Q&A: Mylar Takes on the Future In Their Nostalgia-Filled Debut Single “Plastic Champ”
SEAMLESSLY MELDING PAST NOSTALGIA WITH A FICKLE PRESENT, London-quartet Mylar envisions a kaleidoscopic future of societal growth with their debut single, “Plastic Champ.” Released on Feb. 1, Mylar takes delight in creating a modern sound with recognizable aspects of bygone musical eras, notably the 1950s to the 1990s.
Each member has a hand in production, with the end result forming a cohesive blend of their unique suits. In “Plastic Champ,” Tom Short croons over a steady yet groovy 80s soundscape, accompanied by harmonious vocals from Rob Janke and Neraj Thangarajah, while Tom Clark lays the foundation of charming synths. The single is accompanied by a music video that can only be described as an animated version of Paris, Texas with just a hint of vaporwave aesthetics (directed by Beatrix Blaise and animated by Qianhui Yu) Lyrically, the track infuses catchy one-liners describing the ever-changing, limited language regarding masculinity and how it taps into the attitudes and behaviors of men.
Combining the forces of its members to create a collective moment of musical nostalgia and newness, Mylar draws from their own shared cultural memories as millennials, and how outdated values creep in and clash with the progress of the present. With plans to release an EP in the coming months as well as easing into post-pandemic live shows in London, we gather insight on the quirky personalities and creative processes of Mylar.
LUNA: So how is the new year going for everyone?
MYLAR: It’s good, it’s pretty cold.
NERAJ THANGARAJAH: It’s pretty exciting because it’s like, all the live stuff is coming up now, so that’s pretty fun.
TOM SHORT: It’s been a long way to release some music, and also just the way gigs have been, everything’s been pretty weird on a live front, especially in the UK. So now that things are getting in a more normal direction, we’re playing some shows- that feels really good. And we’re like playing this music that we’ve been working on for a year, essentially. So that’s really cool.
LUNA: What can audiences expect from the project? Is it a conceptual type of thing, or is it more of a variety of sounds that you guys wanted to include?
TOM CLARK: We want to create a sound world when people come and see us, that’s identifiably us, but also draws on references that people would be familiar with. And that could be an 80s disco tune, that you might hear a drumbeat on the chorus of a song- or it could be a 70s guitar lick, or even a 50s guitar lick in some songs, a couple of those. Also kind of putting on a modern twist on the sorts of things we’re doing with the drums, using samples, and we want it to feel kind of familiar but new.
LUNA: What draws you guys to those sounds in particular? I hear it, and it’s kind of groovy- a constant beat.
ROB JANKE: I think it’s the feeling of nostalgia that we like to draw into the music. So I guess it’s some of those iconic sounds from various decades in the past, and the 80s is one, and as Tom said, we like to draw on the 70s and other decades as well, and certainly 90s as well. So that feeling of taking someone back to a lost classic- it’s quite nice. But also to combine that with modern production to try and create a new sound.
THANGARAJAH: I think it also allows us to be a bit more creative with sounds in the songs. It’s not like, “oh we’ve got a guitar, so it’s a guitar sound.” It’s like, “let’s explore.” I think doing that allows us to paint more broad strokes when it comes to these songs, which is really cool.
SHORT: It’s like painting a mood, almost creating a character out of it, like when you’re writing it, you’re just imagining a figure. I think sometimes putting that whole thing into context, with the sounds that you’re using, really helps. And that specific song is sort of a weird, 80s-electro complex.
LUNA: How does the track delve into the topic of masculinity?
SHORT: I was imagining a character who is sort of like, running away from something, but you’re hearing the ranting, that raving about, and they’re kind of saying- the nonstop praises which you hear, which in a way almost sound dated. The word “champ” for example. It’s not actually in the song, but I was thinking about it. You don’t really say “champ” to anyone anymore, but it kind of has that connotation. I was thinking alongside that about it, like even though we don’t really say those things anymore, because obviously there’s a bit more awareness around how you’re approached by gender and that kind of thing. But the legacy of them is still with us, and we still are very much dealing with that kind of way of speaking to each other with masculinity, so I just had that kind of idea of that character.
ROB: I was just going to say another line that brings out the theme: “they’ll make a man out of me yet” line. It’s quite an old-school kind of phrase.
TOM C.: Yeah, like something you heard in the 60s.
TOM S.: Like that whole stiff-upper-lip thing. I think it’s quite like, English as well. I’m sure there’s an American [saying] as well. It’s that kind of phrasing that we wouldn’t say to each other because we’re like, millennials. You feel that slight presence of that kind of thinking.
TOM C.: Is it fine not to be fine?
ROB: You only have to go back to your parents. You don’t have to go very far back. Or even people our age that we went to school with, it’s all around us.
LUNA: I feel like that ties in really well because you’re talking about old terms, and mixing it in with new, and how you navigate the modern world, and that’s what you’re doing with the genres. Old and new. So I feel like that’s a really good way to get that across. What is everyone’s role in the band?
JANKE: I play drums, and I do backing vocals as well. So that from a live side, and I do lots of production- and I mean we all write, and we all produce as well, so yeah. Drums and vocals for me.
SHORT: I sing, I play keys and bass.
CLARK: I play guitar and keys as well.
THANGARAJAH: I sing, play guitar and keys.
LUNA: Were you previously friends or did you meet within the last few years?
