Part 1

Name: Mediocre
Members: Piper Torrison, Keely Martin
Nationality: American
Current release: Mediocre's To Know You’re Screwed EP is out via Dangerbird.
Recommendations: Keely: My good friend showed me Nobuhiro Yamashita’s film Linda Linda Linda (2005) a little while ago, and I instantly fell in love with it. It’s a beautifully wholesome story about female friendships and the process of forming a band in your teen years. It holds a really dear place in my heart, and more people need to see it!
Piper: Margaret Glaspy’s Tiny Desk performance. I definitely consider it a must watch.



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?

Keely: The first instrument I got my hands on was piano. I started when I was about six years old. I didn’t really like taking lessons, but I used to spend hours writing little instrumental songs that I imagined playing over movie scenes.

I think my passion for music is an extension of my passion for film, and vice versa. I grew into both simultaneously without realizing. I think the ability to convey such a wide range of emotions and how that’s so particular to the artist themself is what really drew me in. It made me want to do it too.

Piper: I first started playing music in 8th grade after picking up my friend's ukulele, but it wasn’t until my mom got me my first guitar for my 14th birthday that I’d say things really started clicking.

I was always surrounded by music growing up, but when I saw my friends creating it and expressing themselves so openly that I saw that as a possibility for myself too.

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

Keely: I often find myself dissecting all of the moving parts of the song I’m listening to, and figuring out how each instrument interacts with one another. I think it comes from my own admiration for music production, and my fascination with songs that just feel like a successful science project with all of the ingredients working together, not against. It’s super inspiring.

Piper: I feel like it's so dependent on the type of music I’m listening to! But when I'm listening to something that particularly resonates with me, my analytical brain definitely shuts off and all I can do is feel it. It feels so physical and expansive, like my chest swells and makes more room for the listening.

It’s funny that I’m basically on the other end of the spectrum as Keely with this response, but I think that's so cool!

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

Keely: I think my development as an artist has grown as I’ve gotten to know my instrument better. Although bass was the second instrument I ever picked up, I wasn’t always the bassist in Mediocre. I jumped around a lot; starting with guitar, then to drums, and as of the last couple years have returned to bass – my favorite by far. Writing bass lines and seeing the trends in my songwriting has really offered me some insight about myself as an artist and writer.

I gravitate heavily towards melodies and instrumentation before lyrics. Figuring out the right words to express my feelings is often a struggle for me, but the way something sounds is what makes me more in tune with myself oddly enough.

Piper: I feel like my development as an artist is pretty solidly tied to my general development as a person. I first turned to music during my scary preteen years and it’s always been my main coping mechanism, so it makes sense that as my concerns have developed into that of a young adult my art has developed with it.

Looking back I feel like one of my biggest breakthroughs came from viewing my voice as one of my instruments, if not my main one. I feel like I never really thought twice about it and singing was such a subconscious activity for most of my life. It really bolstered my confidence in my musicianship to nurture a more intentional relationship with my voice.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

Keely: I think I’m still trying to figure out how to define my identity. It’s hard not to minimize myself when trying to articulate my identity in writing, but ironically it stresses me out to not be able to articulate something so integral.

I think I’m just trying to take things day by day, trying to be the best version of myself, or at the very least a version of myself. And seeing what I end up making and listening to along the way are essentially stepping stones to a much longer process of discovery.

Piper: I’d say my sense of identity is pretty rough around the edges. I’m really just working on embracing myself and my humanness, however imperfect and messy that may be.

The music I am drawn to as a listener is pretty reflective of this in that I find myself being most engaged by the raw, emotional, gritty, and slightly weird corner of the music world.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

I think right now, our key idea is to make art that feels the truest to the current versions of ourselves. It’s not worth worrying about how our future selves would see the stuff we’re making now, because we’d hope that they would just be excited to see us making cool things that make us happy. It’s hard to try to let go of your own expectations and just have fun, but that’s what our main goal is.

Whatever emotion or message we want to convey through our music will be conveyed, and could even be interpreted in different ways based on who’s listening.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

Both can and should coexist! At least with Mediocre, we often pull from a lot of influences, and love making music that reminds us of the songs that we have been the most inspired by throughout our lives. But at the same time, we’re definitely putting our own spin on things, simply because we are different individuals than the individuals who we look up to.

I think there is no “music of the future” without the tradition that you’re extending from and making your own.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

This may sound underwhelming, but voice memos has been the glue to our band for most of our young adult lives.

When we both moved to colleges on opposite ends of the country, sending voice memos to each other of fragmented song ideas and chord progressions is what kept us going, and maintained our musical relationship.

Without that, it would’ve been really hard to even work towards anything. We credit a lot of our creative motivation throughout that time to those recordings.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

Keely: I wish I had a morning routine, I gotta get on that. I’m currently working at a cafe, so half of my week is spent there.

But on days off, my life consists of waking up, making some breakfast, and then texting Piper to see if they want to grab coffee and respond to emails with me. And if we finish responding to emails, we play music in my apartment and send more emails.

Piper: Oh gosh … This question is definitely pretty daunting given that my days are rather irregular. I just recently moved to Boston within the past couple months so I’m still establishing a routine and setting up my life out here.

I spend a lot of time with Keely and we commit a lot of energy to Mediocre, but I can’t say any of it feels very routine.