Mute Math's unique sound has been compared to U2 and Sting, but front-man Paul Meaney says Mute Math is an entity all its own. The band plans to prove that they're irreplaceable when they enter the studio this summer, by abandoning their roots to pursue the potential in each individual instrument. Our correspondent Mark Sherbin sits down to chat with Mr. Meaney...

MS: It’s got to be weird looking back on 2005 and touring with Circa Survive (an absolutely amazing band with a nice cult following). Is there an advantage to playing with bands like Matchbox 20, bands that kind of fall more outside of Mute Math’s genre?

PM: Is there an advantage? I don’t know if I’d call it an advantage, but we definitely look at it as a challenge. Whenever we open for any band, it’s always been a challenge. There’s never really been a sure-fire home-run, we’ve ever felt, for this band. But if a person is there to see a show and has any sort of interest in music, we usually feel like we have a shot for them to give us a chance. That’s been the mission of this band from day one: just get in front of as many people who are interested in music as possible. That’s really what we’ve done, and it seems to work. We usually ping-pong between opening for bands and doing our headlining thing. Between that and the internet, that’s kind of what’s kept us on the map and kept us touring. Whenever someone calls and gives us a chance to open and get in front of some new people, there’s definitely a rush. I gotta tell you, there’s something addictive about going up on a stage in front of a cold room that knows really nothing about you. And in the twenty, twenty-five minutes that you have, if it feels like one of your own shows…somehow that turn of the tide happens where people start to feel that electricity in the room. When that happens, it’s definitely an addictive moment and something we look forward to as a band.

MS: When you guys play live, you guys capture an energy and edge that’s – for lack of a better word – uncharacteristic of your music. Which isn’t to say that your music isn’t edgy, but there’s definitely an aura or ambience in Mute Math’s sound. What do you guys do to make that energy work for you in your live performance?

PM: To me, the recording and live performance of a song are supposed to be two different things. I like to embrace what each of them can be. There are things that you can do in the studio that you can’t do live, and there are things you can do live that you can’t do in the studio – and that’s good. The goal for this band has been just to write the best songs we know how and hopefully let them come alive when we play for an audience. We usually don’t consider too much what’s going to happen to a song live when we’re recording it. We usually trust that there will be some sort of way to make it work. Every now and then, we run into a song that just flat-out doesn’t work live. For whatever reason, they were just meant to be recorded songs. There are also a lot of ideas we’ve tried live that, when recording them, end up not working. I think that’s great. I would hope the audience can be into that, too. I mean, I’ve always enjoyed that about some of the bands I grew up listening to – where they allow the live experience to be just that. It’s a live experience, not a recreation of the record. That makes it all worth it to me.

MS: Speaking of your musical influences, you guys listen to some diverse stuff. I’ve read about all kinds of bands you say influenced you, from Sting to U2 to Beastie Boys. So who are you listening to now and what new bands are influencing you these days?

PM: The thing that’s been most influential for this band as a whole right now is revisiting what one guy can do with an acoustic guitar, which has been a strange source of inspiration for our music, but it’s been a very valid one. Listening to James Taylor, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, of course Bob Dylan, and this guy from England (this guy that we’ve really fallen in love with) by the name of Nick Drake. It’s quite a kick-in-the-ass musically-speaking when you can hear somebody produce such a rich song, rhythmically, melodically – the whole nine – with just voice and acoustic guitar. And yeah, it’s been good for us. That’s really one instrument this band has never messed with in the past. We’ve had a good time with that. I think it’s going to elevate our songs.

There’s this American folk music collection we’ve been listening to. It’s funny because I grew up a music lover, but somehow almost casually glazed over that whole genre. It just never really intrigued me. I was more into things like electronic music. Maybe I didn’t have the attention span. I don’t really know what it was. Maybe it’s just being on the road, but there’s something very therapeutic about a guy or a gal with an acoustic guitar making great music.

MS: I can definitely see that because you guys have a lot going on in your music, which is great. I agree, though, that there’s a lot to be said for one person with an acoustic guitar and vocals. Speaking of having a lot going on: I’m sure you get this all the time, but I’m really intrigued. How many hours did you put into preparing for and shooting the video for “Typical”?

PM: (laughs) I wouldn’t know how many hours collectively. It felt like an eternity. Looking back though, it was about a month. From deciding this was the video we were going to do to charting out how we were going to do it to learning our parts to filming, I think the whole experience lasted about a month. It was quite exhilarating; it was our first video. It was the director’s first video. We were on a shoe-string budget. But it was anything goes. Let’s just dream it up and try to pull it off. And then it got nominated for a Grammy. What do ya know? That was a good day for Mute Math. It felt great to have our hard work recognized.

MS: As an aside, I saw you guys did the same thing in a live atmosphere for Jimmy Kimmel. Was that awkward in front of a live audience? I mean, how did you guys do that?

PM: (laughs) Well, did it seem awkward in front of a live audience? I guess that’s the question I should ask you.

MS: It looked like it could have been awkward had I been there.

PM: I’ve lost that part of my emotional gambit. I’m kind of desensitized to awkwardness being in a band for four years. We had a great time, but I think there were a lot of people in the audience who didn’t know what the hell was going on. There were some people who were just coming in expecting a band to play, and, the next thing you know, we’re throwing ourselves all over the place and the director’s shouting out orders over the whole thing. It was very confusing. But I kind of enjoyed that about it. It was at least entertaining for us. I have to give kudos to the Jimmy Kimmel show for even attempting to do something like that. We’d played “Typical” a few times on TV already and we wanted to change it up so we said, “Let’s do a recreation of the video.” Good time, good TV, good memories for this band.

MS: Were you guys Transformers fans when you were young?

PM: Yes, I was. Now, I know there are probably Transformers fans out there that would consider me more of a casual fan. I’ll be quite honest, once we did the remake of the theme song and got it into circulation, I didn’t realize there was such a religious cult that was lying beneath this whole Transformers movement and movie and all this stuff. But hey, I had a few of the toys and I used to watch the cartoons. Does that make me a fan? I don’t know. But if someone had told eight-year-old Paul Meaney that, one day, he would get to sing the Transformers theme song on the soundtrack for the movie, I would have been stoked. That would have been a good day for little eight-year-old Paul Meaney.

MS: You guys are headed back into the studio after the tour. Do you have a direction to the album? What should the fans expect out of it?

PM: The fans should expect something awful. Expect something completely disappointing. I can guarantee you, it will be the greatest album of all time (laughs). We’re chomping at the bit to do something new, but we’ve been on the road for, I guess, three years. We’ve been playing these songs for a long time. So the prospect of getting to write a whole new collection of songs has been wonderful. We’ve been writing for the past year on the road, here and there when we have time off. Knowing that we’re finally going into the studio to record all this stuff…well, we’re beside ourselves.

We’ve kind of got the release date. I know there are rumors about when it might come out, but it’s really pending because we’re not going to put it out until it’s great. We’re pretty determined to embarrass the first record. That’s our goal. This next record will not come out until, at least in our opinion, it does just that. So we’ll be working on that, and we’ll get it out as soon as it’s ready…as soon as it’s brilliant.