Paul Meany is tired.
The lead singer of New Orleans-based band MUTEMATH looks half asleep as he slowly sips his coffee, reminiscing about the past month his band has been on tour. The tour, Meany says, has drained him.
Not that he minds.
“They’ve been some of the most physically fatiguing shows I’ve ever done, which is great,” Meany says. “We’ve played a lot of places like [Chelsea’s Cafe]. It’s been small, intimate, loud, hot and sweaty.”
“Odd Soul,” the band’s third record, came at a perfect time for MUTEMATH. After having a bad experience recording its second album, the band lost guitarist Greg Hill. The remaining members — Meany, drummer Darren King and bassist Roy Mitchell-Cárdenas — decided to go back to basics and simplify their process.
“We needed this record. We needed the process of what this record was, which was basically kicking all the cooks out of the kitchen,” Meany says. “Just having a very simple environment for us to record in was therapeutic for us.”
The band dropped its electro-heavy sound in favor of louder guitars and a sound more akin to modern blues-rock acts like The Black Keys. A new member of the band, Todd Gummerman, has filled Hill’s shoes on tour, but during recording, Mitchell-Cárdenas assumed guitar duties. Meany says that was the decision that influenced the direction of the album.
“Odd Soul,” Meany explains, is about the band digging into its past. For Mitchell-Cárdenas, who learned guitar from his father, this meant an opportunity to revisit his hard-rock roots.
“With this album came a lot of the first memories of music that we had,” says Meany. “For Roy, that was certainly a lot of jamming in the garage with his dad, learning [Led] Zeppelin and [Jimi] Hendrix songs.”
For Meany and King, digging into their roots meant revisiting the strict religious upbringing they both experienced. Meany emphasizes that although they’ve moved on from the “admittedly weird” religious circles, their faith still comes through in their lyrics.
“This is the first record where [Darren and I] did a lot of lyrics together,” Meany says. “I certainly grew up on Christian music, as did Darren, and there’s no hiding that. It’s part of our DNA, so we let it all out on this record.”
Meany talks for a few more minutes, discussing the new album, the recent addition of guitarist Gummerman and how much he’s looking forward to the last week of shows on the tour, which will end Friday at One Eyed Jack’s in New Orleans. He’s still drinking his coffee and looks a bit more awake by the time he’s finished the cup. As the interview wraps up, he heads back toward his bandmates, joking with them while enjoying time with his family before the show.
Fast-forward to 10 p.m. A sold-out crowd is crammed into a small room at Chelsea’s Cafe, tense and eagerly awaiting the band’s arrival.
As Chelsea’s has no conventional backstage, MUTEMATH must enter through the audience to take the stage. They do so in typical New Orleans fashion, wading through the crowd while playing bass drums and tambourines.
Once they’re onstage, they launch into tracks from their new album. The audience is hooked from the beginning, unable to take their eyes off the band. Whether it’s a new song most haven’t heard or a cut from the first album everyone knows the words to, the crowd sings and dances along with the band for the next two hours.
Meany is well aware of the band’s reputation for raucous live shows. He knows what the audience is expecting and doesn’t disappoint, showering the crowd with water, doing handstands on his keyboard and plunging into the crowd multiple times during the show.
Meany says he doesn’t know where the energy for the live shows comes from.
“Some of the most energetic shows were right before I could barely keep my eyes open,” he says.
Given his earlier state, this certainly seems to be the case tonight.
After the band caps off a nearly two-hour performance with a long instrumental jam, the men leave the stage, weaving back through the crowd and giving hugs and high-fives everywhere. Meany seems extremely tired once again, but he loves it.
“This is some of the most high-spirited music we’ve ever made,” he says of the new album. “I’m thoroughly drained at the end of the night. It’s a good feeling.”
 
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Contact Joey Groner at [email protected]