INTERVIEW: ON THE PHONE WITH PROG METAL LOCALS, RELIQA
Sydney’s Reliqa have had a massive year. From supporting Sevendust when they toured, to playing Big Sound in Brisbane, and making the Good Things Festival band final. Things aren’t slowing down for them either. Recently releasing new single “Mr Magic” early in May, which is one of the standout single releases this year, the band has now signed with Destroy All Lines Agency.
I caught up with Reliqa vocalist Monique Pym.
Congratulations on your recent signing with Destroy All Lines Agency.
It’s awesome, so cool. Basically, it happened the day we released Mr Magic, or maybe the day before. That must have sparked something, I don’t know exactly how it came about but we received an email and spoke to Bailey Graham who is our booking manager over there. He has been super awesome so far. It’s fantastic to work with someone, and a company, that you have respected for a long time. Bailey is really on the ball and is genuinely passionate about our music too which is something important to us. He’s on top of his game and I really respect that.
You have some talented bands on the bill with you.
There is such a diverse range on there. We’re working in the realm of the more progressive side of stuff. That was never really a realm of music that I had explored until lately. A lot of people have been calling us progressive, that’s a title that has been a little bit thrust upon us but I’m okay with that. And considering that’s kind of our umbrella genre now I’ve been discovering bands like Circles, Dead Letter Circus who we have known for a long time and Ebonivory who we share the roster with. We played with them towards the end of last year, they are genuine guys and extremely talented.
I am loving Mr Magic. It’s probably my single of the year so far. Where did the concept come from?
Mr Magic was the first time we really approached a song that was fully fleshed out from a personal perspective rather than our previous music that has been very conceptual, and storytelling based. We decided to make a conscious effort to step in a different direction this time. To write something that is important to us on a more topical scale. It came about when the bushfires were happening over the summer period. It was a time of absolute crisis for the whole country and when you’re in a vulnerable position you look to the people in power and say how are you going to help us through this? What sort of navigation are you going to give us moving out of the crisis? You get angry when they don’t respond in a responsible way. I don’t need to name names, but we know someone who was spending some time outside of the country… Not to get too political but it is absolutely driven by things like that. I am going to mention this though - there’s a lyric in the song that kind of hits the nail on the head. I’ve never really spoken about it, specifically in that realm. At the end of the song there’s a lyric that says, “I’ve got a trick for you, play on your perilous act, I’ll watch you disappear, at any minor setback.” That was the one where I was like Boom!!
You’re trying to demand accountability from these people who have the power, they have the platform and they have the listeners to really do the right thing. You rely on them to do that but time and time again they really let their people down. The song really comes from a place of anger.
What’s going on now in America is absolutely telling to how we were feeling in Australia at that time. You want someone to look up to, to do something and guide us through.
That’s their job!
Yes, you’re right. I get a little fired up about it. I’ve been trying to stay as switched on as I can. While all of us have been in a place where we are looking to someone to help us a lot of us haven’t been in the situation of being completely oppressed by the police state and things like that. You’ve just got to say something. If you have any sort of power, influence or platform to put out a message then it’s time to use it. I think that’s really where the song came from.
Hopefully, we can use some of this crisis and really make sure that this thing won’t happen again, I’m not talking about the virus because that may well happen again. I’m talking systemised oppression and things like that. If these things are still happening in 2020 then we can’t let them happen in 2021 and so forth. We need to stay switched on and be willing to listen and learn.
And to speak up and call people out
Exactly. I read somewhere that being not-racist isn’t enough anymore, you need to be against racism. To call out the people who are saying and doing the wrong thing. If we’re tying it back to the song and the motivation to the song it’s about all of us having accountability, not just the people in power. We all have accountability to do the right thing. It’s a bit of a call to that.
What does the future look like for you guys? Is there an album in the works?
There are a few things on the table. We are definitely working as hard as we can. We have discussed the idea of a larger release like an EP or album and we are excited to jump into that but at the same time we are taking this time to experiment with out release strategy a little bit. It’s something we’ve really thought about coming into 2020.
There are bands like RedHook, who have inspired us. They have done some amazing things, touring internationally and major festivals, and if you look at the music they have out, it’s all singles. It makes you think how incredible that is. I admire them because they are such hard workers.
We want to see how we go with a few singles first, gauge the interest for an album. Any artist knows an album is such an amazing intricate piece of work, you invest so much. And we are used to writing conceptually too and we really like doing that. We have two English majors in the band so writing narratives and stories is something which interests us.
Meanwhile we are going to focus on working with Destroy All Lines, getting some solid shows lined up, hopefully some festivals, and using those singles as a consistent steady flow for us until we are ready to release an album.
The last 18 months have been massive for Reliqa. What would be your most memorable moment?
We were thinking about this recently. When you sit down and look back, the last 12 months have been big for us. It’s been exciting so it’s hard to pinpoint just one. I would probably say my personal moment with Reliqa is Big Sound 2019. Travelling on the road with my band was so much fun and so ridiculous. Being able to play outside of our comfort zone in Brisbane, where we hadn’t hit until then. Discovering that we had a whole fan base up there we didn’t realise we had. We had so much praise it was surreal, it was like ‘Is this really happening ‘. The Elephant Hotel, which was night three, was particularly special. We had a great crowd and it was an outdoor venue, like your typical festival. It was a perfect set up. I got off stage and actually cried a little bit, which I never do. We had support from a bunch of people that I got to meet for the first time too. Shout out to Browny from Wall of Sound!
That’s how I discovered you! He put up a post about you guys.
He makes me so happy. He’s such a dedicated guy. I remember meeting him the first night of Big Sound. I looked out for him. When we found each other, we had the most massive bear hug!! It was such a special moment. And meeting Tim Price and Ophelia Symons for the first time too. It’s more of a personal thing getting to have a milestone like that but even from a band perspective it was pretty massive.
What are your top 3 Aussie artists right now?
Northlane - I had a hard time getting into Northlane to begin with. You know they’re one of those bands that you want to like but it just didn’t click. The last year Alien came out and I was like far out this is a whole different realm of music that I haven’t heard from them before. Maybe I just wasn’t listening enough or properly. I feel like that album really clicked with me and I’ve been obsessed with it since. It’s been a massive influence for me. Instrumentally, Mr Magic’s chorus was kind of inspired by Bloodline. Enemy of the Night blew me away. I really admire and respect their confidence to be able to be so raw and so real with their lyrics. It really hits close to home for a lot of people
RedHook – RedHook are definitely one of them. The first time we ever played together was supporting Sevendust last year. She was an idol for me, she is such a legend. We became friends and we have played with them a few times throughout 2019. I admire what they do, I went into that earlier. Testing the water with a different approach through releasing singles, especially as it’s kind of taboo in the metal industry. A lot of heavy music fans want albums and bigger releases so to try the single style is quite interesting. I think they are doing it justice and I admire them for that.
Voyager- You can’t go past Voyager; They are doing some unique and awesome things. When I first listened to their new album ‘Colours in the Sun’ I was blown away. You know when you find the music and you’re like right that’s it, that’s me in a nutshell, that’s my sound. The mood I was in and what I was feeling, I chucked on the album and Colours started playing. I was like YES! I got up and danced around and got crazy to it. I’ve been listening to their music avidly since then. I always mention them when asked who inspires you or has a sound you want to reach. Voyager hands down really take that title. We got to play with them in Sydney last year which was really cool. I’d really like to reconnect with them sometime in the future, I’d love to play with them again.
Thanks so much to Monique for her time and awesome words. Check Out Mr. Magic and their previous releases now, and keep an eye out for more!