Why Mild Orange is Timeless, New Perspectives and What the Future Holds: A Special Interview with Josh Mehrtens

Hanging out at Mild Orange HQ in New Plymouth - looks like a pretty epic place to just have some chill time! L-R: Barry (Tom Kelk), Josh Reid (Jah), Mehrt (Josh Mehrtens) and Jeck (Jack Ferguson). Photo: Supplied. Taken by Cam Hay.

Grab your special Mild Orange brew (or, any tea for that matter - just make sure it’s orange), sit back and relax because this is one of my favourite interviews on the blog thus far!

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Mild Orange. You’ve most likely heard the name and if you’re an avid reader of Welcome to the Gig, you’ll know that I have just this year become quite a big fan of these four lovely humans that have quickly become known worldwide for their catchy, resounding tunes and heart-warming personalities.

After releasing their newest single This Kinda Day recently (song review here), I knew I had to ask if there was a chance to have a zoom chat with Josh Mehrtens (Mehrt) who is the hard working front man of Mild Orange about what the band have been up to during lockdown, their new merch drop, travel woes and of course, music.

Talking to Mehrt was humbling, nerve-wracking and inspiring all at the same time and honestly, out of the musicians I have had the opportunity to meet/speak to, he has won the race for the most passionate about what he is doing, which you can see and hear when speaking with him. Mild Orange have put their all into their projects and are reaping the rewards in more ways than one. Sit back and enjoy the interview!

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Hello!

Mehrt: Oh sup!

You’re in New Plymouth, aren’t you? You’ve moved around the country a bit, eh?

Mehrt: Yeah, we started in Dunedin and everyone thinks we’re from Dunedin, which we haven’t been a Dunedin band for three years or so. We met at University down there in 2017 and we graduated in 2018. In 2019, we all moved to our hometowns. I’m from Arrowtown, it’s a cool wee place! It’s a little gold mining town. From there, I wanted to go overseas, but then covid happened and Jah (Josh Reid) had moved to New Plymouth, so me and my girlfriend moved in together here with him and another mate of ours, so now we’re in New Plymouth for the time being.

That kind of works out good because at least you’ve got Jah with you and you can record and stuff like the [secret project that is coming out - this hasn’t been made public at time of publication!]

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First of all, I do want to say, congratulations on the release of This Kinda Day - it has been on repeat, it is such a beautiful song! From what your Dad said the other day, I didn’t realise there was so much more background to it. (For context Mehrt’s Dad sent me a message after reading the This Kinda Day review).

Mehrt: Yeah, it was a pretty sh*t time, but through that you find growth. That was the day I was leaving New Plymouth to go home, I started feeling real sh*t. I got rushed to the hospital that night and then I was in and out for a few days and then in and out for a few weeks. When you have pleurisy, you can’t breathe, it hurts to breathe and you can’t do anything. Then, you get these panic attacks and it was kind of traumatizing. You get given lots of morphine and stuff. I hadn’t really been through anything like that before and I kind of always considered myself bulletproof. You know that naivety when you’re growing up and you’re like “oh yeah, nothing’s going to happen to me, I’m sweet” and then something like that happens and you have a near death feeling and you’re like, “sh*t, I better look after myself” and from there, I really started looking after my health and appreciating a lot more around me. So, a lot of that has fed into the new music coming as well. That perspective change and really being more appreciative of yourself and those around you.

That’s awesome, I think This Kinda Day tells such a big story and I feel that it is going to hit differently and has hit differently with a lot of people. I think a lot of people are going to relate to it on different levels. Obviously, not everyone has gone through what you’ve gone through.

Mehrt: I don’t expect anyone to relate to it from my position because the way I write my lyrics, I’ve always had this kind of intention - especially since Foreplay - I want to write universal lyrics that most people can relate to with a whole array of situations so that they are not in particular to me, but they are more serving to the universe. Even for myself, they change meanings over time as I apply different situations to those words, so they’re kind of like living text.

That’s cool! Yeah, because you mentioned in the Feature Friday that you wrote Share This Dance being a life check to look back on. Is that kind of what you mean?

Mehrt: Oh yeah. I think I mentioned that one and Losing Time as being little life checks because Share This Dance is a very romantic song. I wasn’t in a relationship or anything, nor did I have any romantic interests at that time when that song was written, so it was kind of like an ideal of what I would be hoping to be feeling. It was kind of like a dream to have that. I guess when I listen to it, it makes me think, now that I’m in a relationship, this is what I was hoping for and it feels so right. It’s also to look back and - I’m quite a romantic [and while] I’m not writing romantically at the moment, it’s nice to look back as I love that sort of feeling and direction. For Losing Time, I wrote that one for a balance between work and play and I wanted it to remind myself all throughout my life to find that balance. I never quite got it right, but to be conscious of it, it’s good.

