CheekyChicago

Cheeky: With a name like Murder By Death some might assume that you’re a metal band. How would you describe your music? What message, if any, are you hoping to relay to your listeners?

Adam Turla: We don’t agree on anything very much. We wanted to be a band that was making dark music without being heavy. That was sort of the goal, the mission statement. We just enjoy darker movies, darker books, and we thought it would be cool to make artistic music that captures that mood. I feel that with dark music you either get metal or Goth, and then you have on the other side very minimal singer/songwriter stuff. I don’t feel like there are a ton of rock or indie bands that are doing mostly minor dark material. We were trying to find a little niche for ourselves and do our own style. There is a group of people that don’t want Goth music or happy up-beat music; they want something that’s a little more complex. You complicate it in terms of the tone. I love to write songs that have maybe an uplifting message over dark music. I love to try and blend the moods to create a three dimensional story of that song. I want you to be able to hear a song and like it for the melody, or the performance, or to dig into the lyrics. I want to be a storyteller and my bandmates are really great at translating those stories into songs.

Cheeky: MBD is signed to Vagrant Records. How did that happen? Were there any difficulties while trying to get signed?

AT: Not really. We’ve got five full-lengths out. Vagrant had approached us to be our show directors and we had ended up going with somebody else for awhile. They came back when we going to put out the forth record and it was a pretty simple offer. Vagrant gives us the freedom we require to creatively do whatever we like. We did a soundtrack to a science fiction book and we did a series of seven-inch records where we cover our friend’s songs and they cover ours, and they’ve just let me put those out myself. There’s a lot of freedom and that’s what attracts me to working with them. They take care of the records and they let me do everything else.

Cheeky: You’re currently on tour promoting MBD’s new album Good Morning, Magpie.  What’s the best part of touring for you?

AT: We did a seven week US tour as headliner and then we did five weeks in Europe and we’re about to go out again starting on Tuesday and then we’re about to do a four week headliner in September. We already played 75 shows for this album. What can I say, it’s been nice to be able to cover the whole U.S. many times and to cover Europe. It’s fun and really great to make a living off of being creative.