InMe on art of hard-to-pin-down

InMe’s debut album ‘Overgrown Eden’ – obviously referring to the corporate music’s overblown crap that clogs creativity of the few truly talented ones – finds them in an unspoilt part of the garden. It’s partly been cultivated but now they’ve finished landscaping it: full of vegetation that blossoms all-year round, rare flora species, various smells… Still, this isnot a microbiotic’s heaven; InMe bite with strictly carnivorous snap.

Down on the planet, the band is playing the album live with such power, confidence and coolness that one’s reaction is a chin hitting the deck, cartoon-stylee. Using elements of, perhaps, twenty different sources, their sound can’t be simply sound-byte’d. It will certainly impress even more upon discovering that two, led by singer/guitarist Dave McPherson, have hit 20 on the age-o-meter while their drummer, Simon Taylor, is a boy of 19; their music sounds as mature as created by musos a decade older at least.

We get down talking with bassist/backing vocalist and the most energetic person onstage, Joe Morgan, commencing the conversation by complimenting on their killer shows.

“Thank you very much; we just go out and try to give it our real. We are a band that prides itself on passion and we very much get into it every night. The crowd feeds off which bounces back and makes the atmosphere even more…” (Electric?)

“It’s the kind of music we play,” Morgan happily continues, “we are very organic band. We don’t sit and write songs in a particular style, whatever we think it is good – it can go in. Like you said, it is a lot of different things that go into the mix, a lot of different ideas are floating about and there is no limitation on music. We don’t see ourselves as part of any kind of… music type.”

Daze seized, souls pleased

This Essex trio grew out of a friendship of two boys, “me and Dave met at the first day of the primary school,” Morgan offhandedly comments. By the age of 13 they plugged in their instruments, Taylor joined along, rehearsed, demoed and played as much as they could until, in October 2001, the trio inked their contract and could really start to push their musical vision.

The band’s plethora of influences was accrued by a good selection of records in their parental collections, such as Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa, King Crimson, Iggy Pop and …

“In mine and Dave’s case, it (the biggest influence) is Pink Floyd, we love that and really appreciate when a band can mellow out but build to a climax effortlessly, without going for that extra push that distorts it. They could always do something else that captures you and we take a lot of that but without being really epic. We also like others, like Iron Maiden and (Black) Sabbath and Incubus, plenty of people.”

Being different is a shortcut to climbing over higher barricades in the world that is generally happy to be uncomplicated with an easy identifiable shelf-placing…

“Yeah, I think you are right there,” Morgan agrees before expounding on the nature of music scene. “A lot of people appear to be happy to find one niche they particularly like and they get stuck there. It is up to the bands and people… I think that people want to see bands doing things they do best rather than some experiments. I think we have a fan base that appreciates what we do and that allows us to do our thing. Sometimes they like it, sometimes they don’t.”

Blood, sweat and gigs

What distinguishes InMe from the rest of the ambitious field is that they are signed to an independent label that never has any budget for hype-business. Every ounce of their success has been earned – it took three singles to score a Top 25 single, album peaking at #15 – and InMe supported many a band that are a notch or two below this combo’s audio-vision: Hundred Reasons, Soil, JJ72, Puddle Of Mudd… After a short break, the threesome comes back out on the road to support Feeder and then do another set of headlining dates.

“We’ve been at it for seven years,” Morgan states casually, “and what was happening over the past year, we love it, it is absolutely amazing but we’ve been doing it when we played to one man and a (proverbial) dog, we’d simply get off. We’ve always done it and we really get passionate. We absolutely adore that more people are getting into our music and we already feel like we are a big success! We don’t behave as if we were though!”

“I think that certain unhappiness comes with success,” Morgan suddenly switches on his serious side, “we are well aware of that and we don’t want any of it. We are trying not to get caught up in the idea that it can be bigger than it is now but simply do our own thing and deal with it if and when it happens.”

“Dave is a great guy and I couldn’t think of anyone better,” Morgan passes judgement on his best friend, “he’s got a great voice behind him, he’s got great ideas about music, we work really well together and we’ll just continue playing music.”

One thing that is rather curious about the band is the image projected from a stage, that of a unit, McPherson doesn’t dominate it with his ego.

“A lot of weight is put on a frontman but it obviously doesn’t work with our band; Dave is the leader of the band by being a singer-guitarist-frontman, a focus, but in our minds, in his, I believe, as well, he doesn’t see himself as the leader. We consider ourselves different to other bands on that level.”

Failing to ask for some parting words (of wisdom) I reckon the appropriate would be – be natural. And, happy. If in doubt how, InMe can be your catalyst.
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Tour dates:

08 March – Brixton Academy, London (supporting Feeder
09 April – QMU, Glasgow
10 April – Academy, Manchester
12 April – Astoria, London