Orange and smiles all around! A great shot by Mehrt’s partner the other day!

That’s really cool! So, you guys got stuck here in Christchurch a month or so ago, right? What happened with that?

Mehrt: Yeah, we’re calling it the rigmarole. The definition of the word rigmarole. We were in Dunedin playing Re:O Week and to get back to New Plymouth, you have to go via Wellington, so we went from Dunedin to Wellington and it was the weekend of the Westport flooding and the crazy storms and stuff. So, Jack (Jeck) who lives in Westport, our drummer, was coming to New Plymouth with us, so we flew from Dunedin to Wellington and we got stuck there on the Friday night and we had to stay the night and then Air NZ was like “we’ve got no flights to New Plymouth, so we’re going to fly you to Christchurch to New Plymouth” and so we flew to Christchurch and then what do you know, we got stuck in Christchurch for the whole day, which was epic! So, we went to the markets there. I hadn’t realised how amazing Christchurch is in the city centre, there’s such a cool buzz and they’re really doing the rebuilds in such a cool way. It’s epic! It kind of feels like you’re in Dublin or Camden Markets in London. It’s world class, it’s cool. We got stuck there and then Jack ended up going home to help his town with the floods, then Jah and I had to fly from Christchurch to Auckland because the other flight got stuck and we had to stay another night in Christchurch and finally we got to Auckland and flew back to New Plymouth and we got back there on the Sunday night at about 10pm.

That’s a long adventure to get back home!

Mehrt: Yeah, it was fun though.

You guys went to Kaiser Brew Gardens when you were here - that little bar I recommended?

Mehrt: Yeah, we did. Your recommendation, that’s right. We ended up sitting there for 4-5 hours, just drinking the steins.

Were they good?

Mehrt: Yeah, it was great!

Awesome.

Multi-coloured dreams! Photo supplied. Taken by Cam Hay, colour edited by Mehrt.

Was it yourself and Jah that met at Kindy and then you found each other at Uni again? Was that by chance that you met again, or did you remember each other from then?

Mehrt: Nah, neither of us had any idea until we had started writing songs and stuff and Jah told his Mum “hey I’m writing music with this guy, Josh Mehrtens” and she was like “ah, I know him” and takes out this photo of us two.

How’s that for a throwback?!

Mehrt: Pretty funny, I think it’s quite fateful, eh.

I think things are meant to connect like that. I’m a person who believes everything happens for a reason, so guess that’s part of it.

Mehrt: Yeah, I agree. I am too.

What about the other bandmates, did you meet them around the same time or later on?

Mehrt: Barry on bass, I met him in College in first year. There was a hall band [competition], like a battle of the bands between the halls and we needed a band from our hall, so I was playing guitar and he was playing drums for some reason and so, we kind of met through that and he was in Albion Place at the time.

Albion Place, far out!

Mehrt: Then, Jack was actually the second drummer of Albion Place, so he joined them in 2017 and he’d been with them for a few months and then I asked if Barry if he wanted to play drums for us since he played drums for us in this hall band and he said no, but then he said he’d play bass with us and he asked Jack if he wanted to jam with us too and so, Barry and Jack from Albion Place came and jammed with Jah and I, so we started doing a lot of the Foreplay songs. We had our first gig together with Marlins Dreaming and it was their first gig as well and yeah!

I love how Kiwi bands seem to spread apart but come back together to form other bands. That’s cool.

Mehrt: Yeah. They were in both bands for a while and then Albion Place disbanded and Jack and Barry are still with us. The four of us are a very tight unit.

I got that from the This Kinda Day video, when the little man walks out at the end and the three other guys are there - that is so special! You can just tell that you guys are just really, really closely bonded.

Mehrt: It’s cool you picked up on that.

Your European tour for last year was canceled due to covid, wasn’t it?

Mehrt: Yeah, we’ve had to cancel a lot of plans. We released the second album with the expectation that we’d be going overseas again and hitting the States for the first time and Australia, we had to cancel that, too. We just have to take it on the chin. We are trying to plan at the moment for next year to do all of that.

Is it going to be bigger and better than you expected?

Mehrt: We probably won’t do another 20-date tour. When we did Europe last time, it was 21 shows in 30 days, which was really grueling. It was a lot of shows. Probably won’t do that many next time! We will just do a dozen dates in the Northern Hemisphere in one go. It’s a bit harder with covid to plan.

