Melee interview

With their rock/pop melodic sound, and a forthcoming arena tour with the Counting Crows, these guys are enjoying worldwide chart success, most recently with single, Built to Last. Take it away, lads...

Living... For the City
Ricky: We live in hotels... and tour buses!
Chris: But our home is in California. I live in LA by Orange County - right by Disneyland. It's fun! It's a really nice place to grow up I guess. We all grew up there.
Ricky: I'd love to live in London. Or Japan.
Chris: I liked Manchester.
Ricky: Brighton's cool too.
Chris: Yeah, Brighton reminded me of San Francisco and I love San Francisco.

Living... On A Prayer
Chris: I think we're all a little bit different. I have been born and raised in the Christian Church. It's just a non denominational Christian Church at home that has about three hundred people in the congregation - real small and very family based. My parents did allow me to make my own choices they and said 'you know this is what we believe' they didn't ever say 'You have to do this'.
Ricky: But they did say if you didn't you'd go to hell! (all laugh)
Chris: Ha! Maybe! No, I just made the choice in Junior High to stick with it.
Ricky: I'm a Jew and that's all you can say about that!
Mike: I'm a Catholic.
Ryan: I'm a Catholic too and I go to Church on Easter and Christmas and sometimes other times if the mood strikes me.
Mike: I used to be an altar boy.

Living... for the Weekend
Mike: I'd go to some nice Tropical place. (Chris agrees).
Ricky: I'd go to Tokyo. I'd take all my friends.
Mike: Somewhere tropical and on the beach. I've never been to Hawaii so that would be nice.
Chris: I'd go to Costa Rico with some friends and go exploring through the jungle. And then crash on the beach every day. We mellow out a lot more when we go home. I think the four of us being friends and going on the road seeing new things, especially like travelling internationally, we don't want to take that for granted and we go and try and see as much as we can.
Ryan: When we first get to a place we try and see touristy stuff so that if we come back we don't ever have to do it again!
Chris: Yesterday actually, a few of us actually walked down by Trafalgar Square and past Big Ben.
Mike: Yeah we took a boat ride down the Thames too. It was so nice and we were drinking Pimms for the first time!

The Living... Years
Chris: I'd say now is a good time.
Mike: Yeah, we're pretty happy people.
Ryan: The past week we've been practically living in London so it's been cool to be able to unpack our suitcase for a while. Usually we're living out of suitcases. Right now is very good.
Chris: Right now everything is very new for us so every little thing is exciting. I'm sure that the more jaded rock stars who have experienced it all kind of see us and think "why are these guys so excited about these little tiny things like, 'There's a castle!'?"
Ryan: We were stuck a blizzard one time in Boston and we had a snow ball fight and all the other bands on tour with us like live in that area and are used to snow and were like 'Why are they playing in the snow?' (all laugh)
Chris: We grew up in a place that never snows! It feels very cool to see how everything has come together with the album and stuff. It's exciting to have that stuff happen.

The Living... Daylights
Chris: That's a good one....
Ryan: Golden Eye.
Chris: Casino Royale was pretty awesome. Daniel Craig is one of my favourites.
Ryan: I'm going to keep it classic and say From Russia with Love 'cos of the train scene...
Chris: What's the one where he has to swim down to that underwater cavern?
Ryan: And they have those little things that you hold onto in the water? Thunderball.
Chris: Yeah that was cool. With Bond tunes... Okay, you know what, I'm going to say that whoever is in charge of Bond has really messed up by not putting Butterflies and Hurricanes by Muse as the theme song.
Ryan: Or at least having Muse do one.
Chris: Muse's songs are all so Soviet and ethnic sounding... Who did the Daniel Craig one?
Ricky: Chris Cornell.
Chris: Yeah, that one was okay.
Ryan: I'm trying to think... Live and Let Die is probably the best.

Living... in a Box
Ricky: The best present I've ever given someone is love! (all laugh). Try and top that one!
Chris: I got my girlfriend on her 21st birthday a limo and we all drove around. That was fun. It wasn't a tangible present but it was cool. I never ask for anything - I like giving things to people that mean something rather than just like 'here Toots, here's a diamond necklace'.
Ryan: I was going to say a diamond necklace actually...
Mike: Girls love diamonds though! You can't go wrong with that!
Ryan: The best present I received was when she gave me the diamond back! It hasn't happened though... I'm very lucky!
Mike: I remember when I was two or three, you know those Jeeps that you drive around in? The Power Wheel one. I was so excited! I think that was my best present.
Chris: I got a pick- up truck one year for Christmas and that was amazing because you know I didn't think my parents would be able to do that for me. I opened this little box on Christmas morning with a GMC truck key in it and ran outside...

Living... TV
Mike: I'd probably cook dinner and watch a movie with loved ones.
Ricky: Order in Chinese food, sit on the floor, watch TV and eat it out of the box with chopsticks.
Mike: We enjoy movies.
Ricky: The only show I really care about is Lost. Chris and I are big Lost fans. There's a couple of other ones I like... South Park whenever it's on.
Chris: I like The Colbert Report (a spin off from The Daily Show).
Ricky: Yeah, that's a good one.
Chris: I also like playing board games. My favourite is Balderdash. It's even more fun after a couple of drinks!

Melee's album, Devils and Angels is released on 28th July.

Devils & Angels review