TBA/News
Matt Mays And El Torpedo's Terminal Romance
By Steve McLean
Matt Mays And El Torpedo
Matt Mays likes to keep things in the family when it comes to his album cover artwork, and like a family when it comes to his band, El Torpedo.
The singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer's father, Bill Mays, has painted the images on his first four album covers, including the new Terminal Romance.
"It's a metallic heart, kind of an armoured heart that's been tarnished and taken a beating," says the younger Mays of the graphic. "With a band that's as serious about touring and playing music as we are, some collateral damage definitely piles up along the way."
Some of that damage was the spring 2007 departure from El Torpedo of guitarist Jarrett Murphy, who had grown weary of the heavy touring. Though the split was friendly, it still hurt Mays because Murphy was a longtime friend whom he thought of almost as a brother. Luckily, Jay Smith - another guitarist who Mays shared a deep bond with - was able to step in almost immediately.
"His father was a virtuoso guitar player and got him started when he was a kid," Mays says of Smith. "Jay was bringing a guitar to school since Grade 3. It's just an extension of him. It was a really lucky thing to have an amicable split with Jarrett and have somebody like Jay on hand right away. We didn't waste a breath. We just got right back to it."
While Mays is no slouch as a guitarist either, having another talented player who shared a similar vibe was crucial for making the new album. Like 2005's Matt Mays And El Torpedo album, Terminal Romance is a guitar-driven rock 'n' roll record - but one that Mays says can stand on its own easier than that effort.
"I didn't want to do something where we wear our influences on our sleeves. On our last record, we were just excited to be in a band. We loved Neil Young and Tom Petty and were being more rootsy. On this record, we just wanted to sound like El Torpedo, and I really think we achieved that. I don't think this record sounds like anything. There are obviously influences here and there, but there are a lot more little ones instead of a couple of big ones."
Much of Terminal Romance was recorded with producer Chris Tsangarides (The Tragically Hip, Thin Lizzy) last fall in a small studio in a village on the southern coast of England, where the band stayed in an old Boy Scout camp and slept in "little bunk beds built for 14-year-old kids." While the lanky Mays didn't enjoy sleeping with his feet hanging off the end of his bed, he calls the five weeks of living in cramped confines "one of the best bonding experiences of my life."
"A lot of bands fight. We don't. We just get over things and talk it out."
In between the two El Torpedo albums, Mays created the soundtrack for a film he was making called When The Angels Make Contact. While the album was released in 2006, he ran out of money before he could finish the movie. But he's been talking to Drew Lightfoot, who directed the video for Terminal Romance's 'Tall Trees' single, about resurrecting the project.
"When he has the time and I have the time and the money, we're going to get 'er done," promises Mays. "So hopefully the little album that could will keep the dream alive."
Even if you can't see Mays in a movie theatre for a while, you can see him open for Kid Rock on his western Canadian tour in July and headlining his own cross-country trek in November.