From Penelope Spheeris to the Pet Shop Boys, Ben Folds to Blue Velvet, The Wonder Years to Arcade Fire, the two sides of the coin that is Suburbia have been a fertile creative landscape for musicians, filmmakers and writers since its rise in the Golden Age of Capitalism. There is perhaps no more iconic a representation of this cultural chasm between a polished wholesome exterior and the depths that lie beneath, than what a certain Orange County, California group once called the Tragic Kingdom; and somewhere between carefree Main Street U.S.A. and the faux faces of the Matterhorn one can find the birth of the band Mêlée.
As teenagers growing up under the shadow of Disneyland, summer nights would find the four members of Mêlée, season pass in hand, trolling Tomorrowland in a Utopian courting ritual. At 7:30PM sharp (and 8:45PM & 10PM), as if drawn by some futuristic siren song, everyone would converge around the Tomorrowland Terrace to watch the hydraulic stage rise out of the ground while the house band Voyager performed Mouse approved covers of No Doubt, Green Day and Earth, Wind & Fire. It was here that lead-singer/keyboardist/guitarist Chris Cron first spotted lead guitarist/co-conspirator Ricky Sans. Says Cron: “Here was this kid, brown leather jacket, slicked back hair, smoking a clove cigarette, a girl on each arm, that looked like an extra from The Outsiders. I had seen him before around school, but we’d never said a word.”
Orange County’s musical baton had been passed from Hardcore bands like Social Distortion and TSOL to Ska/Punk bands like The Vandals, Reel Big Fish and of course No Doubt. Says Sans of the time: “When you’re 14 you're all about discovering yourself, new music, and others with whom you can identify. There was a big Ska/Punk scene that hung out at Tomorrowland, it was the epicenter at that time. It was our Pleasure Island with kids running around smoking & drinking, fighting & making out, generally just misbehaving.”
When the paths of Sans and Cron finally converged, their friendship was forged, and any social or cultural gaps were soon bridged by their shared passion for music and Monty Python. As their brotherhood grew, Sans’ world began to implode: “I was at a real crossroads. Within a few short years both my grandparents had passed away, my dad lost his battle with bipolar disorder, and my mom was forced to move my brother and I out of the home we’d been raised in.” The family found refuge with a woman Sans lovingly refers to as his “aunt”; but he knows that the outcome could have been derailed: “A few bad choices or a few wrong moves, and my story would be very different. Part of what drew me to Chris was that his world was so different from mine – a different culture, drama free, the flip side to my world at the time.”
Bringing together two distinctly different musical heritages (Sans' great grandfather played first violin in the Czar of Russia's orchestra, and his grandmother was a classical pianist; while Cron's grandfather sang barbershop, and his parents' background was firmly rooted in worship music), the band was fleshed out by the addition of Sans’ lifelong friend Ryan Malloy on bass.
Embracing a DIY ethic, the band jumped headfirst into writing, recording, gigging, and self-promoting. After self-releasing three EPs, the band signed to indie label Hopeless Records, recorded their debut album Everyday Behavior and hit the road as part of the 2004 Warped Tour, sharing the stage with Coheed and Cambria, Taking Back Sunday, Bad Religion, NOFX, Avenged Sevenfold and Fall Out Boy. With the buzz from their live shows growing like that summer’s heat, it wasn’t long before the band found itself in the middle of a bidding war. When the dust had settled, Mêlée was signed to Warner Brothers Records and in the studio with Grammy Award nominated producer Howard Benson (Daughtry, My Chemical Romance, All-American Rejects, Head Automatica).
