Loop: Shoes Untied

The Mango Furs

Release Date: 2020
Single
USA

Dizzying psychedelic riffs, dreamy melodies, and addictive vocal hooks. The Mango Furs are a four-piece band that needs to be added to your playlists now. With their latest single ‘Shoes Untied’ being released on Friday 13th November 2020 it is the perfect time to check out their effortlessly cool psychedelic agenda. The four-piece group from Nashville offers themselves up to a hypnotic mix of indie, psychedelic rock, jazz, and pop, blending the myriad of genres perfectly. Chris Higdon (vocals, guitar, synth), Spencer Moore (Bass, backing vocals), Will Newman (Keys, synth, sax, backing vocals) and Dylan Miller (Drums, percussion) are masterfully addictive, bringing a sonic palate for the unique to the table whilst writing their own rules of sound. – Harriet Heywood

Shoes Untied is such an anthemic, genre-fluid, dreamy song altogether. Will you tell us in detail what’s it about and how it came together? 

Appreciate that, I was listening to songs like George Harrison’s version of “If not for you” around that time and I really like the honesty and sweetness in songs like that. Some songs are like a purge and I was just feeling a good, simple love song that day. As far as the actual writing process, I had just gotten a super drippy reverb pedal and was just having fun playing jangly leads over the chords. 

It all just fell together naturally maybe an hour after that. It’s one of those songs you hear people talk about where it just flows out effortlessly like the song writes itself and you’re just an antenna trying not to get in the way too much. I’m not sure that has anything to do with me as a writer as much as being able to not get in the way of something and allowing it to happen.

Everyone has those songs or works of art that just seem to come when you’re just having fun and when you look back, you’re like yeah that’s the sauce, don’t overcook it or dwell too long on it, just move on to the next one. I think I wrote a really fast garage-y surf beat after that one, haha, it was ratty but fun.

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The title, ’Shoes Untied’, has got a great echo and deep meaning itself. Are you considering creating its own merch? I mean it is such a simple yet brilliant phrase! 

That’s very kind of you. I’ve always loved band merch. It’s just cool that feeling you get when you get merch from a band you love. I have a Black Angels t-shirt I bought from the band that I’m never letting go. Those experiences of meeting people whose music you dig and supporting them is pretty rad. I’m imagining someone seeing a shirt with SHOES UNTIED and saying I don’t get it and a fan responding you wouldn’t. Sorry, that just made me laugh thinking about it.

Also, the video couldn’t get any better than that. I have no doubt that it will soon draw more attention. Will you tell us a bit about it, please?

Thanks so much, Caleb Herring is the videographer on “Shoes Untied”. He’s wonderful and it feels like opening a present when I get videos back from him. What’s amazing about Caleb, and all great videographers I would assume, is their ability to listen to the artist and recreate visually what’s in the artist’s head. Because “Shoes Untied” is such a sunny love tune I wanted the video to mirror that and visually take you somewhere else. My mom’s family lives in Southern California and I really love surfing there so to have that imagery was really important because that’s where I go in my head. My dream is to have a little bungalow, surf, and play music. 

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Must be painful not to be able to play this song on a stage, yet. Where would be a dream place to play Shoes Untied for you? 

Honestly anywhere we can connect with people. It’s less the venue and more about crowd interaction for us.

I go into a tunnel when I play live so the venue is kind of a blur anywhere I play, but I love looking at the smiling faces in the middle of the song and seeing heads nodding. There’s always that rush of playing and seeing the smiles on the band’s faces when we nail apart.

It is impossible to listen to it just once, I end up playing it on repeat mode all the time. What are some songs you listen to on repeat mode?

Ah, we got ya, did we? It’s a beautiful thing when something intangible like music gives someone a tangible feeling. Hmm, some songs on repeat. I mostly repeat songs when I practice drums because I’m currently at the competence level of a sack of potatoes on complex fills but it’s fun. Most recently, Eddie showed me Debussy’s “Claire de lune, L.32” and I’ve listened to that over and over when I need an audio detox. Highly recommended if you need to push the reset button.

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Even though this was promised to be all about Shoes Untied, I have to ask you about your album, too. Do you have a release date, yet? Is there anything you want to tell us about the album?

You’re awesome, thanks for doing your homework. Sometimes interviews can be so generic, not here at Infected Ear! Thanks so much for having me. 

Yep, new record. I just spent two weeks in the studio recording all the parts and getting the songs narrowed down with the genius of a producer, Eddie Spear. Such a gem that guy. It’s always good to work with a like-minded person who gets your sound and digs what you do. The songs are about to go into the mixing stage so it should be coming soon(ish). Aside from that, there’s still a lot of material I need to track for demos and there are also some instrumentals being released only on video on the Mango Furs youtube channel. And if you’re reading this, thanks for supporting us and online music publications. Be good to yourself. We’ve all come a long way. 

PEACE!

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