Mad Painter Want Rock Songs to Feel Like Events Again
Punk Head: Island Poetry wears its influences proudly. Was there ever a temptation to keep those inspirations hidden, or did transparency feel more honest?
Mad Painter: Transparency always felt more honest. We have never treated our influences as something that needs to be concealed. Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Status Quo, Rainbow, Queen and the other bands associated with the album are part of our musical vocabulary. They provide starting points, but the finished songs still sound like Mad Painter because they pass through our personalities, arrangements and way of playing together.
Rock music has always developed through musicians taking inspiration from one another. The important question is not whether an influence can be heard, but whether the band brings something personal to it. We are not trying to convince people that this music appeared from nowhere. We would rather invite listeners into the process and allow them to recognize some of the reference points.
There is also something enjoyable about saying that one track began with Deep Purple in mind and another with Status Quo or Ganymed. It gives listeners an entrance into the album without completely explaining the destination. The inspirations may be recognizable, but none of the songs is simply an imitation.
Punk Head: You move from Deep Purple to Motörhead to space disco on the same album. Was sequencing the record almost as important as writing it?
Mad Painter: Yes, because a collection of stylistically varied songs can easily feel random unless the sequence creates a convincing journey. The track order had to make the changes in style feel natural rather than abrupt.
The album begins with eccentric, energetic rock and roll and moves into heavier hard rock. It then opens out into space rock and art rock before reaching the more progressive, bluesy and free-roaming material. That leads into dramatic balladry, after which “Stand Your Ground” brings in the Motörhead-inspired heavy-metal attack and wakes the listener up again. The album then culminates in the grandeur of “Circle of Hands.”
The songs do not form a literal narrative, but the sequencing gives the record an emotional and musical progression. It allows the different styles to feel like parts of the same experience. In that sense, arranging the album was certainly an important part of composing its overall identity.
Punk Head: “Tommy Lost It All” is described as the most distinctly Mad Painter song. What makes it different from the rest?
Mad Painter: Most of the tracks have an identifiable external musical starting point, but “Tommy Lost It All” comes directly from the sound Mad Painter has developed over the years. It is a ballad with lyrics by Dmitry M. Epstein, and it continues a particular tradition within the band that I believe began with songs such as “Soldier Boy.”
The Hammond organ and piano carry much of the wistful melancholy, while layered guitar adds another emotional dimension above them. It is not built around heaviness or stylistic novelty. Its strength comes from atmosphere, melody and the interaction between keyboards and guitar.
We have recorded several ballads with that character, and they possess what I sometimes call the patented Painter sound. There is sadness in them, but also warmth and a certain theatrical quality. “Tommy Lost It All” feels less like our interpretation of a particular influence and more like something that could only have emerged from the history of Mad Painter itself.
Punk Head: Did working with lyricist Dmitry M. Epstein ever take a song somewhere you wouldn’t have gone on your own?
Mad Painter: Yes. Dmitry’s writing frequently introduces images, characters, turns of phrase and emotional perspectives that I would not necessarily have arrived at by myself. I still compose the music and have to find the appropriate musical setting for his words, but the lyrics can change the direction, atmosphere or dramatic weight of a song.
That is one of the advantages of collaboration. When I write both the words and music, they naturally emerge from the same mind and often develop together. When Dmitry supplies the lyrics, I am responding to somebody else’s imagery. That can force me out of my habitual patterns and make me hear a different kind of song inside the words.
Six of the twelve tracks on Island Poetry feature his lyrics, so his voice is an important part of the album. At the same time, the musical settings remain recognizably Mad Painter. The contrast between his literary perspective and the band’s musical instincts creates something neither of us would necessarily have produced independently.
Punk Head: The Hammond organ isn’t simply an accompaniment in Mad Painter. It often competes with the guitar for the spotlight. As a songwriter, how does beginning from the keyboard change the architecture of a rock song?
Mad Painter: Beginning from the keyboard means that the song does not automatically develop according to the usual guitar-based architecture of rock music. The Hammond can provide rhythm, harmony, texture and a lead voice at the same time. It can create the foundation of the song, but it can also challenge the guitar and answer it.
In Mad Painter, the organ is not added after the essential structure has already been established. It is often part of that structure from the beginning. That affects the riffs, the chord movement and the amount of space available to the other instruments. The guitar does not have to carry the entire weight of the arrangement, so it can become more melodic, atmospheric or conversational.
Deep Purple and Uriah Heep demonstrated how powerful that relationship can be. The organ and guitar can cooperate, compete or trade places within the same song. That tension gives the music a larger and more dramatic shape. It also allows the arrangement to keep changing without losing its central identity.
Punk Head: Mad Painter celebrates a period when rock bands weren’t afraid to be ambitious, melodic and unapologetically larger than life. Looking at today’s rock landscape, what do you think audiences are still hungry for that the genre hasn’t been giving them enough of?
Mad Painter: I think many listeners are still hungry for songs that feel like events rather than pieces of content. They want memorable melodies, strong personalities, musicians interacting with one another and arrangements that are allowed to develop beyond the most efficient possible structure.
There is still an audience for theatricality, mystery and a certain amount of excess. Rock does not always have to be restrained, ironic or self-conscious. It can be emotional, dramatic and larger than life without becoming empty or ridiculous. The great bands of the 1970s could be heavy, melodic, progressive, humorous and completely serious within the same album—and sometimes within the same song.
Audiences also respond to the sound of real musical identities. They want to recognize the character of a singer, guitarist, keyboard player or rhythm section rather than hear everything polished toward the same standard. That does not mean modern production has no value. We recorded Island Poetry digitally, but used that technology to recover warmth, movement and personality rather than eliminate them.
I believe people remain hungry for complete albums, distinctive musicianship and music that creates its own world. Mad Painter exists partly because we still believe rock can provide all of those things.
