France’s Billy Mays Band felt a need to return to his roots and crafted a new EP. Introspection is eight mind-blowing, ear-satisfying tracks of original synthwave. Featuring May’s rock solid electric guitar work, world class production values, and well composed melodies, Introspection is an instant classic in the genre.
Thanks to Nathalie at Lazerdisc Records, we got the chance to preview Introspection and speak with the Billy Mays Band.
Slickster: Billy thanks for sharing your upcoming album with us! The opening track, Mindscape Crash Landing, starts the album off with a serious ACDC meets Joe Satriani groove with huge rocking guitars! Loved it. This is one of these songs that is impossible to play too loud and the faster you drive, ride, ski, row .. etc, the better it sounds.
Can you describe how you wrote and recorded this track?
Mays: First, I wanted to thank you about this interview. I’m really glad to answer your questions! This was the last song I wrote for “Introspection”. The main theme was haunting my mind for three or four years. I tested many different versions of this track before, enough to make a ten-track album… Haha. All of them were only played with machines and synths. When I decided to add some guitar to it, the way I wanted to hear it became obvious and the track was finished pretty fast.
Slickster: Track 6 on Introspection, Take My Hand, features a collaboration with Fred Colombo. We are big fans of Fred’s work in Red Soda. How did the partnership come together, what was it like working with Fred, and is there any plans to work with him again in the future?
Mays: I met Fred for the first time in Paris in 2017 for the release party of “Waves”, the first EP of Red Soda. I played a DJ set at the end of the party. I was very impressed by his keyboard playing. We started to talk at that moment, and now, we chat every day like old bros. His Keytar solo on “Private Sunset” – the fourth track of my previous EP “Afterlife” – was recorded some weeks after we met, in a very natural way. Fred is more than just a musician I hire for a featuring on our work. He gives precious music advice and his life philosophy is inspiring. Our collaboration is only beginning (I think, hu, Fred?).
Slickster: We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again… France always seems to be at the vanguard of the electronic music scene. Why, in your opinion, is this the case?
Mays: We invented the famous French Baguette, we can only be on top everywhere else.
Slickster: Your bio states that you,”produce music for ads & short film.” What short films have you worked on? Have you done any composing for video games, or interested in doing so?
Mays: I worked on one of my best friend Neslon Gilot’s projects. He’s a film-maker and asked me music for the ads and the films he produces. One of them, “Les Oiseaux”, was presented at the 2012 Short Film Corner in Cannes. I’m about to start a new soundtrack for him. It’s not Synthwave at all. I already have some of my tracks in a video game called “Socketeer”, released last year by Ice Beam.
Slickster: Let’s talk about your guitar playing – it’s phenomenal! Many synthwave artists incorporate live musical instruments into preprogrammed tracks, however, there are plenty of guitarists that leave a lot to be desired. Either they can’t execute the difficult passages, or their rhythmic and melodic ideas are lukewarm. You don’t suffer from either of of those short comings. How have you developed your technique on guitar?
Mays: I used to play a lot of different styles of music like classic rock, hard rock, metal, blues, funk, etc… I think my playing is kind of a mix of all these styles. I learned with time that there’s no nead to put too many notes per seconds to have a good riff or solo. I try to put my heart and soul in every note I play, and this way of playing comes from blues music, I think.
Slickster: Did you learn to play guitar by ear (transcribing), or using tabs, or do you have a formal music education?
Mays: No music eductation, only hours and hours playing until my fingers said “Hey man, you should stop now!”. I started with tabs, fifteen years ago, playing on my uncle’s electric guitar who has been hanging in an attic for twenty years. It looked like more as a bow than a guitar, the strings were about twelve milimeters away from the neck. “Sweat Child O’ Mine” was the first track I started to learn.
Slickster: What artistic advice would you give to yourself, if you could go back in time?
Mays: Maybe to be less perfectionist, more productive. I spend a lot of time fixing little things like “Should I move this pad chord from here to there” or “Is this open hi-hat open enough”. Without this perfectionist approach, I would certainly be working on my tenth album by now.
Slickster: 2019 has been a busy summer for you and live performances in support of Introspection. Have has the touring been going so far?
Mays: All of 2019 was busy. Lot of work producing “Introspection” and a lot of time spent preparing live shows, working on severals collaborations like “DNA War”, with Absolute Valentine released in February on Lazerdiscs Records… I need to be under pressure, that makes me work better. Many other things are still in progress, 2020 will not be a boring year.
Slickster: Synthwave music and culture is genuinely taking off around the world. It’s not limited to Europe, North America, or South America. Why do you think this is? What makes this resurgence and reimagination of 80’s cult music and films so popular?
Mays: It’s a really cool thing, all these people are linked by nostalgia of those blessed years, the 80’s. What is more nostalgic than a VHS video? The cathodic TV screen you used to watch it? Maybe the future we see in 80’s movies is more attractive than the one we are actually building. Synthwave is like a big familly, there are no borders. It’s not music and movies that make this universe real, it’s the energy that people put in it to make it more and more alive.
Slickster: Name your top five 80’s video games or movies (or a combination of them).
Mays: To be honest, I’m not a big movie fan, and game player neither. I was born at the end of the 80’s. I grew up with games like “Tetris”, “Kirby’s Dream Land”, “Pokemon”, “Zelda, Ocarina of Time”, “GoldenEye”, etc… but most of them are from the 90’s. Movies : “Back To The Future”, “Robocop”, “The Big Blue”, “The Shining”, “Terminator”, and stuff like that.
Slickster: Thanks for chatting with Slickster. Is there anything you’d like to add, mention or promote before we end the interview?
Mays: Yes, big thanks to Dimitri Guindet, the man without whom my album would still be a draft, SeYSMIC for being such a patient and lovely guy, Atomcyber for the amazing cover artwork he made, and Lazerdiscs Records for the trust they put in this release.
Kisses to everyone.
Thanks a lot for your time and for the opportunity!
