What It's Like Having Hardcore Metal Fans Fall In Love With You

Seven days. That's how long MS MR singer Lizzy Plapinger has been holed up in her hometown of New York City, on vocal rest. Media interviews had to be postponed, going out with her friends was off limits, and the only upside was the chance to spend some quality time with her cats.

"We had two shows during that week, which is why I was on such strict vocal rest because I didn't want to have to cancel them. It was so weird not to be able to write music or talk to people; it's a horrible feeling, especially as I'm such a social fuckin' butterfly and a chatty Cathy.

"At the end of the seven days I was jumping out of my skin ready to go out with my friends. It's so rare that I'm home, so it was torturous."

Despite the layoff, Plapinger and the other half of MS MR, Max Hershenow, are well placed to make 2016 another big year. Hot on the heels of 2015 and the release of their second record, How Does It Feel, MS MR have a year of extensive touring planned, throughout North America in particular. Luckily for us, the good folks at Groovin The Moo were proactive and lined up the band for a two week stint in Australia.

"I've heard pretty wild things about these [regional Groovin The Moo] audiences because they don't often get some of these overseas bands coming through their territories."

"Groovin The Moo was locked in pretty early," Plapinger continues. "We were keen to get back to Australia as soon as possible [after being here most recently for Splendour In The Grass last year]. We've played some of the major Australian cities, like when we did Laneway Festival a few years ago, but we really wanted to get deeper into the country.

"I've heard pretty wild things about these [regional Groovin The Moo] audiences because they don't often get some of these overseas bands coming through their territories."

MS MR are planning to make their festival show worth the trip. "How Does it Feel was really written with the stage in mind. When we wrote [2013's debut] Secondhand Rapture, neither Max nor I had been in a band before, so we weren't really thinking about how we were going to perform it or what it'd sound like live. But with How Does It Feel we came in thinking about the types of performers we'd become on stage, and how we wanted our audiences to feel and how we wanted to engage them, so they translated to stage almost immediately."

Listening to How Does it Feel side by side with Secondhand Rapture, this pivot towards writing for stage quickly becomes clear. Compare even the first bars of the former's opening track, Painted, with numbers like Hurricane or Bones from the latter, and the difference in tempo is proof alone.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Plapinger and Hershenow wrote upwards of 60 songs for How Does It Feel — "There were tons that I love that will probably never see the light of day, but if one of us dies there's plenty of material for another MS MR record or two" — or maybe it's simply due to the maturation of the band and the realisation that they should play to their strengths.

"I'm really pleased how we narrowed it down to the songs that made the record. [Our new songs] have so much more energy than the last record, and they go down really well on stage, propelling us forward. Of course, we throw in plenty of material from Secondhand Rapture, so the show's a good balance of old and new."

There's a difference, too, playing on a festival line-up as opposed to a club show. For one, not everyone cares about you. "It's definitely a different experience; I fucking love playing at festivals," Plapinger explains.

"For me it's fun to have the confidence that we know fans will come to our own shows, but I actually get off on the fact that at a festival a lot of people are going to be there who have never heard of the band before, let alone our actual songs. That's a fun challenge, because when you're bring out the best version of yourself and win over that crowd, it's an amazing feeling.

"We played these festivals in Germany called Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, and they're basically huge rock festivals [to give the uninitiated an idea, 2016's festival is headlined by Black Sabbath, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Bring Me The Horizon], and I think we were the only band on the bill who even had a female in the band.

"But for whatever reason it was absolutely awesome and we got so many messages from people saying they were hardcore metal fans that they never listen to pop music, but that they absolutely fell in love with the band."

As one of the few international headliners on the Groovin The Moo bill [especially after the withdrawal of fellow Americans Mutemath and Vic Mensa], most people at the regional festival will be aware of MS MR. And for Plapinger, the chance to bring their music to new Australian fans is one of the reasons the band were so keen to get back Down Under.

"We got so many messages from people saying they were hardcore metal fans that they never listen to pop music, but that they absolutely fell in love with the band."

"I think [Groovin The Moo] is gonna take us to a lot of new places that we've never been to. We're lucky that we've been able to come to Australia as many times as we have, but in some ways it's not ideal that we can't dive right into the country. This festival will be the perfect opportunity to do just that."

Groovin The Moo has historically placed an emphasis on Australian artists, but far from being intimidated by the local reputations of The Rubens and Alison Wonderland, Plapinger is excited to see those artists perform songs that — surprisingly — she knows quite well.

"I don't know [the artists] on a personal level, but I know a lot of their music. I find myself listening to triple j quite a lot because it's a good station and Australians are keen to listen to new music. We actually played Laneway with The Rubens, and I think they were kinda the breakout band the same year we were playing."

The band Plapinger's most excited to hang out with on what she calls a "travelling summer camp", though, is one that hails from much closer to home. "I've loved Ratatat since I was 18. Their song 17 Years was one of the first electronic songs that I ever heard and fell in love with. They went to a neighbouring school to Max and me."

While they're in Australia, MS MR are also taking the opportunity to reconnect with some of their city fans courtesy of a string of sideshows in Melbourne and Sydney, as well as their first ever headline shows in Brisbane and Perth.

"For us, two-and-a-half weeks is a pretty decent chunk of time, and we've managed to tie in a free day in Perth on my birthday as our final day in Australia. Hopefully we're gonna get some beach time, but I don't know. It's May, so maybe that's a bit ambitious."