A couple of weeks ago I was able to connect with Jared Monaco (guitar) and Pat Kirch (drums) of The Maine to discuss the band’s tenth studio album, Joy Next Door. In this interview, I asked the two band members about key songs from Joy Next Door, how they’re approaching their upcoming headlining tour, their team’s vinyl marketing strategy and much more. Joy Next Door will be released this Friday via Photo Finish Records, and you can pre-save the album here.
Thanks for your time today, and it’s great to reconnect with you! The Maine will be releasing their 10th full-length record, called Joy Next Door. Each album seems to have its own personality and color aesthetic to it. How did your band settle on this “green” era?
Well, for starters, there aren’t a ton of colors left at this point… In seriousness, I think we might all have slightly different answers but to me green represents a new beginning. We tried to throw away a lot of our old mindsets when approaching this record so in a way it feels like a rebirth to me.
To date The Maine has released two singles from Joy Next Door: the thrilling introduction to the new world you’re creating with “Die To Fall”, and today brings “Quiet Part Loud.” How did your team decide on which singles to release from Joy Next Door, and how would you describe how they fit sonically on the sequencing of the new LP?
It’s hard to sit with a tracklisting and determine what people should hear first. Even among ourselves there’s constant debate about our favorite tracks on the album. I do think that “Die To Fall” brought forth a lot of energy, and naturally felt like a great first step. “Quiet Part Loud” was an opportunity to show people that this album also has depth, and plenty of it.
Last year The Maine treated fans to a collection of cleaned-up/re-recorded tracks from every era of the band called Dyed (2008-2023). What went into the recording process for that album, and what were some of the biggest challenges of revisiting some of these songs?
That was just a fun project all-around. We have so so many demos and bits and pieces of ideas that we always felt were really great, and in most cases strong enough to make it onto an actual album. At the end of the day, that’s just not always reality, so this was a really fun way for us to go back, clean up some of these older tracks and see what people thought about them. The challenging part was putting ourselves in the mindset from the timeframe those individual albums were recorded. I think every album we’ve ever released is so ingrained in our DNA that ultimately it just turned the effort into a fun experiment.
There has been some debate on Chorus.fm about how The Maine handles their vinyl catalog, specifically the pressing numbers. How does your team come up with the pressing numbers, variants, and overall marketing strategy for when you press an album to vinyl? Also, is there anything fans can look forward to soon in the form of reissues and/or re-pressings?
For us the thought always is how to make something special for the fans. We have worked really hard to make sure that we are in control of every pressing that happens so we can be on top of the quality. That is why our album “Black and White” has still not been pressed. We don’t own the master to that record and haven’t been able to work something out that makes sense for the fans and us. Our fans are collectors and want every album and variant we make so we try to make them all unique and not go overboard. This isn’t a cash grab for us so that’s why our records tend to sell out. In 2027, it is the 20 year anniversary of our band and the 10 year anniversary of one of our favorite records, so people can put two and two together there!
Getting back to Joy Next Door, what songs came easiest to your band during the writing/recording process, and which tracks seemed to be the trickiest to get to the finish line?
Going back through demos, some of these songs changed a great deal, some not really at all. It was more about finding the right feel for these songs to exist in the same space together. Songs like “And Then”, “It’s Not Over Yet”, and “Quiet Part Loud” were really close to done by the time we hit the studio. Others took some time to really dress them up and see what they were made of.
The Maine are gearing up for a headlining tour starting next month, called I Love You…But I Chose The Maine. Since it’s been nearly two years since your band has been on tour, what did you want to do differently during this stint with either the crafting of the setlist or the production?
I think a lot of people will be surprised by how we’re approaching this one. This tour, we’re really leaning into each other and the musical, technical side of our band. Definitely taking some big swings on reimagining a wide range of songs both new and old. I can’t say much more than that right now but we’re deep in rehearsal and we’re all having a lot of fun bringing this one to life.
The thing I have always loved about The Maine is that each of your albums has a different feel/vibe/personality to it. When fans finally hear Joy Next Door on April 10th, is there anything you hope they’ll experience and/or feel towards the new material?
I say this a lot, but we still believe in the idea of the album experience. I know the five of us have many records we love front-to-back. My hope is that people can find a little bit of time in their day to sit with this album and go from the beginning to the end. Everything moves so fast, I would love to know that somebody took a small part of their afternoon to get lost in the world we created.
