Prior to 2003, drummer Darren King tried to stay away from calculus, algebra, or even geometry, but with the formation of his grammy-award nominated rock band, math became more rewarding to him than it ever had been during school.
King and his bandmates settled on the name MUTEMATH, because they thought that it was simple and symmetrical, not because it was their favorite subject in school.
“I’m horrible at math,” King said. “I’m awful, awful, awful.”
But fortunately for the band, and MUTEMATH fans, King truly excels at the drums.
King first met bandmate, vocalist and mentor-figure Paul Meany when he was 14 years old. Meany came through King’s hometown of Missouri on a tour, and the two became fast friends during a 10-week revival service at King’s church.
But it wasn’t until years later, when King was out of the high school, that the two began to make music together along with Greg Hill, guitarist, and Roy Mitchell-Cardenas, bassist
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MUTEMATH’s first album, self-titled, was released in January 2006 while the band was touring. The album reached surprising success and was re-released by Warner Bros. Records, Inc., just five months later.
The band is now touring in support of its second album, “Armistice.” To most fans, the record represents a drastically different sound from the debut album, but King disagrees.
“We probably don’t sound as different as we were trying to,” King said. “As we were working on the album, we felt like we were doing something drastically different from the first one and were surprised, once we finally listened to it, to hear how similar it was to us in many ways.”
“Armistice” captures what many bands try and fail to do, which is encapsulate so many different sounds that it comes across differently to each person that listens to it.
“I hear some people say that this album is so different, and some people say that is doesn’t sound different enough,” King said. “But I always love hearing what people have to say about our music.”
King described “Armistice” as being a “grower” album. Fans might not like it when they first hear it, he said, but it will grow on them.
King said he liked that the album grows on fans instead of immediately making an impact. “If they catch up on a person, and the person decides that they like it, those albums will last a little bit longer in your CD player or in your headphones,” he said.
Part of the confusion about sound and taste could come from the fact that MUTEMATH had an incredibly difficult time creating “Armistice” as a follow-up to its successful debut.
“We put a lot of unnecessary pressures on ourselves making the second album, and I think that we’ve learned how to deal with that now,” King said. “I’ll be surprised if any other album is as hard to produce as this one was.”
He said the hardest thing was to match every person’s opinion because each contributor’s opinion was constantly changing. With four band members, many producers and label executives, and fan input, it was a balancing act to create 10 songs that everyone liked enough to put on the record.
And that is where the title of the album comes into play. Armistice is a time in war when the warring parties agree to stop fighting. For MUTEMATH, the culmination of the album came at the point when all members reached a compromise.
“This album was very important to us, and we are all equally strong-willed people,” King said. “So a lot of the things that should have been minute details seemed as if they were life or death to each of us.”
But for King, there was even a negotiation process within his own mind.
“I don’t understand how I can go from loving to hating to being indifferent about something so often — within the course of a day, or within the course of an hour of working on something,” King said.
King said that a lot of the pressure came from trying to find which sound and which style actually fit the band. However, whether they agree on the image the record represents, King said they created a group of songs that are a lot of fun to play live and that will evolve as the tour progresses.
“We kind of look at the record as just being the beginning of those songs,” King said. “We hope that they can take on a life of their own and change even from there.”
In a war zone, an armistice doesn’t necessarily mean a peace treaty so much as it means a temporary cease-fire followed by further attempts at victory. Similarly, the members of MUTEMATH will not cease striving for a perfect album, or a perfect sound.
“My dream would be a record where, when all four of us listen to it, and for the rest of lives, every second, believe in it entirely,” King said. “And I don’t know if that is even possible because life is full of compromise, and if someone tries to tell themselves it isn’t, then they are fooling themselves.”
MUTEMATH will be performing live at 7 p.m tomorrow at the Newport Music Hall. Tickets are $20 today and $23 the day of the show.
