Mikey Erg has been a New Jersey punk rock staple since the turn of the millennium, starting out as the drummer and lead vocalist for The Ergs. Over the years, he’s collaborated on a list of projects so long we could fill the magazine if we sat down and tried to list them all, so we’ll give a few highlights like Dirt Bike Annie, Star Fucking Hipsters, and most recently, Worriers.
He’s also established a stellar solo career, and his third album, Love At Leeds, was just released via Don Giovanni Records. The record has him joining up with Jeff Rosenstock on electric and acoustic guitar and piano, Alex Clute on bass, and Lou Hanman on drums while shredding his own six-string and handling percussion. It showcases how talented of a songwriter he is and how he isn’t afraid to embrace his own pop sensibilities.
The legendary Steve Albini from Big Black and Shellac recorded the album at his recording studio Electrical Audio in Chicago. The experience fulfilled a longtime dream for Erg, and it was made possible through the record label he’s a part of.
“Joe (Steinhardt) from Don Giovanni Records has worked there before, and he’s formed a bit of a relationship with Steve,” he says about how Albini got involved. “Steve’s produced Screaming Females records, and Joe’s done a talk with him, so they’ve had a personal relationship, so at some point, I texted Joe to see if it would be possible at all to do a record with Steve.
“He called him right then and there to find out, and he said, ‘Yes, it’s absolutely possible,’ so Joe booked it, and we just made it happen after that. It’s been a dream of mine since I was 13 years old, since I first heard Nirvana’s In Utero. I wanted that sound on one of my records, and it ended up working out.”
“It was an incredible experience,” Erg says. “Super quick, super easy, we did the whole record in five days, and from the first second, it sounded exactly how I wanted it to sound. It’s the only record I’ve made that I feel sounds exactly like I thought it was going to sound.”
One of the notable tracks on Love At Leeds is an amplified rendition of The Hollies’ “On A Carousel.” The song was bouncing around Erg’s noggin’ during the songwriting process for the album, so he figured he’d include a version of it.
“I was sitting around one day; I was writing the record, and that song kept on getting stuck in my head,” He talks about including the cover. “I just started playing it, and then I figured I’d put it on the record. I like putting a cover deep in a record just to show my influences and stuff like that. It was really just a spur-of-the-moment decision; I texted the band: ’I think I want to do ‘On A Carousel’ by The Hollies,’ and they were like ‘Ok, let’s do it.’ Not much more thought than that went into it; it was just a song that had been floating around my head when I was writing the record, so I decided to put it on.”
One of the singles off the album, “Caroline Told Me So,” came out on May 24 , and the accompanying music video pays homage to Pop Art pioneer Roy Lichtenstein while also having a bunch of different shots of drawings of women talking on the phone. The song is a parody of gossip and rumor spreading, so Erg thought the aesthetic would mesh perfectly.
“Initially I wanted different covers for the different singles on the record, and that popped into my head as an idea for the single cover,” He mentions about how the music video came to be.
“I’ve always loved that Lichtenstein print that has the woman on the phone with the speech bubble, and the idea for the single cover ended up not working out. I then got on Facebook, asking, ‘Who do I know that makes good animation videos?’ and a buddy of mine hit me up saying that he did. I told them how I wanted it to be a Lichtenstein-type video, and they were like, ‘Yeah, I can do that.’ A couple weeks later, he came back to me with the finished product, and it was exactly what I was picturing. I think of the song as kind of a gossipy party line, so the images in that video just worked.”
Erg considers Love At Leeds to be a “fun little pop record,” and he hopes the listener takes it for what it is when they press play. He also considers it to have the best sound quality of anything he’s ever released.
“I think it’s a batch of pretty good pop songs, and I hope people get some enjoyment out of it,” he mentions about the album. “I really do think it’s absolutely the best sounding thing I’ve ever done, and as a whole, it came together perfectly.”
Watch the video for “Sick As Your Secrets” here:
For more from Mikey Erg, find him on Instagram and Twitter.
Photo courtesy of Toni Skotcher
