STARGAZING WITH MAYLUNA
By Cameron Leigh
(DRAFT)
WATCH THE MIDNIGHT SKY closely and you just might see Mayluna shining like a comet that’s only getting brighter the closer it gets to us here on Earth.
It’s been nearly five years since four schoolboys from northern England reunited from the days of their youth and decided to see what would happen if they gave this music thing a real shot.
Fresh off the release of their first album and finding themselves equally fresh off the proverbial boat in the midst of an American tour as the opener for The Evolution, Mayluna isn’t an easy band to reach, and to do so feels a lot like chasing the stars that dot their sky.
“When I was a kid, I used to wonder what it would be like to be on that big stage. But I didn’t see it for myself.
I always saw myself kind of behind the scenes or something.
” Carter Wills is leaning over a cup of decidedly un-rock-’n’-roll Earl Grey tea that he’s selected from the catering table backstage before the show at Jones Beach.
Later, he’ll add a dash of honey and a heavy helping of Macallan Classic.
He wears a haunted look and gives the impression of someone who sees more moon than sun.
A simple white T-shirt contrasts sharply with the dark geometric ink along his arms. Seeming to regret speaking, and with something resembling a smile, he immediately adds, “God, that sounds like such a load of BS now, all things considered, but it’s true. ”
There’s a self-effacing nature to him that borders on the kind of self-loathing, musical-genius dichotomy that has been the hallmark of more than one lead singer in rock ’n’ roll’s famed halls.
Moments earlier, I’d spilled my own cup of tea on my hand, and the lead singer and guitarist with the dark, enigmatic reputation was disarmingly thoughtful in a way that illustrates how he turns pain into honey in the lyrics he pens. But make no mistake, he can also cut someone with a look.
Having played the indie circuit first in York and then in Manchester, Mayluna went from scraping by on a 4 p.m. set played to friends at seedy North London dives to a side-stage Glastonbury performance that sent shock waves throughout the music industry, with reviewers running the gamut.
With a London sound that’s been compared to a mix of Radiohead and U2, they’ve been called everything from the less favorable “rock’s sensitive little brother” to, more impressively, “The Rolling Stones of Gen X.”
Neither seems to be true, as they appear to be paving their own new trail.
And as a wave of near-euphoria greets the band when they take the stage, the audience—at least those in the know—seems simultaneously mesmerized by the music and by Wills’s performance, which elicits moments of hushed anticipation followed by roars of enthusiasm from the fans who have shown up for them.
Transfixed by the spinning sixteenth-century geometric designs and Wills’s magician-like persona, the majority of the audience may have come to see The Evolution, but by the end, it’s Mayluna who casts the spell.
When I mention this to him later in the night, Wills seems amused, a kind of reluctant laugh that causes the corners of his eyes to crinkle, somewhat incongruous to the performer onstage.
I tell him that the night’s show was sold out and that there had been 15,000 people in the crowd.
“They weren’t here for us,” he clarifies.
Then adds, “Well, maybe a few, but who knows.”
Despite his twenty-six years, there’s a weariness to him already that I suspect may have as much to do with his nocturnal nature (he claims he rarely sleeps and has more nightmares than dreams) as it does with the past two and a half decades of life that have come with their own set of challenges.
Wills started out on piano with the band; his brother, Jacob, was the original lead singer, prior to his sudden death in the year before the band signed their first record deal with Paramour Records.
Noel Gallagher and Michael Stipe, among others, have been known to check out Mayluna’s gigs.
“I remember,” Wills continues, “just after we’d played at Shepherd’s Bush—looking out into this group of press, with people I’d admired watching from the side of the stage, and thinking, Oh, shit, I’ve gotten myself into some trouble here.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. ” He says this with a resigned shake of the head, insinuating that it was supposed to be his brother in the lead.
I tell him that outside the backstage gate, there are enough fans screaming for Mayluna (and Wills, in particular) that it’s difficult to know just who is headlining this tour—Mayluna or The Evolution—and he winces.
“Trust me, it’s The Evolution. We’re just grateful they’ve invited us to tag along. ”
This is not a person who is eager for fame.
It’s the music that matters, which he admits sounds like a nauseating cliché but somehow registers as authentic.
He doesn’t seem concerned or even aware of the rock-star persona that so many others take time to craft and agonize over, mostly because he would never describe himself as a star, though it’s clear that’s exactly what he is—or, at least, has the potential to be.
“You can’t think of yourself that way, otherwise you become equally obsessed with everyone who says you’re not one. ”
He has enough noise in his head; he doesn’t need the opinions of the entire world in there too.
The story of their origins seems to change each time they’re asked, but it generally goes that Mayluna was formed when Tom Rollins strolled by the row house where the Wills brothers lived in a hamlet outside of York, somewhere around four in the morning, and heard music.
