happy while I listen to it. Maybe stores should think about the use of adjectives not genres.

AD: When composing “Portrait of a Porcelain Doll”, did you decide first on the mood you wanted to create and the music came from that, or did it just arise organically out of the music?

Andy: We don’t decide anything according to our music, music is feeling, “decision” is a business phrase. Every riff, melody, mood is somehow affected by what’s going on in the song. As I said, one important point is the theme, better the feeling behind a theme. We’re not a band that has the ability to create fantasy-stories with castles, heroes, dragons and whatever. We write down what affects us, what we don’t want to take with us. The other important thing for us is to follow your “gut instinct” (hope this is the right phrase). So you may say that there is a big overall mood caused by the theme and in it there are all these “sub-moods”. I had the idea of the portrait-concept in spring 2008 and so we started working on it. It was curious, that we lost the focus on this concept quickly after starting the songwriting. But the mood behind this concept was so strong that when the riff-connections became songs, the concept came back. So to answer what was first is like to have an answer on the “the egg or the chicken” question. (-;

AD: If there is one section on the album which stood out for me, it’s the passage at the end of “Sweet Six Feet”. The guitar imposes sharp authority, it’s got an air of the East about it and the distant screams are haunting. It’s utterly hair-raising. Who came up with this idea, and what image were you conveying when you created this section?

Andy: I have to go back a little bit. For us “Sweet Six Feet” is one of our best and freakiest songs, but while we wrote the song, it was a pain in the ass, we definitely began to hate it! From the beginning on, the song had a good flow, sounded impressive, might have been ok to let it loose, but however long and however hard we tried, it never came to the point where we personally thought “ok, that’s it!” So after changing the whole song about ten times we came to the point where we had just a few hours left to get it done because the studio was booked for the next morning. Crisis is a good word for the mood at this moment… (-; Meanwhile Martin was working on some keyboard lines separately and he came up with the idea of some oriental-sounding female voicing. It was a “key-idea” for the whole song because suddenly an unused guitar riff that I had written months ago worked fine too. With this oriental prog-part in the middle of the song, we suddenly had a theme for an intro too and also the chorus became how it is now. From hell to heaven within 4 hours, that’s what makes music so special! (-;

AD: Is “Portrait of a Porcelain Doll” a collective effort where all the band members contribute their ideas or is there a dominant force within the band?

Andy: It is a collective effort, absolutely! Not because each Mely-member had written the same amount of riffs or something else. It’s because everyone spent every free minute working on that album, which is sometimes a tough thing to do, if you have a regular job or important exams. Family and friends sometimes need a bit attention too, so it was an intense time for everyone – as hard as this funny music-thing can be! Sure you need a person who keeps an overview, or the band knows that someone is able to help out when the rest is caught in a creative black hole. I guess that’s me, but not that often. (-;

AD: I’m amazed that something with such a range of ideas could turn into something so fluid. Did the album take a long time to record?

Andy: Oh thanx, curiously this time no! The fluidity you’re talking about results out of what we have learned, how we developed within the years. So it was not a question of how to get the ideas together, it was more a question of getting them together in time. Some stupid things happened last year, ending up with Helmut (our former drummer) leaving the band. So we were unable to do anything until September and to be honest, we thought of taking a break just to clear our thinking whether Mely was worth the effort. But nothing like this happened and then Hannes joined the band. He brought some freshness back into the band and with it that certain flow that you need. So we felt good enough to get this album ready by the end of the year and that’s what happened.

AD: The style of “Portrait of a Porcelain Doll” is mixed. When I reviewed it, as a base of comparison to describe the sound, I quoted classic acts like Genesis, REM and David Bowie as well as newer ones like Tiamat. Who are your principal musical and artistic influences?

Andy: Hard to tell without a list of 200 artists… Thx again, to get compared with such acts is a great honour! We all listen to lots of different bands from different eras and styles. Mainly I would say it’s a mixture of the darker Seattle grunge scene, the late 60’s and 70’s Rock-Legends, some Sabbath Stoner/Doom and some Prog. That’s it, but if it fits? Just our interpretation…

AD: You’ve been going as a band for 10 years and this is your fourth album. How does this album compare to your previous work?

Andy: Hmm… the major change is Hannes and his drumming. He brings lots of knowledge from his jazz-studies and that’s what helped us to mix even more styles and ideas into something so called fluid. Another point is that we try to develop our music with every song, that’s the only cast-iron Mely-rule. We never want to end up covering ourselves. Ok, that comes with the danger that the next album will be unlistenable or something, but better this than a “Portrait of a Porcelain Doll”-cover!

AD: Your home country of Austria is not known as a centre of Metal in general, let alone the sort of Gothic / Doomy / Progressive music you might be associated with. Is there a scene you can connect with and share with other artists or do you rely on the international scene?

Andy: “Development Country in Metal” or “Small-Scandinavia” because of all the extreme metal acts here. These are the phrases we hear pretty often, but the Austrian scene is not that bad. The big prob here is that we have lots of cool underground-bands in a wide range of styles, but we don’t have the amount of clubs, festivals, promoters or labels to push this scene. So bands often help each other by exchanging gigs. It works pretty fine.

AD: What’s your greatest achievement as a band so far?

Andy: Ten years of being together as friends throughout all the good and bad moments, in my opinion the greatest thing to achieve.

AD: What benefits did you gain from the recent tour with Dornenreich and Agalloch?

Andy: It was a damned cool thing to play this tour. Both bands play outstanding music, are a guarantee for well-visited shows and that happened every night. We were the opening act, but had almost the same size of audience and I guess we surprised lots of them. Critics wrote good things about us too, so we look forward to the gigs with Dornenreich in autumn.

AD: Do you have any immediate work in progress?

Andy: Currently we’re writing interviews (-; and prepare for the US-Release in May. A video for “Grown for Doom” was shot right after the tour, which we’ll present within the next few weeks. After that we will start jamming on new stuff.

AD: Does your music get darker from here, lighter or haven’t you decided yet?

Andy: Let’s have a look. I have something in my mind, but... What we will do again is to enhance our style with new influences, and no “Portrait II” will follow, the cast-iron Mely-rule you know… (-;

AD: What are your ambitions for the short term and in the long term?

Andy: Play as many gigs as possible, start jamming on new songs are our ambitions for the short term, what happens then is not a thing we think about seriously. Things change fast these days, so everything is possible.

AD: To finish, is there anything you would like to say to UK readers?

Andy: A “hell low” from the Melys!

Thanks! I’d like to wish you every success and very much hope to be hearing a lot more about Mely in the future.

Thank you!

For more on the band check out http://www.mely.at
http://www.myspace.com/melymyspace

Interviewed by Andrew Doherty

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