Manny King John
MNDR lately
As huge fans of MNDR and their funky collaborations with legendary musicians like Q-Tip and Mark Ronson, we were not only happy to check one more thing off of our “media bucket list”, we enjoyed a good conversation with Amanda Warner, ½ of MNDR. She is a good person. Listen to our exclusive interview powered by Audibase above, so you can hear what we mean.
What would you want a new listener to think when they first hear your sound and style?
Well, for people who haven’t heard MNDR — the thing I’d hope to achieve is just that they feel like they have connected, that it didn’t really matter who they were, or what they are into. When they hear it and are like “What the?” and they hear explosions, brain explosions.
Where does MNDR come from?
I originally started the project in Oakland. I lived in Oakland for a really long time. I’m not originally from these areas. I’m originally from the upper Midwest area, from there I moved to New York. I sort of wanted to explore pop music instead of experimental music and techno. So, this version of MNDR is really born out of New York.
What is the first musical memory you have?
The first memory I have is probably, my dad’s a musician, so it was like my dad really liked Creed. We had like a music room and we would listen to that and he was teaching me how to play stuff.
Where do you want to go? Like, where do you see the future?
Hmm, like where do I see that max, climax? Honestly, like 2 things as of recent… Like this year I moved to L.A. like little under a year ago and I have done a lot of writing for other artist, and that’s been super awesome. I just wrote melody and lyric for Dev’s record, Rita Ora’s Record, Kylie Minouge’s record and a host of other artist. I just did a record with Sean Paul, I just got done working in the studio with him that was amazing. But, now I want to really focus on production, go back to making tracks and beats. I didn’t do that at all this year, I just wrote. We hope that were going to be doing a lot of MNDR sort of Ep’s and different collaborations and I really want to get a chance to produce a track for an artist, Like full track, the track and not just the song writing for like a big artist, like Rita or someone big. So my hopes would be one foot more into the studio and then… I really want to break a song on the radio, I really do. I don’t know if I will be able to do it, My shit might be to left, left to center you know what I mean, I would like to break fm radio.
I can’t wait to hear you produce someone’s album.
Those are my lofty goals.
Okay so, the last thing I want to ask you. What do you think when you hear me say ‘GrungeCake’?
GrungeCake? Actually, I think of 2 vegan cupcakes with an ill flannel hugging. No seriously, this is what I see. The vegan cupcakes are hugging. It was like so much so that I feel like I have seen that before on the Internet. It’s a very vivid image. But, they’re vegan cupcakes.
For sure, if we go there, we would make them gluten-free.
Yes, gluten-free, the whole sha-bang.
Let’s make them sprouted, fuck it.
Yeah, like the cupcakes came from the ground.
*We’d like to thank Tilt Magazine for this opportunity.
For more about MNDR and Tilt, just click here and here.
