Of Mice & Men have become a metalcore household name over the years, encapsulating several different styles while maintaining relevancy all the while. So when COVID hampered the music biz in 2020, the band got to writing in their massive downtime. As of 2021, OM&M have signed with SharpTone Records and will be releasing three EPs – this Friday will see EP #2, Bloom, streaming everywhere. We talked with drummer Tino Arteaga ahead of its release:
The New Fury: COVID put a lot of bands out of commission for 2020 – what was it like missing out on touring that year?
Tino Arteaga: At first it was definitely scary and different because all we know about adult life is touring. It was daunting because we’ve never been home for a year and a half now. We just started writing when we didn’t know what to do. We hop on Zoom or Discord and were all working on music and it’s great. We also started streaming on Twitch and it started being really fun, being able to enjoy where we live and still be working on music recording in our home studios.
New Fury: BLOOM is the second of three EPs in 2021 via SharpTone – Timeless was warmly received, are you excited for the latter two EPs?
Tino: Absolutely! It’s actually blown us away, we didn’t expect to have Timeless do so well, and feel like we have even better songs to follow up! It’s been so cool to see how just a couple of songs are doing, and then it’s like guess what, we’re following it up, and people will get a really solid taste of where our heads were at with Bloom. To have these be short and to the point, and have even more music coming soon, keeps the fanbase excited and engaged.
New Fury: What inspired you guys to release three separate EPs instead of one album?
Tino: We wanted to be able to spend lots of 2020 writing and to capture the landscape of the world and everything that was gonna happen. “When is it gonna open up? When is touring happening?” We wanted to consistently release music so it wasn’t just one big bomb in the middle of the year. It sounds silly, but we honestly “savor the flavor” in these small releases and our fans are really connecting with it, and having the feeling of new music all year is thrilling for everyone!
New Fury: Your old band Lower Definition is back in full force! How thrilling is it to get an album out soon?
Tino: It’s pretty cool dude! The creative juices are flowing and we’re writing tons of music. The cool thing is OM&M is it’s a freight train, it’s a force at this point, but it’s so cool to be back in my high school band, like we were that garage band that got the cops called on us. It’s been 10 years since we sat in the same room and recorded, it’s pretty phenomenal to get the guys back together and make better music than we ever have before.
New Fury: When touring comes back for good, what are your dream bands to tour with?
Tino: Let’s go Spiritbox, Cane Hill, I wanna go back on tour with Slipknot, anybody and everybody! So many bands are putting out such sick jams so when touring goes full swing in 2022/3, when things get back to normal, there’s just so many bands now that are killing it that we’d love to be on a package with!
Tino says thanks to the listeners, and prepare yourself for more Of Mice & Men bangers in 2021!
