 by Chip Midnight For the first time in its nearly eight years together, Magnapop is making a conscious effort to heavily tour its home turf -- the United States. "We'd like to be able to do well in our own country instead of being one of those bands where it's like, 'Yeah, it's cool, you're big in Belgium, but no one gives a shit about you here,'" jokes Magnapop bassist Shannon Mulvaney. In actuality, Magnapop is big in Belgium, due in large part to the fact that the band's record label, Play it Again Sam, is based there. "We spent the last four years touring over there non-stop," Mulvaney continues, "and when you spend that much time constantly beating people over the head, hopefully they catch on. And they did in Belgium, which is cool. We just need to do the same thing here." Through some nifty paperwork, Magnapop is distributed throughout the United States by a co-operative partnership consisting of its Belgium label and the U.S.-based Priority Records, the same company known for putting out rap artists and compilation tapes and CDs with titles like "The Greatest New Wave Hits of the 80s" and "Headbangers' Heaven." In fact, Magnapop is one of the few actual rock bands that Priority distributes. "Priority has worked their asses off for us which is nice because they only have like three rock bands," says Mulvaney. The two of us are hard pressed to name the other bands on Priority, though best bets are on the Rugburns, Congo-Norvell and Sons of Elvis. "We get a lot of extra attention because their roster is so small. The rock department is pretty small, too, so we get a chance to know everybody who is working for us." It is that small rock department that is heavily pushing Magnapop's first single, "Open the Door," from the band's third album, Rubbing Doesn't Help, to all interested parties. The song deals with the loss of close friends, and Mulvaney can't help but notice that the new album is a little darker than any of Magnapop's earlier, happy-go-lucky material. "France likes this record because it's a little bit different, it's a little quieter, it has songs about death and dying, which is why the Germans like it too," Mulvaney explains. "It's morose. Germans take to that type of thing." Magnapop's chief songwriters, vocalist Linda Hopper and guitarist Ruthie Morris, have dealt with many changes since 1994's Hot Boxing. They both have moved from small towns in Georgia to the hustling and bustling of the bright lights, big city of Los Angeles. Along the way, drummer David McNair got left behind because, as Mulvaney says, "he had some other things in his life that he had to take care of. He did, and he's a much happier person now, which is good." For the recording of Rubbing Doesn't Help, an ambiguous title that was taken from a pain reliever cream motto, the band enlisted the drumming talents of whiz kid Josh Freese. "You know about Josh?" Mulvaney asks. "Josh is an amazing drummer; he's like a drum prodigy. Are you familiar with the Vandals? There's a video that the Vandals made about themselves when they were on tour and they call Josh 'The Drum Whore.' He was playing with Paul Westerberg and then he'll go play on Glenn Frey's record. He just turned 22. He's an amazing drummer and a real geek at the same time, which is great." The rhythm partnership of Mulvaney and Freese clicked, and clicked well, as Rubbing Doesn't Help finally finds the band at a happy medium where all the instruments, Hopper's voice included, play equal roles. A listen to the Bob Mould-produced Hot Boxing finds the drums at the forefront, not so much because Mould is a drum fanatic like Steve Albini, but rather because Mould has a slight hearing loss and overcompensated by turning up the knobs on the drums. "We entertained the idea of having Josh in the band, but we couldn't," says Mulvaney. "He doesn't commit to anything but the Vandals. We got a guy named Mark Posgay who, it's kind of refreshing, is not from L.A., but he's been there a while and he's not an asshole, not a typical L.A. session guy who comes in with a million drums and a drum tech and an 8x10 snapshot of himself." For the third time in three attempts, Magnapop has picked a producer with a notable track record to capture the band's borderline pop-punk sounds. Michael Stipe produced tracks on the band's eponymous debut, while Mould was tapped for Hot Boxing. This time around, Magnapop chose punk veteran Geza X, the man responsible for some of the early Dead Kennedys and Black Flag records, to spin the knobs. Mulvaney feels that a lack of consistency allows Magnapop to sound fresh each time around. "I don't like being consistent. I like using different people all the time," admits Mulvaney. "It kind of works for us. We'd like to use Thom Wilson, the guy that mixed our last album. We'd like to have him produce the next one. We're not going to get Nick Cave or Tom Waits no matter how many letters we write them." At heart, Mulvaney is a punk rock kid, albeit a 30-year-old recently married punk rock kid, who doesn't like the conformity that he sees so often in the industry in which he makes a living. "It's funny how something that I grew up with in the 80s has been co-opted for little kids," he says of the resurgence of the mass-marketed punk that is the latest bandwagon to jump on. "It doesn't mean as much. It's easy to buy into a disenfranchised culture. You see it, you buy the clothes, you dye your hair, you put a nosering through, and suddenly you are part of this disenfranchised mob of children who saw the same thing on MTV. Granted, it's better than Michael Bolton and all that. MTV is responsible for a lot of shit, a whole lot of shit." Mulvaney sees MTV and all the "X" radio stations as a big factor to the explosion of so many bands that sound alike. "You'll find more kids in Holland, who'll show up at our shows, who know about Gaunt and the New Bomb Turks, than you will the kids who go to our shows here, because they don't seek it out here," he says. "If they don't hear it on one of the 'X' stations, you know, like 99X or 103X, or they don't see it on Alternative Nation or 120 Minutes, then it doesn't exist for them." <One of Magnapop's fans maintains a very informative web page on the Internet, though Mulvaney says that no one in the band has actually seen the page. "I don't even own a computer. We want to get a computer so that we can actually look at that stuff and talk to people." > Check it out at: http://www.comland.com/~darrend/magnapop.htm
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