Image courtesy of www.meleerocks.com


I got the chance to sit down with Chris, Ryan, and Rick of Mêlée (pronounced may-lay) during the first day of Warped Tour’s stop in Fullerton, CA. It was awesome.

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You guys spell your band name differently, did you do that to be unique?

Chris: Well, we spell it out the way the French word is spelled, rather than m-a-y-l-a-y.

Ryan: The accents kinda confuse people.

Chris: Sometimes they piss people off.

Ryan: You know, figures to be grammatically correct I guess.

Ah I see, alrighty.

Ryan: We’re a band of nerds so we feel strongly about that.

Chris: It’s like a free for all--that’s what it means in French. Chaotic, kinda, in combat, you know a musical free-for-all, with all the different styles we try to incorporate.

How’s Warped Tour been for you guys so far?

Ryan: A lot of fun.

Chris: Yeah.

Ryan: It’s really cool seeing all these cool bands, and then like, trying to make new fans and meeting new people. It’s really awesome...except for the heat.

[Everyone laughs]

Chris: Great way to network with people and get to know, and make friends, with all these bands that you never normally would get the opportunity to tour with.

Are there any bands that you go out and watch? Or are you pretty much staying backstage, or…?

Chris: Yeah, like sometimes we even get to go on stage and watch them from there. Like I watched Yellowcard from on stage. I like watching Thursday, I think they put on an awesome show.

I saw both of them, they were very good.

Chris: Yeah, it’s cool. [Talking to Ryan] How about you?

Ryan: We don’t really spend too much time backstage except to eat and stuff. Mostly we’re out at our booth trying to meet people and everything. I went on stage during Flogging Molly and that was pretty cool.

I watched them too.

Chris: They are sooo good.

It was intense in the picture area, getting hit in the head by security. When you’re on stage, what runs through your mind? Do you think, “My instrument is isn’t working,” or “There's a fan I know”…?

Chris: a lot of different stuff.

Ryan: Yeah.

Chris: Like, most of the time though, it’s our break. When we get up on stage we get to stop trying to sell CD's [Everyone laughs] and we’re doing what we love to do.

Ryan: Yeah.

How do you feel being compared to Something Corporate?

[At the same time] It’s cool.

Ryan: We like those guys, we got to play with them like about a year or so ago I think?

Chris: Yeah.

Ryan: At the House Of Blues, Anaheim, and they were really cool guys.

Chris: We love their music.

So it’s a good comparison?

Chris: I wouldn’t say we entirely sound like them, we have different influences.

[Rick arrives]

Rick: [Mockingly] Vote no on Bush....That was the question, right?

Ryan: No.

[Everyone laughs]

So it’s all good

Ryan: Yeah.

Chris: Totally.

I saw a video, it was a live video on your website, and I noticed you have a lot of female fans and when I watched you today, I noticed there were a lot of girls in the crowd, there were a few guys. What do you think causes that?

Rick: I think...Our lyrics have a lot more poetic energy to it, so naturally girls pick up on that a little better, and when you come to the live show, there’s a lot more energy that would attract guys naturally and I think it’s...

Just something that happens?

[All at once] Yeah.

Chris: [Macho voice] It’s because we are ridiculously good looking. [Laughter]

So its not like you’re trying to get female fans? Hehe.

Rick: Heh, we just do what we do.

Chris: Yeah, we have like 40 year olds saying “I like your CD.”

Ryan: We’re not gonna turn people away cause…hehe, we’re not gonna be like “Sorry, too many girls here, ya gotta go.”

Chris: Yeah, like “We have a quota.”

And you probably don’t mind the girls, hehe.

Rick: [Softly] ...Ryan...

Do you guys ever play acoustic songs in your live sets?

Chris: Not lately, we’ve done acoustic sets before.

Ryan: Yeah...

Chris: We’re more... We just like the energy of full on band prac. Like at our CD release party, I played one of our older songs, just on piano.

Ryan: Yeah it was kinda nice we all left the stage.

Chris: Yeah they got a break.

Ryan: [Laughing] Yeah.

Chris: It just depends.

Whatever you’re feeling that day?

Chris: I don’t know if our songs would come across as well acoustically as-

Rick: Which is weird cause we write all the songs acoustic first.

Ryan: Maybe that’s something we should try...

Chris: Maybe it’s like, out of not doing it. Ignorance.

What’s the most annoying part about being on the Warped Tour? Or any tour for that matter?

Chris: Losing my freaking voice.

Rick: It’s just hard cause you miss people at home after awhile. Chris: Yeah.

Rick: And sometimes it kinda feels like you’re in the army instead of a band.

Chris: [Laughing] Yeah.

Ryan: And as fun as it is, it can be pretty brutal at times.

Yeah, I’m not sure which one of you talked about the lack of showers, during the set today, I think it was you? (Points to Rick)

Rick: [Laughing] That was Chris.

Chris: That is absolutely true.