Released in early 2007, Devils & Angels set the band off on a two year journey of extreme highs, cavernous lows, and profound self-discovery. After touring the U.S. for a solid year in what felt at times like a rudderless migration from coast to coast and back again, the band’s big break came from over 5,000 miles away when “Built To Last” exploded on radio across South East Asia and Japan. Says Sans: “It was our key to unlocking the door to the world. It's a magical and pure song that gave us the chance to share our music and ourselves in parts of the globe we had only ever dreamed about.” “Built To Last” went on to peak at 1 in Japan; Top 5 across South East Asia, Germany, the Netherlands; Top 10 across most of the rest of Europe; and Top 20 in the UK. It was a worldwide smash! But not in America…
Returning anonymously to the States after touring the world and playing before tens of thousands of fans was a revelation to the band, and a jarring reminder of how long the path ahead still is. But, with the determination of a prize fighter, the very next morning after coming back from their two year odyssey, Cron and Sans were back writing for their next album. Reflects Sans: “Coming home we were faced with the realization that we could have, and should have, gone further. Somewhere, in the midst of moving up to the ‘big time’ we lost ourselves. When we stopped and took a breath, we realized people may not have been able to make a connection from the song to the band, because we had lost the connection to who we were.”
The very first day of writing gave birth to “What Good Is Love (Without You)” and what Cron calls the most "fantastic" of the lyrics on the album, blending a woe-is-me abandon with an I-got-to-get-back-to-my-baby-once-more passion. The song includes the first of two nods to Queen on the album with its clever wink in the direction of Freddie Mercury as four-part harmonies kick in and the band sings “I’ve been sitting alone / next to an empty throne / where has my queen gone?” The second tip of the leather Brando cap is a cover of Queen’s “Teo Torriatte” (from the album A Day At The Races); no less than the song’s writer Brian May has called Mêlée’s take “great” and Cron’s voice “fabulous.”
Harkening back to their original DIY ethic, Cron and Sans then spent months on end sleeping on friends’ floors, starting each day just how they had ended the night before, writing songs. Having weathered triumphs and trials it’s not surprising that much of The Masquerade is framed by songs of exploration and endurance - the self-discovery of “Towers” (“I found me and you found you / Doing what we had to do / Building castles in the sky / Climbing towers much too high / But when it all falls down / It's only me and only you”), the anthemic liberation of “Immortal,” the phoenix-like emergence of the title track (“Welcome to your big debut / We're putting on the real you”), and the inspirational legacy of “Someday You’ll Be A Story”:
You can't find truth without the hurt
You won't know peace without a fight
It always matters how you live your life
And only time will tell
All of the things you do right now
The love that you've found
Will be passed down to everyone
Someday you'll be a story to someone
The Masquerade also sprinkles in its fair share of love songs (“The Ballad Of You And I,” “Freeze” and first single “On The Movie Screen”) and lust songs (“Wedding Dress” and “Girls Wanna Rock” co-written with American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi).
One final rimshot was added to the story when, upon finishing all the writing for the album, the band’s drummer left to join a Spinal Tap worthy list of past percussionists. Concludes Cron: “We were literally on the eve of a show in Jakarta, and in a bigger sense we were on the eve of the next chapter for Mêlée as a band. Ricky, Ryan & I had become brothers with a common purpose, and we needed to find someone who shared that same level of commitment and passion - someone who believed in the music as much as we did. It turns out the answer had been under our noses the whole time. Derek (Rock) had played in my first band and had filled in for Mêlée every time we lost a drummer. It was the natural choice, and it was awesome to see everything come full circle.”
So, as if divined by the album’s “The World Keeps Turning,” the fourth member, the missing piece of the puzzle, was found by returning home. And Mêlée – a band, of brothers - stand ready to face the journey together:
I’m missing another piece
Sometimes I feel like a puzzle
Broken and incomplete
Looking for the edges tonight
Take me home forgotten roads
And put me back together again
The Masquerade is released in Japan on August 18, 2010 and to the rest of the world in early 2011.
Mêlée is: Chris Cron – lead vocals, piano & guitar
Ricky Sans – guitars, synths & vocals
Ryan Malloy – bass & vocals
Derek Rock – drums & vocals
