Mandala

So we are here with Abe from Mandala, so how are you doing?

Abe Azab: I’m doing good. It’s Monday I’m feeling good, I got my class out of the way. I got my coffee. That’s all that matters on a Monday.

How did Mandala get started? So the formation, the band name, all that fun stuff.

Azab: So basically I met Morgan in High School, Morgan’s the lead singer and we basically discovered that we could use music as an outlet for situations that are faced in our own lives. So basically we became friends and we both kinda figured out that we played music and at the time I had been in a couple other bands and I really wanted wanted to start and indie band. I met Morgan and at first I wanted her to play the bass cause I didn’t know that she could sing and then one day her mom was like ‘you know she can sing like really well’ and I was like ‘no I did not know that’ and that’s kind of how Mandala, the idea came and we started playing with these other kids and we would just sit down I was actually homeless I was homeless for a while and I was living with Morgan. I was living at her house so there were so many times we would just be sitting in her basement just writing song after song and it really brought us kind of close and she really saved me from a tight situation. At that time it really helped us to connect on that sort of level where not only were we friends but we really had the time to perfect our sound and create our song that is Mandala which still resonates today. Basically the ‘modern Mandala’ as it is now, we had went through a few member changes. So there was original line up and then the guitarist, the drummer and the bass player left to pursue other goals. So we ended up finding another three people, two of who had left, one had stayed. So basically we’ve had a cycle. The name Mandala, actually we were just storming up names and we couldn’t think of anything. But really really kind of random, there was a dentistry office and the name of the office was ‘Mandava,’ hopefully I’m promoting him some how but it sounded like ‘Mandala’ so I was like ‘what do you guys think about the name ‘Mandala’?’ So kinda pitched it to them and we’re not very like hippy and spiritual, [like oh mandala full circle] a lot of things do come full circle in our lives, which is pretty interesting but I feel like [it] also happens to a lot of other people as well. So we’re just Mandala.

Definitely you being with Morgan like that, that’s definitely [using] music as an outlet, I could imagine.

Azab: Absolutely

You are a student here at Central, so what is that like to have to balance college and the band?

Azab: It’s tough because I also work. So you can imagine my week is consisting of class, work, remembering to make food, things like that and then it’s all weekend is playing shows and touring so you know [I] have to work throughout the week, like most of us do, and then we just went to Massachusetts this weekend. The weekend before that we were in Vermont. The weekend before that we were in New York. Sometimes we hit multiple places during one weekend span, we’re almost like a weekend warrior band right now. It’s tough, but it’s rewarding because we love to do it.

And that’s what matters, because it’s not worth it if you guys aren’t enjoying it.

How was working at Silver Bullet Studios? That’s how I originally heard about Mandala.

Azab: It was really cool working with Chris [Teti] because it was the first time that we’ve been in a real studio setting. I don’t know if you can tell based off how we advertise ourselves but we’re a d.i.y band. We don’t often have a lot of help. We do have help but it’s from our friends or people who know us almost on a personal level [and people like you] cause we’re on the same wave. But at the same time, being at a real studio and working with Chris [Teti] was real interesting. Cause I know he had done a lot of records there, especially with his own band, so not only did he have a background but he kinda helped us see things differently. He was pretty biased if you know what I mean, he didn’t really have an opinion on us before or after. He listened to us and got down with it but it wasn’t like our friends who saw us evolve. They have a different ear than he had, so he really helped us to make the record very tight, very clean. He coached us to get through those rough spots that you get in the studio. Overall some of the best recordings we’ve had.

That’s great to hear.

How was the response to Damsel in Defense, your most recent ep. Was it better than you expected? Was it the response you expected?

Azab: So Damsel in Defense, so far it’s definitely gotten a good response from the start but I think it was kind of what we expected. Because in a way we got to kind of control the outcome as best we could, this time around. Cause when we put out ‘Cash for Smiles’ we made it, we finished it, everything was polished and we were were happy with it and we just put it out. We didn’t really think about any of the business side. I think we’ve developed as a band we’ve really learned to develop the business and the fun of it. So this time around, we submitted to Spotify curators to be on playlists, we sent out emails to people who had done write ups about us before and a lot of different things to get the momentum going. We didn’t really have much time to prepare. We recorded the album in five days. Which was rough in a good way, but it’s like staying up the night before to study.

It really tested you guys and what you can do.

Azab: Yeah.

Azab: It helped us prove we can do anything we want. But it was really cool. We landed on a Spotify playlist right off the bat that had like 30,000 followers. It was actually a Swedish playlist, we’re actually really popping off in Sweden right now. We’re almost at 5,000 monthly listeners [now] and we were at like almost 2,000, but most of them are from Sweden which is cool.

I love that.

Azab: Right off the jump its been good. ‘Bowery and Bleaker’ [the opening track] in a month’s time now, should be around 8,000 [listens]. I think overall we hit 10,000 [listens] the first three weeks on Spotify alone. It’s still young, so I envision it continuing to get some sort of attention.

So I was scrolling through the band’s Instagram and there was a little montage clip about the Vans Warped Tour, so how did that come about?

Azab: Like I said, we kind of do everything ourselves. So different media sites like ReverbNation, just different sites where you can send your stuff so people want to listen. So we actually entered a contest through ReverbNation to play the Warped Tour and we were just selected. The A&Rs that were doing it were listening through the bands that had submitted through CT and they chose us. Which was awesome. There was nothing more we could have done, we’re self managed. We don’t have anyone that could’ve reached out and given us a good word to get on Warped Tour. We just put ourselves out there and hope for the best. It’s all you can do when you’re a self-sufficient d.i.y band.

It seems to be paying off.

Azab: Yeah, it’s definitely working for us in ways that are helping us play music.

I was at that Warped Tour [date] and I didn’t know you guys were playing until like months later. And I was like man I could’ve seen them.

Azab : It was fun. It was a fun time.

What are the bands plans for the rest of this year. Do you already have plans for early 2020, that you can disclose?

Azab: Well we got a van. We used to have a van, then we didn’t have a van but now we have a van again which is good. That means that now we’ve been in talks about a lot of things. There will definitely be a music video coming out for one of the songs off of our ep. There definitely will be a longer tour if not a national tour coming, which will be a first for us, [our] first national tour. New merchandise of course. Possibly a brand new single that will be coming out through a distribution service that will be specified later. And also there may or may not be an album coming out. I can’t totally disclose that yet, but there’s definitely a lot of new music that’s been written. And overall, we just wanna keep playing shows. We just wanna play anywhere and everywhere. It’s an outlet for us but it’s also become more than that. Just like our fans, everybody that comes out to the shows. A lot of people know us for our fans, because their awesome but they’re absolutely crazy, in a good way. We just wanna keep playing shows, we appreciate them for coming out and we wanna be able to keep playing music together as long as we can so if that means we got to put in the work on the business aspect to become self-sufficient, to become noticed and grow our audience we gotta do what we gotta do.

Is there anything that I didn’t mention that you would want to add or where people can find your music?

Azab: Yes, it’s a very very simple phrase that really sums up everything else you could be curious about. It’s ‘we’re Mandala. A band from Connecticut. We make music.’ That’s as simple as it is. And you can find our ep ‘Damsel in Defense’ on every streaming service, we have a brand new website www.mandalact.com. You can find all of our media, our videos, you can find our music, learn about us, read our story. That’s a great place to start. And coming soon to a city near you.

Thank you for your time!

Audio Link: https://youtu.be/4GhPBPHAhDI