THANGARAJAH: I’ve known Tom (Clark) since we were like 15. Then we’ve been in various projects, mostly bad ones. And then separately I met this Tom (Short), who was going out with one of my friends at the time. And we just started making music together, and this Tom (Clark) was in Spain at the time and we sent him some music, and then when he came back to London he was like “yeah this is cool.” We started working as a three, and then we didn’t have a drummer, and I met Rob through a friend as well. Rob was pretty new to the band at the time, and it was kind of just like a perfect fit straight away.
CLARK: We met in a pub previously to sort of talk about what our intentions were and the kind of music we wanted to make, and Rob came from sort of a slightly different background- we were worried that maybe he wasn’t going to be into the influences that we had. And then we were like, “he seems great, we really want to write music with him,” and he came down to a practice, and we were like, “let’s see if he can drum,” and he was amazing and we were like, “oh god this is great!”
LUNA: What are everyone’s specific influences in terms of artists or albums?
JANKE: Well I think, with me over the past year, I’ve been listening to a lot of Caroline Polachek and Oklou, who’s like a French electronic producer. So those two albums, Pang and Galore, I think those are pretty good influences from a more like, sophisticated production side. And maybe not necessarily like new stuff- Talking Heads.
CLARK: Like Remain in Light.
THANGARAJAH: I think for me, a big one has been new wave stuff, so a lot of the 80s new wave things. I really like bands like Depeche Mode, I think some of that stuff does come through a little bit, the synth sounds that we have. But I think at the same time, we just like quite upfront, good pop music as well. Like The Alan Parsons Project stuff is really good pop music in its purest form.
CLARK: We all just love music, everyone listens to loads of different stuff all the time and we kind of take things from lots of different places really.
JANKE: The Manchester sound as well. New Order.
LUNA: It’s actually really impressive to have that much knowledge and that much creativity and kind of put it all together that way and for it to still sound cohesive and also new but you know where it’s coming from.
JANKE: I think we are very democratic.
SHORT: We have some pretty chaotic Spotify playlists for sure.
JANKE: But the decision-making is good.
CLARK: There are always those moments where you cut a part that someone’s really attached to, and it’s not a great moment, but you sacrifice it for the song. That’s something that we try to work at. Make the song sound greater, fit together in that kind of world that we’re trying to create.
THANGARAJAH: We always do what’s best for the song.
JANKE: We’re definitely learning as well. I haven’t known these guys for that long, and everyone’s got so many different reference points for why they think something should sound a certain way. So it’s quite nice to learn from each other and learn different reference points. One of us might be really melodic, and one of us is really rhythmic- and I’m forever shoehorning rhythm- and one of the others might go to melody first and that’s their priority based on people they’ve listened to. We’ve just come at it from completely different angles. But it’s quite nice having a conversation about it, getting references out, playing a few songs on Spotify, and discussing it, and then we’ll always get it to a place where we think it sounds good. That’s kind of how we work, I think.
LUNA: What is the idea or story behind the music video?
SHORT: I did a very loose brief, and I was just relating it to the song - it is quite cartoonish, and I just had this image of a sort of desperate guy running through the desert, like in Paris, Texas. But then this director responded- Beatrix Blaise- who’s done a lot of great videos- and she just took the concept and improved it in every way. She had the really cool idea of combining live-action with cartoons in a Space Jam kind of way. We found this animator called Q, and she has a very specific style- it just really works. The idea was to have two characters, to have them be the “good” and the “bad” side of masculinity almost, like the angel and demon on your shoulder. So that’s basically what the two characters are in the video. And they’re kind of tussling as the narrative, while we’re doing stuff in this weird bar that we’re in, and they’re kind of duking it out, and at the end, it gets resolved. I think she did a really cool job with bringing it to life and giving it these weird personalities.
LUNA: What do you guys have planned for the year?
SHORT: This is the first song as a part of an EP release.
JANKE: The EP will be out in April.
SHORT: And then there will be more songs coming out from that, and then we’re just hoping to play a lot more live, and working on more music.
JANKE: We’re already kind of deep into writing the second EP, so that will be a big focus for writing, and we’ve got this sort of bank of rough cuts, of tracks and ideas that we’re looking to finalize and put all the nice little sprinkles of. Finish the songs, and wrap up that second EP. But yeah, we’re focusing on getting this first single launched, doing that some justice, and getting live gigs under our belt because I think due to the pandemic, it’s obviously been very difficult to gig, and also the arrangements live are quite complicated in terms of- there’s lots of instruments, lots of swapping of instruments, and so we’ve had logistical things to figure out which we’ve done now and now we’re just honing in on our performance and play lots of shows.
THANGARAJAH: With the EP, we didn’t write it with “live” in mind because we weren’t expecting to play shows so soon, so I think that’s part of why that happened. When we approach it to live, it’s like “how do we actually play this now?” Whereas I think with the newer ones, we’ve actually gotten to get together a lot more and there’s been a lot more of a live focus. Which is exciting.
SHORT: And we’re playing these gigs and testing these new songs out on people, which is a really good way to work out what sounds good and works. Which you can’t do when you’re at home on your laptop late at night.
LUNA: Yeah I mean you’re just sending things out into the void, and you have no one around you- there’s no way to gauge that. Also, I’m curious- if you could listen to one album for the rest of your life, what would it be?
CLARK: I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say if I could listen to one album for the rest of my life, it would be Skawalker, Four. And we listened to it today, which is why it’s fresh in my mind.
SHORT: I would maybe say Hejira by Joni Mitchell.
THANGARAJAH: I would probably pick Five Leaves Left by Nick Drake.
JANKE: I would have to say the David Byrne album…My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. That’s based on this week.
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