Rick: But I can vouch for that.

Ryan: We can all vouch for that.

Chris: We have those clean wipes, that you just wipe--and that’s our shower.

Rick: It’s cool though cause you have like fossilized sweat-show-memory on your body. Like, dude, I have sweat--

Chris: From Phoenix!

Rick: --enamled on my body from yesterday’s show, that will forever live till the next shower.

[Laughing] Oh my gosh, you have like rings of sweat.

Rick: Yeah, like a tree.

It's like, 'look at that, 4 rings, 4 days.'

Ryan: Yeah and sometimes, you'll be in the shower and the soap doesn't do it, so I gotta get my tooth brush and really work it in there.

Rick: Yeah, like a sander.

Ryan: That's not really true, but...

Rick: The tooth brush part is.

Ryan: [Laughing]

So you guys are from Southern California...

Chris: Yeah, we're from right across the freeway.

Ryan: Right around here.

Oh really? Cool.

Rick: I went to school here, some of us actually.

Ryan: We're gonna sleep in our beds tonight.

Rick: Yeah.

Ryan: Except our drummer.

What's your favorite venue to play in the Southern California area?

Ryan: We like Chain Reaction a lot.

Chris: House of Blues, Anaheim.

Ryan: House of Blues, Anaheim, is a great venue.

Rick: Chain Reaction, we pretty much grew up there, we were able to establish a stong fan base, so it has a nice sentimental.

Chris: They helped us out a lot, especially John Halper and the whole crew. Good guy.

So no Hollywood places?

Chris: We play Hollywood.

Rick: Yeah.

Ryan: The Knitting Factory is pretty awesome.

Chris: Troubador or The Glasshouse, which is Pomona.

Ryan: I like The Roxy a lot.

Yeah, I like The Roxy, been there a lot.

In ten years, where do you see yourselves? Are you still gonna be playing, or?...Wife and two kids...?

Rick: I personally would like to have a family and still be touring.

Ryan: Yeah, I'd like to be doing this with a family.

So, the best of both worlds?

Ryan: Yeah, totally. Be able to make a living doing this, and be able to afford and RV, or a bus.

Awe, you guys have a van?

Chris: Yeah, we'd love to have a bus.

Ryan: So if anyone wants to donate us a bus, please feel free.

Chris: Hint Hint.

You guys could buy like a school bus, from an auction.

Ryan: Yeah, take all the seats out.

Chris: That's what The Phenomenons did. They have a school bus.

What's your favorite food to eat while on tour?

Chris: The Warped Tour food.

Ryan: Whatever they give us.

Rick: Subway!

Chris: Yeah, we go to Subway a lot, cause it's "healthy."

Rick: I try at least, it's really important, cause once someone gets sick on the road, it's like a domino effect.

Chris: We tried, on our first tours, to eat, like Wendy's and that, and it just tore us apart.

Ryan: And on the first tour, we didn't get these [Holds up Warped Tour ID] with the bar codes, that let you get food backstage. That was bad. But this year it's really good, they have like healthy stuff.

I know they have vegitarian.

Ryan: Yeah.

Rick: They have Vegan.

Chris: And when we have a break, we like to eat sushi.

Ryan: Sushi is amazing.

Rick: Yeah, I'm trying to find time to go to Benihanas.

Ryan: Yeah, that'd be good.

Chris: Tonight.

Do you guys ever do cover songs, or no?

Rick: Yeah.

Chris: Well, not that much lately because we've been doing a lot of stuff with the album but yeah we did everything from like "Mama Said Knock You Out" to-

Rick: "I'm Too Sexy."

Chris: Yeah, "I'm Too Sexy" and we did "I'm Turning Japanese."

Ryan: And "Girls And Boys" by Blur and "My Hero" by Foo Fighters.

So there was a wide array, not just Punk covers, or... Rap [Laughing]

Rick: Everything but rap.

Ryan: Oh yeah, we did a prom and we did learn a bunch of covers for that.

You guys did a prom?

Ryan: Yeah

Rick: We played a couple winter formals and proms.

Ryan: Yeah [Laughing]

Chris: Like Irvine High School

Rick: And a lot of parties so we learned a lot of songs. Toned our musicianship, I think.

Ryan: Yeah

At my school, no bands ever played.

Rick: Which school did you go to?

[Laughing] I live in Palmdale, so I went to Palmdale high. It's like way away.

Ryan: Yeah, we didn't play our school. Our school would probably never do anything like that; Have a real band playing at a dance like that. But we played Irvine High School and that was really fun.

My school always had a DJ. So lame.

[Laughter]

Rick: I'm Rick by the way.

[Laughter]

Alrighty, well that's the last of my interview questions. Thanks!

[All of them] Thanks.

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These guys were awesome. Check 'em out at www.MeleeRocks.com, and they'll be at all the Warped Tour dates playing the "Lyman Says" Stage.

Interview By: Candice