Interview with Jason Rule and Kevin O’Donnell | By Eli Enis
Queen Moo’s 2015 self-titled debut sounds like it was composed atop a dinghy that was dragged out to sea by a formidable riptide, then recorded shortly after washing up on shore, the band still wracked by seasickness. It is a wobbly, seemingly nausea-induced bucket of songs that lurch, rattle, and tumble over themselves in a remarkably Captain Jack Sparrow-esque manner: charmingly precarious and ultimately terrific. Despite lyrical indications of instability—like “My head’s been cloudy for three long years / I’ve been too fucked up to think” on the standout “Don’t Think I Do”—the arrangements are elaborate, and the band held their liquor while sweeping through licks that most couldn’t nail sober.
However, unlike the increasingly self-destructive Sparrow, Queen Moo cooled it on the booze for their second voyage, Mean Well, which launched in late August via the port of Topshelf Records, setting sail at the helm of a sturdier vessel in the form of crisper production and with two new crew members aboard.
The Connecticut outfit—skippered by prolific DIY-sters, guitarist and vocalist Jason Rule and bassist and vocalist Kevin O’Donnell—still sound like they forgot their anchor on Mean Well, but it’s a choice that allows the band to venture into territory that other landlocked acts have deemed too risky. That’s what makes Queen Moo so thrilling. Their songs don’t rely on preplanned coordinates, instead taking the shape of the churning waves below and leading listeners to unexpected destinations.
“Our M.O. is kind of to just stand out,” Rule says. “That’s what we always want to do.”
“It’s often driven by ‘What would a band we really don’t like do here?’ and ‘Let’s not do that,’” O’Donnell adds, describing their approach to writing.
Seafaring wordplay aside, the band really don’t sound like anyone else in their corner of the musical globe. Topshelf has been host to many of the noted “emo revival” releases of the 2010s, but “emo”—or even a tag as ambiguous as “indie rock”—would be a lazy, inaccurate description of Queen Moo’s peculiar timbre. Rule’s abstract vocals have more of a Sinatra vibrato than anything out of the last half-century, and not a single moment on the largely through-composed Mean Well sounds like its suckling from the teat of ‘90s nostalgia. In fact, the band say that people often label them as jazz.
“We love jazz, and most of our collective listening is jazz music, but we’re not trying to make jazz music,” O’Donnell says. “We almost always describe ourselves as rock ‘n’ roll. With no modifiers or footnotes with that.”
It’s a badge they wear proudly on Mean Well. From the explosive intro track, “What It Comes To,” to the jagged rhythms in “Gone” to the unplanned horns in “Goals”—the band say their friend unexpectedly showed up at the studio with a trumpet—to the face-melting solo closing out the record on “Ariel,” Queen Moo truly embody the boundless spirit of rock ‘n’ roll.
“It’s really just the only way we know how to do things,” Rule says.
