A WALK ON GUILDED SPLINTERS WITH THE MYSTERINES
“Lia’s got a strong personality and great stage presence. She’s untamed.”
PAUL WELLER
BACK IN the summer of 2019, Paul Weller invited Liverpool group The Mysterines to duet on a live version of Dr. John’s 1968 track I Walk On Guilded Splinters. It had been a brave move of Weller to tackle The Doctor’s voodoo incantation back in 1995, but dial up the more recent performance on YouTube and Mysterines singer Lia Metcalfe, 18 at the time, seems totally unfazed as she breathes new fire into the song. It’s all Weller can do not to stand back and admire.
“Lia’s got a strong personality and great stage presence, and it’s nice
– and I don’t mean this in a patronising way – to hear a young woman with that sort of ballsy voice,” recalls Weller, who also invited Metcalfe to feature on True, a track on his new album, Fat Pop: Volume 1. “You’ll hear it in R&B maybe but not so much in rock or pop. She’s untamed.”
It’s a kind of untamed, raw power that’s ignited the clutch of tracks The Mysterines have put out to date. On songs such as last year’s pile-driving Queens Of The Stone Age-like Who’s Ur Girl or the joyous, Ramonesy rattle of Gasoline, the band – Metcalfe, plus bassist George Favager, guitarist Callum Thompson and drummer Paul Crilly – alchemise fuzztoned garage rock into something that feels fresh, electrifying and vital. At least to our ears…
“I don’t really like our earlier stuff,” groans Metcalfe, taking a break outside Assault And Battery Studios in west London, where the band are finishing their debut album, due on the Fiction label in 2020. “I wrote those songs when I was 14 then released them when I was 16. I didn’t identify with them at that point, so now I’m 20 it feels worlds away.”
Metcalfe’s father was the frontman in early 2000s indie rockers Sound Of Guns and would play her contemporary bands such as The Strokes, The White Stripes and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club when she was barely out of nappies.
It all fed in, and by the age of eight she had started writing her own songs, was soon playing open mike nights and had formed The Mysterines while she was still in school.
“I had no interest in going to house parties. Once you’ve been to one you’ve been to them all – someone throws up on themselves, someone gets threatened with a knife. I would much rather be out playing with other bands,” she recalls of spending her teens climbing into a van and playing gigs.
There are parallels with her sharp-suited benefactor’s early career there, as there is in the band’s refusal to stand still creatively. The rough mixes of The Mysterines’ new material that MOJO hears show Metcalfe’s songwriting has indeed leapfrogged their recent output by a distance. Reflecting a current listening diet that includes Tom Waits, Billie Eilish and “a lot” of Nick Cave, there’s gnarled, Stooges-inthe-Mojave desert blues (Dangerous), pummelling grunge (Hung Up) and, on the sunset warmth of On The Run, the freewheeling ease of Tom Petty.
“The album’s pretty much done. I just want to play these songs live now. I’m getting pretty bored, I’ve started watching Come Dine With Me,” says Metcalfe, taking a final pull on her cigarette before heading back into the studio.
She laughs. “I’ll probably end up hating these ones as well…”