Roll of the Dice: 10 Questions with Lucias Malcolm

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Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A Pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.

Lucias Malcolm of UK ska-punk act Call Me Malcolm just release a pretty rad new, solo album, Past, Present, and Future Regrets. It leans a lot more in the anthemic punk side of things, eschewing the ska of Call Me Malcolm. Lucias was kind enough to join TGEFM for a quick Roll of the Dice to discuss the project, the state of things, mental health awareness and what the future holds.

Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. Congrats on the release of “Past, Present and Future Regrets.” Personally, I’ve been beyond impressed with it. For the uninitiated, could you tell us a bit about yourself, the record and how it came about?
Thank you for the chance to chat and the kind words. For the completely uninitiated, of which I imagine there are many, I’m typically found singing and playing guitar in the UK ska/punk band Call Me Malcolm. Through the pandemic, like most, I found myself very isolated, but particularly in terms of music. As I wrote new Malcolm ideas in a small home studio I’d just set up, a few songs started popping out that just didn’t feel anything like the way Malcolm were headed.
I decided to explore whatever was hiding in my subconscious, and just started demoing them by playing/programming all the instruments. I really got a kick out of how they were turning out, and being able to really dig deep creatively to solve problems, fix sections – basically all the stuff we do in the band collectively, I was exploring alone. It was a real challenge, but eventually I thought I had something worse listening to.
That’s the simple way to put it anyway. The part in between starting a solo record and seeing it released is actually more like trekking uphill through bramble fields with no clothes on. And I’d do it again tomorrow.

You’ve been at this all for a while, what is your biggest regret? A gig you turned down, advice you didn’t take, what one thing do you wish you handled differently as a musician?
Love this question. Generally I tend to follow good advice. I’m very fortunate to know some incredible people that know far more than I do. The UK scene is really quite a strong support network, so we’re always talking. Thankfully I take most of it on board. Call Me Malcolm almost released I Was Broken When You Got Here as two separate EPs until I had a conversation with a friend who said “People will care more if it’s one album.” He was right, of course. He always is.
But you want a regret… this is an easy one. I was far, and I mean FAR too flippant in my teens and twenties when it came to music: didn’t practice enough, drank too much at shows and wrote stupid songs that meant nothing. I have to be philosophical about it really. I made some wonderful friends, but I was a deeply anxious person hiding his mental health issues. Ultimately I’m happy with where I am now though, and it took all that to get here.

What is it about music that you are most passionate about? What motivates you to keep writing?
Definitely the writing itself. Art is the creative expression or demonstration of a universal truth. Something you feel about yourself, about the world, about the human condition. Some of the best times in my life were listening to music, or watching a band, and feeling a tremendous amount of empathy for their story. My ultimate aim every time I write a song is to form an emotional connection with the listener by expressing an opinion, or feeling I have, and wrapping it inside a hopefully catchy, or punchy, or interesting melody. I know it’s unlikely to happen every time, but that’s the goal, the benchmark. I want people to know that they are not alone.

I don’t think its fair to call it a ska revival because ska is something that’s never gone away, but there is a massive rejuvenation of the ska-punk scene right now. What is going on out there that has gotten so many people back on their boards to ride this latest wave of ska?
The passion for ska is unwavering! Yeah, you’re definitely right, it never went away. I mean, when I took a break from playing in ska bands in 2008, and all I did was write a song about how much I missed playing ska (“Does My Offbeat Look Big In This?” on the Check Sells EP).
It’s hard to say what’s different now from, say, 10 years ago. I think genres naturally have peaks and dips in terms of popularity and even quality. Right now just happens to be something of a golden age for UK and US bands. In the UK especially, everyone seems to be releasing their best material right now, really pushing expectations. There’s super exciting new blood coming through as well.

