Things Mae Change

"Change" - the word has been spoken so often in the past year that it's in danger of becoming a parody of itself. Throughout President Obama's campaign, he and many of his supporters focused greatly on the theme of change, so much so that one has to wonder whether any administration could actually live up to that amount of hype. But there are those out there who are not content with simply counting on politicians to make the world a better place. Alternative/Pop rock band Mae, who played to a crowd of over 1,000 in Brubaker auditorium on February 14, is about real change and they're backing it up."Great change can happen one step at a time," said Jacob Marshall, drummer for Mae. He and band mates Dave Elkins (lead vocals/guitar) and Zach Gehring (guitar) have found a way to use their music as a tool to directly affect the lives of others. The band has begun a process of releasing one new song each month this year, available as a download online. The songs will be sold for a minimum donation of $1, and all proceeds go directly to a specific cause. For instance, Mae's music is currently helping to fund a new home for a woman in their hometown of Newport News, Virginia, through a partnership with Habitat for Humanity.

"The real power in all of this is that individual dollars come together to influence one story at a time" says Marshall. "We're working locally to effect change globally."

This new route for Mae would not have been possible a few years back and is a result of the band undergoing various changes. In 2007, former members Rob Sweitzer and Mark Padgett got married and left the band, which Marshall said led to a period when the rest of the group questioned whether to even continue making music together. Then last year, due to some shifting of power and logistical difficulties, the band ended its venture into the major label realm and split with Capitol Records.

"We experienced a system that is broken," says Marshall, referring to the current decline of the major label music industry. As an example of the dysfunctional state of the business, he notes that the band spent $3k to self-record their first album, Destination: Beautiful, in 2003 and ended up selling about 150k copies. In contrast, Capitol provided them with an $800k recording budget on their latest album, Singularity, in 2007 and were only able to move 65k units. Something about the whole thing just didn't seem right.

"It was time to create our own path," Marshall said. "We had to ask ourselves what our goals were and redefine what success meant to us. We were willing to risk so-called 'success' for true success."

The band is now recording and touring without management or a label, a situation that Marshall says has allowed them to break down every barrier between Mae and its fans. He feels that the band and the audience are now working hand-in-hand to make the world better while using the songs as tools at their disposal. Of course, this new approach has affected the way they write.

"With each song being released on its own, we want them each to feel like their own piece of music," Marshall says. "Each song is its own journey."

The songs are slated to be released physically as three different EP's, one every four months, and will include extra songs, instrumentals, and interludes. Marshall says the band plans to hand-paint the cover art and has been toying with the idea of making it scratch-and-sniff capable as well. They're truly trying to live up to their name - "Multi-sensory Aesthetic Experience."

To learn more about Mae's new project, visit www.whatismae.com.