Before taking the stage in front of a sold out crowd for their show with I Am The Avalanche, the guys in Make Do And Mend had a few minutes to do a quick interview with PropertyOfZack. James, Mike O, Matt, Mike P, and I discussed the reception to End Measured Mile, their cancelled winter European tour, the recording of a new track for something special, and more. Read up and enjoy!

For the record, could you state your name in Make Do And Mend?
James: My name is James, and I play guitar and sing in Make Do And Mend.
Mike O: I’m Mike, I play guitar.
Matt: My name is Matt. I play drums in Make Do And Mend.
Mike P: I’m Mike, and I play bass in Make Do And Mend.
 
The band has fit as much into the end of the month as possible, starting with a short Canadian tour. How was that?
James: Those dates were awesome. We luckily have been able to play, Cana, Canadia, Canada [Laughs] a lot and it’s one of our favorite places to be. It was a lot of fun.
 
Last night you guys played Tigers Jaw’s record release show and tonight you’re playing a one-off with I Am The Avalanche. How was last night and how much are you looking forward to tonight?
Matt: Last night was amazing. Tigers Jaw is one of our favorite bands to play with. Such close friends and such an amazing band. It was awesome. So many kids were having a blast. It was a nice celebration of a great record that Tigers Jaw just put out.
Mike O: Their record has only been out a couple weeks and everybody knew all the words to it. It was fucking awesome.
Mike P: Tonight we get to play with I Am The Avalanche, who’s like one of my favorite bands of the last decade. Being able to spend tonight with them will be awesome. We’re very excited.
 
End Measured Mile was released in late October. Just a few months later, how was the reception been to it?
James: It’s been really cool. I think any band will tell you that when you put out a new record there is part of you that is really, really nervous to how people are going to react to it and receive it. All I’ve heard is positive feedback, which is amazing. I think we’re really lucky.
 
Have many of the new songs been worked into the live show?
James: Yeah, tonight we’ll be playing three songs off of the new record. They’re just really, really fun to play live. Wait, we’re playing four. They’re so fun that I forget about one sometimes.

How was the writing process for it compared to Bodies Of Water?
James: It was much different.
Mike O: We did a lot of pre-conceptualizing and planning. Once we kind of saw the deadline getting closer and closer, the songs just started coming together a lot quicker than things did before. Once we got into the studio, we really got moving on pre-production and stuff like that. It took a long time overall, but the songs came together pretty quickly.
 
Did you guys enjoy your time in the studio?
Matt: Is fun the right word? [Laughs].
James: Plenty of bands are always like, “Love recording. Being in the studio is so much fun.” For some reason for us, it is always so stressful. We love being able to record new music, but we are such huge critics and perfectionists when it comes to the music that we make that it can sometimes become pretty stressful. We’re definitely happy with the final product.
Matt: The stress, although it was very high, kind of releases some creativity inside of us. The high stress levels result in crazy weird shit that we try. We’ll kind of be going a little bit off the deep end, but that craziness will kind of fuel some good ideas. I think it all goes into the end product. It’s cool.
 
The record was released via Panic Records and Paper + Plastick. How are your relationships with both homes?
James: Really great. Two awesome labels really run by not just genuine people, but dudes who have played in touring bands. It makes the label/band relationship that much smoother when you have someone at the helm that knows how hectic it can sometimes be in a touring band. Both labels are great, great labels.
 
Make Do And Mend were supposed to go on a half-month long UK and European tour with The Sleeping, but it was cancelled. What went wrong?
Matt: Oh, you want me to do that one?
James: Yeah, do that one.
Matt: Uh, I don’t really know the entire and official story from their camp. The story that got back to us was that they backed out of the tour, kind of last minute. Luckily no one had bought plane tickets yet, but all the shows were booked and being promoted. Tickets were on sale for the shows. They ended up backing out of the tour because I think they were offered a bigger tour here in the states.
James: Can we get in trouble for saying that? That’s what happened.
Matt: They were offered a bigger tour here, that’s what happened. I don’t know if that’s taboo to say to whatever.
James: I don’t know if we’re going to end up causing beef, but if we are, fuck it.
Matt: No beef needed.
 
Is there a chance of getting back over there within the first half of 2011 still?
James: We’re going to try our absolute best.
Matt: We’re already talking to the same booking agent about going back over with a different tour package. We’re sort of figuring that out now. It’ll definitely be within the first half of the year.
James: Totally. We have some really nice plans for the spring. We’ll be able to get over there and it’ll be a lot of fun.
 
When might we see some more US dates?
James: Early spring. We’re sort of parked for the winter since that tour got cancelled.
Matt: It was kind of too late to sort of book anything. The tour was supposed to be happening right after Christmas into early January and the Euro tour got cancelled too late to schedule anything that would be beneficial and worthwhile for promoters and people coming out to the shows. We could go out and rush and throw something together, but it made more sense to chill out. We have this new record and we have a lot of work to do for our live show and songs that we want to get tight. There’s a lot of work that we want to put in as a band. It definitely sucks that we have downtime. Some of us have time off from school, some of us took time off from work. We have this whole chunk of time that we thought we’d be gone for and now we’re home. It sucks, but we plan on making the most of it.
Mike P: We’ll hit the states soon, just not as soon as we had hoped.
 
Should we just expect constant touring throughout the year?
James: Yeah, luckily 2010 was a really busy year for us and at this point we can only see it getting busier for 2011, which is A-OK to us.
 
Are there any leftover tracks that didn’t make the record?
James: No, there’s not. We’re going to record a new song though. We can’t talk about it.
Matt: We’re recording a new song for something special that is going to be coming out pretty soon. Kids will be really stoked on it. An announcement is going to be made soon.