Interview: Man With A Mission Talk 'Break and Cross The Walls' Albums, Recording an AC/DC Cover, and Writing with Patrick Stump
It was several years ago, but I went to see Jimmy Eat World at The Phoenix Theater in Petaluma, CA. The venue was unique, with a stage that sat lower to the ground and vert skate ramps adorning the general admission floor. That night, the band would have one opener: a band from Tokyo, Japan called Man With a Mission. I think I’d maybe seen a promo poster for them but couldn’t recall much more than their name. Just moments after I found a seat in the venue, Man With A Mission took the stage, and I remember being completely enamored by the five guys in front of me, wearing intricately detailed wolf masks and matching outfits, powering their way through an eclectic mix of alternative rock. I hadn’t really seen anything like it before.
Fast forward to 2022, and Man With A Mission are still going strong. The band have released several albums since that show, including 2018’s Chasing The Horizon and 2021’s Break and Cross The Walls I. The second part of that dual album, Break and Cross The Walls II, will be available everywhere tomorrow, May 25th, 2022. Earlier this year, we spoke with the band’s guitarist Jean-Ken Johnny about the band’s music video for their cover of “Thunderstruck”, working with Fall Out Boy vocalist Patrick Stump on the song “86 Missed Calls”, and what it was like bringing some of these new songs to life.
(Note: portions of this interview have been edited only for the purposes of clarity and length.)
The first thing I wanted to talk about was the video for [the AC/DC cover] of “Thunderstruck”, which was recorded in a live setting, and comes from the Break and Cross The Walls Part I album. What interested you guys in putting your take on that song?
I mean, it was a great challenge for us. The song itself is a great, phenomenal song. To tell you the truth, we’re not really a big follower of AC/DC, but of course we recognize that song. It’s a massive song, and it was a lot of fun because we always want to cover songs that are authentic rock and roll songs, but at the same time try to make it sound modern, in our way. But it never decreases the energy that the original song holds itself to. What I hope we did really amplified the rock spirit itself.
Well even going off of what you just said, where you try to take something that’s of the older rock and roll age and spirit, and then combine it with your style and spirit…there’s a lot of rock influence in your original music, but there’s also a lot of electronics and different vocal stylings. You guys have released several albums and EPs over the last number of years. How have you honed that sound and really expanded upon it? How have you found new and interesting things to do with it?
Well, our band is definitely influenced by all the music that was going on in nineties, in the U.S., in the U.K., all over the world. The music that was going on in the nineties was so experimental and so full ambition; it was trying to break through [to] another phase of rock and roll. I guess that we’re trying to do that in this era, in our style, while never getting rid of the rock spirit but trying to make it sound new and good.
That [spirit] feels very present on the Break and Cross The Walls album that came out last year. I feel like this question, over the next couple of years, for any band, is probably going to be really beaten to death, but what was it like recording and writing a record during the pandemic, and working on crafting something in these worldwide circumstances?
Gathering along in the studio was pretty hard for us, even in Japan. But these days, anyone can compose music on their PCs at their homes and send the data to each other. The process wasn’t that hard for us; it was natural for us. It was more about the live shows, since everyone was not able to hold their live shows like they used to. Whenever we make a piece of music, it was always about touring after that, but we couldn’t do that, naturally. So that was pretty hard for us. I’m glad that right now, everyone is caring more about trying to hold and move forward [with live shows], trying to do what we can do in this situation.
I mean, going back to that “Thunderstruck” video. It shows you guys performing in a live setting and what that looks like, and how important that is to the essence of the band. There’s obviously what people hear on the record, but the other half of that is what they see. When did you guys record that video? I take it that it was filmed after things started to open back up. What did it feel like to finally be back in a room after so much time away?
I think it was about a year, maybe a year and a half ago, and it was in the middle of this severe situation. It was a lot of fun, getting back with all the members, just talking to each other. You can see it on the video, but that live show was held under the situation [of the COVID-19 pandemic]. All of the people were following the guidelines, but of course were enjoying it. It was really important for us to show that video and show that it’s possible for us to perform live shows in any kind of situation.
For the Break and Cross The Walls album, you worked with Patrick Stump (lead vocalist of Fall Out Boy) on the song “86 Missed Calls”. I have to ask this as a fan of Fall Out Boy, but how did you guys come about working together? How did collaboration come about?
I think it was about four or five years ago that we started to work with Patrick. Even these days, a lot of people try to co-write with various kinds of artists and songwriters. In that time, we were working with the label Epic, in America. They were asking us questions about what kind of producers, or maybe artists, would you be interested in if you wanted to co-write something. We put Patrick on that list, and they immediately connected us to Patrick. He said yes, and it just happened.
Yeah, he’s done some pretty fun production work over the years for artists like Cobra Starship, and other pop acts within that world. On this album, were there any particular songs that you would maybe call a favorite, or that you felt were particularly challenging to work on? If so, how did you overcome that?
I’d say that “Into The Deep” was a lot of fun to work on. That song was written for a film, Godzilla vs. Kong, for the domestic version that was going on in Japan. I was trying to make a song that would be a really good ending theme for a movie. I wasn’t necessarily thinking about Godzilla vs. Kong, but it was such a coincidence that that offer came in. It was great timing. I recognize that Godzilla is a huge icon that has an influence not only in Japan, but all over the world. It was such a pleasure to take part in that movie as a band. I’m really proud of what we made.
For the band, we’ve been around for eleven, twelve years, but we’ve always been a band that writes various kinds of genres. Pop, a ballad, sometimes a really fast and aggressive punk song, but we always focus on what is our core genre of this band, Man With A Mission. I always focus on the band that always combines the essence of rock, but also tries to make it sound like a hybrid, like what we did in the “Thunderstruck” cover. I believe that what we made with “Into The Deep” is a core part of this band, so it was a great challenge for us.
Last question. If you have anything coming up that you want to let fans know about, whether it’s tour dates, new music, or anything else, go for it.
Yeah! Well, we’ve never released two albums [back-to-back] before, so that was a great challenge. Well when a band releases an album, we want to tour, so I can’t wait to meet you guys overseas, after the [COVID-19] situation settles down. Besides that, we are working on another song besides these two Break and Cross The Walls albums.. I can’t tell any details about it yet, but I’m sure you guys are gonna love it.
Man With A Mission’s new album, Break and Cross The Walls II, will be available this Wednesday, May 25th.
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