Yeah, because you don’t want another variant to come out [and ruin everything].

Mehrt: Then we get over there and what if we can’t do it and we get stuck? I think we’re just going to go for it though because we need to start trying to do sh*t again! So long as it’s safe, of course and practical to do so. Another bummer is that we’ve been trying to go to Australia and we’re meant to be going in a few months but, yeah.

Looks unlikely, right? Pretty sh*t eh. It must suck when you’ve got so many exciting things coming, but then it gets taken away from you that quickly.

Mehrt: You kind of just have to not have too high expectations at the moment.

True. At least the beauty of it is that with lockdown and stuff, you can still make music and do things. That’s a positive, eh.

Mehrt: Nah, exactly. I think if covid hadn’t of happened, I don’t think any of this third album that we’re working on at the moment would have been what it is. We left lockdown last year and we didn’t go overseas like we were thinking and we just locked down together and recorded more music. We’ve got a studio in New Plymouth now and none of those dots would have connected I don’t think.

There’s been a lot of good that has come out of it.

Mehrt: With the power of the internet, we rarely don’t feel connected to our fans and the music scene.

Yeah, I was shocked when you replied for the first time. I was like… “hold on!” I did not expect a reply at all.

Mehrt: It’s real weird. We get a lot of messages from people saying “I don’t expect you to reply to this…” like, what the hell? I see absolutely everything and try to reply to pretty much 99% of messages.

You’ve got 20k+ followers on Instagram, how do you make that work?!

Mehrt: It’s not too crazy. I mean, we get a lot of people reach out everyday from all over the world. I love interacting with people and those who take an interest and one of the things I’ve loved over the past year, because I’m a travel addict and love going out and seeing the world, one of the things I’d love is to maintain this mood of the world by talking to people on social media. I was talking to someone from Colombia the other day and someone in Serbia, people all over the show who are listening to our music, you know?

(Me typing this interview up: still absolutely shocked at how humble Mehrt is and how he tries to reply to everyone - truly shows his caring and kind nature)

Incredible. Did you ever think that when you guys became a band that you’d reach that far? Or did you hope you would?

Mehrt: I’ve always had this belief and outlook that it would be a world project. So, I guess it’s all kind of felt right, natural. I’m very grateful for it and I’m not like, I thought all of this was going to happen. It’s all kind of like felt right and intentional. It’s all been happening.

You must be in shock that someone was from Serbia!

Mehrt: Yeah, I’m still in shock, like, how the hell did that reach you?! I think it’s YouTube that really gets us to, the more, unchartered area of music, perhaps for New Zealand.

So, I’ve got to ask this question… How many selfies do you have on your phone now? Last time it was like,1200+ when we did Feature Friday!

Mehrt: Yeah, it’s true. Was it 1200 2 months ago? I’ve got 1308! I’ve taken 100 selfies in the past 2 months.

How many have you taken in the last week and a half then? [During lockdown]

Mehrt: I don’t know. I’ve got some pretty crack up ones from the last week though.

That’s a hilarious fact about you, that you love selfies! I mean, why not?

Mehrt: I always look back and find random as sh*t. I don’t know when I’ll want to look back on things from years ago. I’ve even just got videos of me brushing my teeth, I’m like, “that’s interesting…” It’s little mundane moments that you probably overlook, you know and then I don’t know, maybe in 50 years I’ll want to know what I was like when I was so unassumed.

That’s actually a good way of looking at it! I guess other people don’t think about it that way.

Mehrt: I think with my art as well, because I do artworks and stuff and with photography, I like to capture things that people often overlook. Just really little things, seeing the beauty in things that we see everyday, but we don’t always see.

Do you have a favourite piece of art you’ve done, or photograph you’ve taken?

Mehrt: That’s a good question. I don’t know. I’ve got so much on my phone. Maybe the faces. The faces logo on the merch. *Mehrt shows original sketch of the faces he did.

That’s awesome, I love that!

Mehrt: Yeah, I do all these sorts of drawings of the band all the time.

Sh*t, you’re really talented!

Mehrt: Cheers, they’re pretty sh*t, haha. The messier and the faster, I reckon like, they come out better.

A sample of Mehrt’s drawings - he explained this is how he kind of feels sometimes. A great representation.

You designed both artworks for the albums as well? [Foreplay and Mild Orange]

Mehrt: Yeah and the singles.

It’s that personal touch that you’ve put in there to say “hey, I did this!” instead of easily getting someone else to do it for you.

