5 minutes with… Thee MVPs

Thee MVPs have been a permanent fixture on London’s underground scene for several years now. Formed as a scrappy garage punk band, the quartet have gradually honed their sound into a delectable goulash of punk, Sabbath riff and rip-roaring guitar solos. Ahead of their forthcoming release on Burger Records and what promises to be a raucous release show at The Shacklewell Arms on March 3rd, we thought we’d get in touch with frontman/ shredmaster Charlie Wyatt to talk about the band’s forthcoming sci-fi inspired debut, meaty riffs and particularly sweaty shows.

5 minutes with… THEE MVPS

Your debut LP has been a long time coming, what can we expect from your first proper album?

“10 tracks, all ripping, blue album stylee! The band is sounding the best it’s ever been and by the time we’re recording we’d have toured for a month so we’re looking to get a real good and proper representation of the band that really in our style of music is achieved on the stage and not in the practice space. I don’t wanna give away the title too publicly just yet as it’s a loose concept involving a sci-fi short stories/anthology narrative of sorts with regards to alot of the social pressures and situations young adults face in their life. Without sounding too pretentious it’s personal look at our lives painted up in a bunch of star trek and blade runner metaphors. Here are 3 poorly described themes:

• The Star Trek crew compared to friendship

• Staying up too late compared to the android’s lifespans in blade runner

• The pettiness of people holding grudges compared to time travel”

You’ve hooked up with MJ of Hookworms to man the console on this record, what was it like working with him and what did he bring to the table?

“We haven’t actually worked with him yet! Or met him in person for that matter, however I can say he sounds very lovely on the phone and his email game is equally as nice, he likes us already so that’s a good start, we’re trying to up the recording game each time we go in somewhere. We’ll be cutting this in May.”

You’re output seems to get heavier and riffs seems to become meatier with every release. Exactly how heavy is the new record?

“It’s faster and louder than anything you’ve previously heard and slower and heavier at the same time (i think that’s the best impression of a Spinal Tap answer I could manage). If it’s a fun record whilst not being throwaway it’ll be a success to us. If it holds up to our peers and influences and gets more people out watching us then that’s amazing. The real answer you want though is that we’re averaging about 2.8 riffs a song.”

What’s the one riff you wish you’d written?

“Anything off of the first six Sabbath Records.”

You toured pretty extensively across the US and Europe last year, where will Thee MVPs be travelling to this year?

“Doing both again! Stay Tuned, particularly if you reside in the wonderful countries of France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy.”

What’s the sweatiest show you’ve ever played?

“We’ve done a bunch which have been sweaty, we’ve certainly played more gigs without air con or fans than we have with them. However saying that, one time we played a Fluffer Records pit party in a giant concrete box with what felt like North London’s single most powerful and broken smoke machine gassing the whole room for 32 minutes straight and I nearly passed out.”