The Magic City took a moment out of their busy schedule to answer our questions about their music!
Do you have a story behind your artist name?
Mike Quinn: The name was inspired by a lyric that Dave wrote in one of our songs that everyone will get to hear in 2024.
Tell us a bit about your music journey. How has it shaped you?
Quinn: I used to be in it for the fame and the money. Now I’m in it for artistic expression (and the fame and the money).
David Jackel: My fascination with music began with The Beatles – specifically Help! (the movie, not the album). I had heard plenty of Beatles from as early as I can remember – especially “Abbey Road” and “Sgt. Pepper” – but I wasn’t truly aware of the Beatles phenomenon until I saw Help! during a family movie night when I was seven.
When I was in middle school, hair metal pop and syrupy ballads ruled the airwaves. I consumed all that music, but it was fundamentally unrelatable to an introverted adolescent growing up in suburban New Jersey. The year that grunge broke, a summer camp friend turned me on to Pixies, playing Doolittle every day on our bunk’s communal boombox. Pixies’ surreal weirdness made perfect sense to me. It was raw and abrasive, but rooted in earworm melodies like the early Beatles. The lyrics referenced the Old Testament stories (“Dead”, “Gouge Away”) and algebra (“Distance Equals Rate Times Time”) I had been studying, and the sci-fi I loved (all of Bossanova). It clicked. “Velouria” remains one of my all-time song crushes.
During the spring of my freshman year of high school I bought Ritual De Lo Habitual on cassette. I was prepared to fast-forward to the MTV hit, but the opening lines of “Stop!” captured my attention. The lyrics, written as prose, seemed profound. The music was explosive, melodic and rich. And the singer’s voice, warped and expanded by delay, was supernatural. By the time “Stop!” finished, Jane’s Addiction was my new favorite band.
The real magic of Ritual is Side 2, with three songs in a row that defy pop sensibilities: The epic “Three Days” (Dave Navarro’s best guitar work); the Zeppelin-esque “Then She Did”, Jane’s Addiction’s best song; and “Of Course”, a klezmer-infused meditation on the loss of innocence, and also heroin. To this day Ritual’s Side 2 reminds me of Boticelli’s Primavera, and I associate the album with the arrival of spring.
Jane’s Addiction had the firepower, swagger, and guitar heroics of Guns and Roses, but none of the bigotry or misogyny (at least not by 1990s standards). And compared with the grunge rock that made up most of my album collection, Jane’s was vibrant and life-affirming. They were a melting pot of glee and fury, light and shadow. A real ying-yang of a band. They could have been the soundtrack to a modern A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Perry as Puck.
I was too young to see Jane’s Addiction during their first run, but on a sweltering night in 1996 I did see Perry perform in Porno for Pyros at Irving Plaza in New York City. I was 16, and it was my first proper club show: A raucous audience, lots of weed, no parents. Perry was the ringmaster of his circus, with an energy and presence that evoked Freddy Mercury’s showmanship and the shaman side of Jim Morrison. Later I would read that during that tour he was on crack.
While their allure has faded for me a bit, I still find inspiration in Jane’s Addiction’s linear song structures, enigmatic lyrics, and layered sonic textures. And I still love how Perry Farrell can make simple phrases feel prophetic.
The last big band crush for me was Suede, who I would describe to newcomers as a more ferocious, sharper-edged Smiths. Catchy songs, angular guitar leads, punk rock energy, widescreen world-building, and a charismatic but enigmatic frontman who channeled Bryan Ferry, David Bowie, and Prince. Suede are not pioneers, but by my standards they are the perfect rock band. And unlike my other band crushes, who are either gone or deflated to nostalgia acts, Suede have had a second wind and are still going strong.
How would you describe your sound to someone unfamiliar with it?
Jackel: Early Beatles set in the era of Stranger Things.
What drew you to the genre /instruments you’re playing right now?
Quinn: I listened to the old WBRU (Brown University) in high school and loved every song they played: Depeche Mode, The Cure, Jane’s Addiction, and REM were mainstays. Then I became obsessed with REM and taught myself to play their songs on guitar. That’s when I knew for sure I wanted to play in a band.
Jackel: When I was 7 years old, I watched the Beatles’ Help! and I thought, “This is what I want to do all the time.” I campaigned to my parents for a guitar, and eventually my mother took me to the Freehold Mall music store where I ogled the beautiful hollow-body guitars. I came home with a recorder.
When I was in high school, I took guitar lessons at a local music store with a teacher named Bruce Wacker, who was playing the Jersey Shore clubs with his band, and seemed uninterested in teaching guitar to Nirvana-generation teenagers. Then at some point we bonded over the Beatles, and I showed him the songs I had been writing. He told me something along the lines of, “You need to do the John Lennon thing – learn rhythm guitar, enough piano to bang out chords, and the basics of how to structure a pop song.” And from then on, he was a terrific teacher. I worked with Bruce until I left New Jersey for college, and I still imagine asking for his opinion when I write songs.
What inspires you to write music?
Quinn: I hear bits of melodies and lyrics in my head, and I get engrossed in developing these into full songs. Typically, painful, stressful, or uncomfortable experiences compel me to write lyrics. It is a cathartic process, and it boosts my spirits to sing and play.
Jackel: I hear bits of songs in my dreams. When I wake up I try to write down what I remember before the dream fades. There’s usually a decent ten minute window for this, and my iPhone’s Voice Memo app has been very handy.
Would you tell us about your current project, album/EP, or song you’re promoting?
Jackel: “Roadrunner Vs. Your Mother” is our debut offering, arriving November 17, the first in a string of singles leading up to an album. Sonically, the song is a tribute to some of the sounds that first turned us on to music as kids – it’s Beatles from their matching suits era, Pixies, showtunes.
What do you want listeners to take away from listening to your music?
Quinn: We want them to see what we see. To imagine the scenes and settings of the songs in their minds, and to join us in this alternate reality.
Who are your top three artists right now? If that’s not a fair question, what’s your favorite song right now?
Jackel: Angel Olsen, Lana Del Rey, Bjork.
Quinn: Big Thief, Lucius, Ride.
What’s the easiest way for fans to connect with you?
Jackel: Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Bandcamp.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themagiccityofficial
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themagiccityofficial
Homepage: https://www.themagiccityofficial.com
Bandcamp: https://themagiccityofficial.bandcamp.com/
What’s next for you?
Jackel: Between the four of us, we’ve demoed several albums’ worth of songs. The album as a format is not dead – not yet, anyway – and I’d like to see us put out a few of them.
Quinn: We have plans for videos for “Roadrunner Vs. Your Mother” and future singles as well. Stay tuned!
Anything else you’d like to add or let us know about?
Jackel: We’ve said enough.
BIO:
The Magic City is escapism in music. The Boston-based modern rock band takes its moniker from an imagined convergence of Boston and London, and its sound echoes the spirit, style, and vitality of both cities. Debut single “Roadrunner Vs. Your Mother” arrives in November 2023, serving as a tone-setter and seductive invitation to what’s to come in 2024. As the great Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
