They may not be able to time travel, but Mac Saturn is still bringing the glitz, groove, and pure energy of old school rock and roll from Detroit to the Club Cafe in Pittsburgh. This five-piece band of brotherhood channels the swagger of classic ’70s rock icons while injecting each song with their own modern funk. Dancing is mandatory. You may know them for their eye-catching style or their popular songs like Mint Julep and latest single, Takes Time. No matter where you’ve heard their name, it’s clear Mac Saturn is quickly cementing their reputation as a rock scene staple.
Ahead of their show on November 13 in Pittsburgh, we sat down with lead singer, dancer, and maraca shaker Carson Macc as well as guitarist Mike Moody, to discuss getting back into the music making process, performing live, and what the future holds for this band straight out of a coming-of-age movie.
5 Questions with Mac Saturn Ahead of Their Pittsburgh Concert
How would you introduce your music, your vibe, and your sound to somebody who hasn’t heard of you before?
Carson Macc: That’s actually something that we’re really excited to do on this tour, for brand new people to hear our music, and we don’t know exactly There’s some soul. There’s also some Motown. And we know people like to dance to it. But, we don’t really know what to call it yet. If you like to dance, if you like rock and roll, and if you like a band playing together come check it out and decide for yourself what what type of music it is.
Mike Moody: In the studio, we’re especially exercising all of our possibilities with the sound. It gives us a lot of freedom to be able to use all of our ideas because all five of us are coming at this thing with every bit of passion that we have in our body. After all, we all come from different backgrounds.
Where does the inspiration for your distinct sound come from? Are there any artists that inspire you?
CM: The key to where the sound comes from is what we’re all listening to on our own time. Like our drummer, for instance, is into a lot of ’90s music like Pearl Jam and Oasis that a couple of us don’t know much about. Then, I’m into a bunch of rhythm. Think really old, random rhythm and blues numbers. And Mike will bring a lot of contemporary music to the table, the things that are coming out now that we might have missed if he didn’t bring it up. So we’re always informing each other of music and getting each other to listen to things that we might not normally.
MM: We all have a chisel in our hand, and we’re looking at a big piece of marble with every one of these songs. It makes it so much fun because we get to sculpt that together and be able to have that connection. It’s just a beautiful process. We’re so grateful for it.
After a break, what has it been like coming back together, performing again, rehearsing again, and overall getting ready for this tour?
CM: It’s definitely been a year and a half of a lot of emotion. Tensions were high. We brought a keyboard player on last year that we thought was highly professionally recommended. He ended up being a monster and brought a lot of stuff into the group that they had done previously. It was really hard for us to take time off, but we felt it was necessary for not only us to recover, but for the real victims of the situation to have some space and time.
We also took the time to educate ourselves and actually partner with Darkness to Light. We were able to take a course with them that educated all of us on a lot of facts and things to help these situations. Mac Saturn definitely wouldn’t be trying to be public or even be on stage again if we didn’t believe in this new music. The new music has been really powerful. I can’t even begin to tell you how many new songs we have written in this year and a half, it’s incredible.
What does this tour mean for you all?
CM: The big emphasis, I think, is the brotherhood. It’s what has gotten us through everything and just sharing that with people again and being together out on the road again is going to be a an incredible thing. We love traveling and love doing it all in general. To get to this point and make something negative into something positive that can help people, I’ve been thinking a lot about that. What we’re most excited about is just trying to be an inspiration in this world. The world’s going through a lot right now, more than what we went through, more than what everybody individually is going through. Together, we’re going through a lot as a world right now and I know we just need to inspire each other.
MM: As all of us music lovers know, music heals. Music is a place where you can go and you can feel joy, feel light, feel sunshine, feel whatever you are feeling. Being able to have music is just such a beautiful, beautiful thing that has pulled us through so much. That’s why we are so excited right now. We couldn’t be more ready.
What are you looking forward to showcasing in the future?
CM: I think we’re all, first and foremost, very excited to share the new music. There’s going to be a lot of new music we play on this tour. They are going to be the same thing you love, but they’re going to have some maturity to them or just some little differences. We’re letting the new music and the writing influence everything, even the looks on stage and the attitude. It’s all going to be a little different and we don’t exactly know what it’s going to be. But, we’re going to be figuring it out every night by channeling something and letting it bring us somewhere, even if we might not know exactly where it’s going to take us. It’s going to be something new and we’re excited to share that.
Story by Kylie Thomas
Photo Courtesy of Mac Saturn
Subscribe to TABLE’s print edition.