“I had recently moved to town and was pretty much still just a kid, but when I heard what was going on behind that door, I wanted to be a part of it,” Rollins, who prefers to go by Tommy, says.
After a series of changes and a couple of years off, they reunited with another friend from adolescence, guitarist Alex Winters, whose frequent presence at the Heavenly Sunday Social club nights made famous by the Chemical Brothers, seems perplexing at first and yet somehow not.
They joined forces with bassist Darren Andrews, who was studying art in London at the time.
“The neighbors hated us,” Wills jokes again, talking of their early rehearsal days in a cramped flat in Camden Town.
With a distinctive sound that’s a little melancholy yet oddly catching, Mayluna has come about as a distinctive contradiction to the testosterone-fueled alternative rock and grunge scene in the US, with equal doses of poison and poetry.
Wills does all of the preliminary writing, though credit is given equally to all four.
But with their success has come some backlash.
There have been rumors surrounding addictions; the death of the aforementioned original lead singer, Jacob Wills; tempers; and the reclusive nature of Carter Wills—all chipping away at the empire that four British boys—and a growing legion of fans—are still building.
Within minutes of coming offstage, the band is mobbed by a small group outside the back gate near the entrance to their bus.
Wills, keeping his head down, leaves the minimal interactions—just the barest wave—to Rollins, the affable drummer with a long stride and an easy smile, while Winters and Andrews are nowhere to be seen, and I begin to see why Wills wonders if they’re going to be able to handle this newfound fame.
The bunker-mentality friendship among them is evident, and perhaps that’s part of the reason why things are going well. Winters, frequently perched on a road case in the dark shadows of the hallways amid a cloud of smoke, watches like a protective gargoyle throughout the day, wary of outsiders.
Wills rolls the tip of his finger in lazy circles around the top rim of his cup of tea as I ask if he’s worried that the band’s brightly burning star might burn out.
He’s not. Because as confident as he is in their trajectory, he knows it could just as easily disappear—something he seems to have accepted as equally possible.
“If anyone ruins it in a way that matters, it’ll be us.
There won’t be anyone to blame but ourselves.
But we really are just getting started, so who knows what could happen.
We could be forgotten tomorrow. But even if we lost our record deal and the next album tanked and everything went to hell, we’d carry on playing and being the best of mates and enjoying the music we create together.
We’ve gone through so much worse than that, that’s for sure. ”
Onstage, Wills is a combination of seductively minimal and cocksure swagger that follows him offstage in the same kind of way a tiger gives you the sideways glance just before he struts back into his lair.
He could eat you for breakfast but would rather be a gentleman.
It’s a delicate balance of light and dark.
At least for now, light seems to be winning.
Case in point, he asks about my hand again, reminding me to keep the ice on it.
Offstage, they all separately use words that are similar when asked about their success—“odd,” “surreal,” “madness,” as if they’re still acclimating to the bewildering odyssey they’ve been on since their first single, “Moonstar,” caught the attention of a local radio station and got them signed to their record deal while Wills and Rollins were still at university studying math and philosophy, and engineering, respectively.
Ladies and gentlemen, these aren’t your average rock stars.
Their debut self-titled EP, Mayluna , has been hovering around the top of the British charts all year and has begun blowing up college radio and alternative charts in the US, but when asked about his prediction for the band’s future, Wills takes it all in stride, with a gentle tone above tough, worn boots.
“To keep the dream alive and make a living at it, and hope that somewhere along the way, someone will think that the music we made mattered.”
Are they enjoying success at all? Or do they find the growing fame claustrophobic?
“It’s easier for the rest of us,” says Rollins, lounging across a black leather sofa with long, sapling limbs in the band’s dressing room.
He tosses a mop of blond hair from his eyes and when not talking, seems to be in his own kind of spacey wonderland of ease, while maintaining a close eye on the others.
The laconic Andrews passes by, offering a mere nod in agreement, as Rollins continues.
“I do what I do and can walk off the stage and down the street and nobody knows who I am. The pressure is all on Carter, or at least, it will be, and we know it. When we made the EP, an indie little affair, no one was watching. Now everyone is, and it’s a very different energy. ”
They’re taking regular breaks on the tour while writing their first album.
Pressures are high for it to be a massive success, and they’re well aware of what’s at stake.
To be fair, while the stars may be aligning in their favor amid their apparent insouciance when it comes to success, they’re not about to take anything for granted.
“Five years ago, I was just a kid from a small village outside of York, with the limited experiences of my little world,” reflects Wills.
“I don’t mean that in a bad way. But it was small.
The colors are brighter and fuller now, and the world has become a very, very big place.
There will always be good and bad in that.
We’re learning to enjoy it, or at least to take it as it comes.
But it’ll take time; nothing is a guarantee. ”
He takes an infinite pause before looking up. “And sometimes you just have to trust that the universe will surprise you. Usually when you least expect it.”