What’s the state of the scene from your point of view? We are living in a “just deal with COVID” world and everything about this timeline is some level of completely fucked. Beyond the lyrics, what impact, if any, does the current cultural and political landscape have on the band?
“Everything about this timeline is some level of completely fucked” is such an exquisitely beautiful way to sum up the world right now. In the UK, our biggest barrier is Brexit. Actually, I’m kind of tired of the phrase “Brexit”. I think it softens the edges of what was the inexplicable ritual suicide of a nation as we knew it. Not that we were great before, but it wasn’t whatever this is now.
But I digress, touring anywhere but the UK is now an enormous administrative and financial undertaking that for bands of our size is just daunting, and in many respects just not viable. We’ve been working on heading over to the US for a while as we try to navigate our way around the new barriers in place.
Obviously people might have heard about the supply chain issues with vinyl printing, but material costs in general went up enormously. So merch, one of the few ways bands can make money, is now more expensive to print. It’s made life tricky for the solo project, which is very much a self-funded startup.

The music world has also changed a lot over the last few years. What are some of the biggest industry changes you’ve come across in your time within the scene?
The internet and streaming is the obvious answer here. I started writing and releasing material just after the internet found its feet. So a career in music was a bad financial move on my part (still wouldn’t change it for the world!).
In particular, the effect, other than the well publicised financial downside for bands, is a shift in relationship between audience and musicians. We now have access to far more music in our lives than we ever could have hoped for. 20 years ago, the price of a streaming service would have bought you maybe 12 physical albums a year. Over a lifetime that’s around 35k minutes of music in total. Last year, I did 3 times that amount on a streaming service. What that means is people tend to listen and move on. If they don’t like track 1 on your new album, they won’t stick around for the other 9. Too many other new albums came out today and time is ticking away.
BUT, at the same time, the internet has brought bands and fans closer together. I chat regularly with my audience, and other bands from all over the world. Which is just mind blowing, and I’m forever grateful for that opportunity.

Between your solo record and Call Me Malcolm, you’re not afraid to tackle mental health themes. How important is it to you that you connect with your fans on such a deeply personal topic, and is there a struggle to maintain the catchiness while diving so deep?
I’m always striving for that connection now, so it’s essential to me and the way I try to write. It requires going to some dark places, which can be tough, but ultimately the process of sharing these experiences and being honest is what I find most gratifying about playing music.
In terms of it being a struggle to pair with the music, not too much, no. It’s taken some years to refine the process, but whilst I work on music I deal with lyrics in a very minimal way. I find melodies, and rhythms. I write the rough shape of the vocals. Then once things are looking fairly locked in musically, I dive into the lyrics. It allows me to write songs all at once, and tell a story. It’s easier to link things thematically, but also provides a better unity to the record.
I also try where possible to go as dark as possible with the lighter, catcher songs. On the solo record for example, “Zero-Sums Game,” probably the poppiest song, is about self-destructive behaviour. The Call Me Malcolm song “Please Still Try” was written about suicide. Stylistically, I try to really punch those messages home as hard as possible with that contrast.

One of our obligatory questions in these interviews also tends to be the one I have found most important on a personal level. Who are some bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think they should?
I try to shout about Maximum Effort by Just Say Nay as much as possible. It’s one of the most perfect records ever written. It’s progressive ska punk with dark edges, insanely catchy hooks, and operates on a frankly different level. Sadly they called it a day not long after the album came out, but some of the various members (there were 11 of them.. I think.. I often lost count) are doing some wonderfully interesting things elsewhere. Till I’m Bones (Charlotte also plays bass at my live shows), BEKIMACHINE, Unfunfairband.
And Goodbye Blue Monday are truly incredible. They just released a new album too. If you like your punk hooky, melodic and emotionally raw, they are worth every minute of your time.

Now that the world has its hands on Past, Present and Future Regrets, what’s next for Lucias Malcolm?
I have the release show March 24th, which may have already happened by the time this is read. After that, I’ll be hitting the road for some more shows whilst quietly starting work on the next record.

Was there anything I missed that you’d like to share or dive deeper into with our readers?
I write about mental health a lot, but I also try to talk about it as much as possible. We need to normalise it. I went 20 years totally unaware that what I was feeling was not OK.
So I want to say this if I can: if you’re reading this and you suffer from any kind of mental health issue, know that it’s OK to not be OK. And if you feel like you’re really struggling, if you need to talk to someone, there’s a good international database of numbers here. You are not alone.