Mehrt: I love creating stuff, I love all mediums really. I have a real… When I hear music, quite a special way of processing it. So, if I see an image, then I’ll really feel it, yeah. On both the albums so far, they’ve really encapsulated how I envisage it.

Yeah, wicked. I love the artwork, it’s super cool. So, do you have a favourite album of the two you’ve released?

Mehrt: Ah… I would probably go back to listen to the second one more myself. In terms of growth, Foreplay is my favourite for nostalgia reasons. I remember figuring out how to mix and produce it all through the process of that one. It was a huge learning curve. The second one really had me hitting my head against the table when I was trying to figure sh*t out.

Oh no! It came together well, so that’s the most important thing right? So, album number three you said about! Is that going to be out in the near future, or is that going to be like next year?

Mehrt: With the way things are shaping up, I still think probably the start of next year. Getting it to where I want it to be has taken longer than anticipated, but it’s coming.

You guys are like other bands I’ve talked to and done reviews of, you won’t put out something you’re not 100% happy with, right?

Mehrt: Nah, I will listen to it [over and over]. This Kinda Day I probably listened to 1000s of times. I won’t put anything out there that I don’t think won’t stand the test of time. Mild Orange is timeless, not timely. It’s made to be there forever and to go through your whole life. There is an art to creating things very quickly, I would say that some of our stuff is created right in the moment and then it’s all been made in hour bursts and it’s even been mixed in the same day, like with Getting Warmer, that was the case. I made that beat in 20 minutes, recorded my vocal over it real janky, then got Ben around the next day and it was done. It was done straight away. Through that, I listened to it for a good six months on repeat before it went out and then with the second album, I was mixing for nine months. Foreplay was six months and you know, this next album, I’ve been listening to it for about a year. Still tweaking it. We want it to sound great, forever.

I think Mild Orange, like you said, is timeless, not timely - that’s so important and I don’t think you guys are not not going to leave an impact on the music world.

Mehrt: Cheers. Yeah, I’m quite an overthinker as well, too. I will often triple, quadruple check everything I do, even if it’s an email, I’ll read it 20 times before I send it, even a text.

Nah, good on you. I think you guys are amazing and reaching so many people worldwide, I think that is hard for Kiwi artists to do that, like I know quite a few artists who are trying to break into the international market and it just isn’t working for them yet.

Mehrt: Yeah, it can be difficult, eh. Very grateful.

So, about your awesome new merch! You guys released loose leaf tea, how did that come about?

Mehrt: Yeah, that was Jah’s idea! Have you heard of Noble & Sunday? They’re in Christchurch, they’re pretty cool. They’re a cool Kiwi brand that are thinking worldly and their values are aligned with ours - they’re sourcing responsibly and doing things sustainably in small batches, high quality. So, it was Jah’s idea to do like, a collab tea with them. He reached out and they were keen. So, over the last six months maybe, we’ve been working on it with them, getting the right blend and we’ve been pretty hands on with tasting it and smelling it and stuff. This merch drop has taken ages to pull together. It’s been worth it. We wanted to do things that are different and have it be high quality as well. The t-shirts are all made in LA and they’ve got this nice 90s feel. You know how they used to be made differently and they’re more weightier? They feel good quality and all of them have the name of who has made them inside and all of the people who have made the merch have earnt between $20USD - $30/$40USD, it’s all good working conditions. Our merch from here on out is going to be high quality. I just don’t want to put anymore sh*t out into the world.

The cutest box of tea ever! Mild Orange x Noble & Sunday - available now at the official MO website, here. Photo shot by Cam Hay.

Nah, absolutely. That’s so important.

Mehrt: If we’re investing in this sort of model from here, it’s still not perfect, but if we’re from the start, putting in the effort like this, then it’s going to make a difference further down the track. As the economy scale grows, it’s harder to make those changes later on. I designed the shirts and the site, too, very hands on there.

Is there anything you cannot do? That is incredible!

Mehrt: Tying my shoelaces. Still do the bunny ears!

(Edit: Sorry Mehrt, I had to add this part in - too great not to! Absolute crack up.)

You can tie your shoes, you just do it the 5-year old way.

Mehrt: Yeah, the way that takes like, two minutes!

How are the other guys who aren’t in your bubble, are they doing alright?

Mehrt: Yeah, they’re good. Barry is in Wellington, he’s got like a little side hustle called Barry’s Bread, he makes sourdough, he’s got his own Instagram called Barry’s Bread. He puts a photo up there pretty much every day with his loaves that he bakes. First person to comment gets it. Him and Jah are really good cooks. Jack’s in Westport right now. I think Jah might be cooking something up right now, he’s always cooking.

Not a bad thing if you get to taste it, right! If you had to go back and change anything about either of your albums, what would you do differently?

Mehrt: Nothing really. It would just be mix stuff. Like I can hear on a few of the mixes a few things I wish I’d done differently. I remember on exporting a couple of the songs, I thought about changing a few dB on this guitar or this layer or whatever. There have been some I’ve regretted it as soon as I’ve heard it.

Have you had any strange fan encounters?

Mehrt: Damn. I feel like there is… Not like, strange. Cool. Cool ones. When we were playing in Amsterdam, just as we started the show, this guy pushes his way through the mosh to get to the front row, he’s like “here’s this orange for you!” and he’d like, drawn on this orange and it was real cool. It had this face and he gave it to us! People always give us things, that’s cool. Nothing too strange. Our fans are cool. Mild Orange really attracts super down-to-earth, chill, nice people. It’s super nice, eh. Everyone is really respectful, they’re like “sorry to interrupt you, thanks for your time!”

You could say they’re… mild. (Terrible Dad jokes from me, sorry readers). What did you do with the orange? Obviously you wouldn’t have been able to keep it very long.

Mehrt: It stayed in the tour van until we got to Milan. So, it was in there for ages.

Has the pandemic changed the dynamic for Mild Orange?

Mehrt: Nah, not really eh. We were already working by correspondence. Like, 2019, we were all living in different cities and we were all coming together and we still live in different cities, so I don’t think it has, eh. We come together enough, you know, every few months and have big bursts of work instead of living together and yeah, I don’t know. I like the way it works. We all live different lives and then we all come together and have such different influences and we’re all excited to see each other and try to do as much as we can during that time. If we were all living together, I don’t think we’d have that same effect.

That’s quite interesting, there are a few bands that don’t live together and live in different cities throughout NZ like you guys do and they’re struggling to make it work, unlike yourselves.

Mehrt: It does help that I do the production and stuff, I need, kind of, moments alone to do that. It’s kind of worked naturally anyway. Jah and I run the business side of it, yeah.

That’s good it hasn’t changed anything, that’s a positive!

Mehrt: There’s always stuff to do, it works out fine.

Basically, Mild Orange takes up most of your time, right?

Mehrt: All of it. Always. It can be kind of bad, I don’t really switch off from Mild Orange ever. I’m always thinking about it! Always thinking about creating. Everything I do funnels into it.

That’s cool when that hard work pays off and you can see that.

Mehrt: Yeah. I can’t not do it.

What do you love most about being a Kiwi?

Mehrt: I really like how small it is here and kind of how friendly we all are. I like how much we punch above our weight on the world stage. I’m always really proud to say that we’re a band from New Zealand, that we’ve achieved the things we’ve done as we come from such a small country, the one corner of the world that often gets forgotten on maps, yet we can make so much noise. The country has such a good brand about it, I think we’re quite progressive and innovative, yeah. Super proud to be Kiwi!

After the covid lockdown, are you planning on doing a nationwide tour, like coming to Christchurch or anything?

Mehrt: Yup, yeah. We’re trying to come before the end of the year. I guess it’s all up in the air again. You don’t really want to announce the shows while we’re in lockdown. (At time of publication, we are in level 2, at the time of the interview, we were level 4 lockdown)

Do you miss your old Dunedin Uni days? I can imagine you’ve got some stories!

Mehrt: Yeah, plenty that I don’t know will make it to interviews! I do miss it. It was a pretty awesome time. We are all still super tight with our Uni mates, our flat chat from Otago, we are still talking in it, every single day. So, despite living all over the show, we’re still best friends. There were 11 of us in our last year living together, we were all just super tight. A lot of us have known each other our whole lives as well. What I miss is living together, all the sh*t we got up to… Shenanigans. I do miss the city, it was pretty awesome. I skateboard and it was such a good city to skateboard in because there were all these epic hills, just skate down them all day.

For the love of selfies! Here’s one that Mehrt provided for the blog - this is how we all will feel when Mild Orange can do gigs again!

That’s cool! Is there anything else you want to add to the interview?

Mehrt: I don’t know! Not really. We’ve covered a lot of stuff. Thank you for your time and for taking a lot of interest in the project and find out some things.

Hey no, thank you! I didn’t honestly think you’d be able to chat with me! You have no idea how stoked I am. Thanks Mehrt, I appreciate it.

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As usual, you can find Mild Orange at all of the below links:

Spotify
Website
Instagram
Facebook
YouTube
Twitter

Flick them a follow, check out their beautifully crafted music and also their merch, too!