Criminal Mixer are doing big things for the university music scene. They are setting an example for how bands should perform with their grassroot garden gigs. All scenes have house shows, live music performed in residential locations – for example, the Midwest emo scenes famous basement gigs that were the standard for any self-respecting band to play. There is something about the intimate feeling of hanging around in someone’s garden, drinking a drink that should be illegal (no surprise Criminal Mixer served a double vodka shot, apple cider and apple juice concoction), and the group pilgrimage to indie night. There is just no replacement for that.
These shows are free as well, the bands take the profit from the merch and the sale of drinks. The environment that Criminal Mixer have fostered is immaculate.
The band itself is a three-piece, with Erin Bigger on drums, Miranda Brown on bass and vocals, and Nathan Firla on lead guitar and vocals. They create grunge songs with an added musicality. Nathan’s voice has that gruff growl that you can expect from the genre, but also knows how to sing softly when playing their more “classical” indie rock sound, like their track Fall Behind, which has a classic WPSIATWIN vibe.
Miranda takes vocal lead on the track Run Out – her voice both contrasts and accentuates the fast angry drums provided by Erin. This band really pushes itself forward consistently.
The band doesn’t have any recorded tracks out, but if you want a taste, their set with the Warwick Uni BandSoc Tour is on YouTube. However, shitty phone microphones can’t capture how the band sounds in the flesh, so get yourself down to a garden gig.
I spoke to Criminal Mixer about how they view the gigs, their music, and what comes next.
What were your starts in music?
Erin – “I probably started playing drums 12 years ago maybe, so starting when I was eight. I guess I’ve just been trained more classically with lessons and stuff, and also big band and jazz. I’vs done a lot of like, playing for plays, like in the pit.”
Nathan – “Originally I started on the drums, and I started playing when my parents said ‘Pick an instrument’ and I wanted to play trombone and they were like ‘Absolutely not you’re playing the drums instead. Like in year 7 or something like that. I played that for a while and then randomly just tried one of my friends guitars and started playing, near the beginning of lockdown. And then the bass after that and then, I don’t think i ever learnt the vocals, I just started singing at a certain point”
Miranda – “I started playing piano when I was really little, like in school when they make you play. And then, my friend had a drumkit and her dad was like, ‘I really want these children to be a band’. I wasn’t in that band, my friend and her brother had a big argument and they split into two different bands, and she was like ‘you’re playing the bass now’ and I was like ‘OK, guess I’ll learn how to do that’. Then I became the resident bassist for many bands.”
How did you guys all meet?
Nathan – “So me and Miranda play ice hockey together, and I think we gravitated towards each other as we have a very similar music taste as it is, so we became friends in ice hockey just through that naturally. Then last year, on the end of season [ice hockey] tour, throughout the entire tour we were just talking about the types of music we liked and bands and whatever and, at a certain point we were talking, and I was like, ‘we should just jam’ and she was like ‘yeah, that would actually be really cool.’… Erin’s my housemate, and we’d jammed beforehand, after exams at the previous year, and at that point we were already poking around with a few of our songs, and I was talking to Erin like ‘I know this bassist that’s really cool, and I know her from ice hockey.’ and she was like ‘I’m on my way down’. And that was our first jam, I think we played until like one in the morning.”
Criminal Mixer is a great name, where did the name come from?
Nathan – “For a while, any names or words that I thought could be names I would write down as notes, on the phone in the app… Coming up to our first gig, we were at the point we thought we should have a name. So I was like ‘I’ve got this notes app full of names’ and Miranda and Erin were looking at it.”
Miranda – “He had a lot of names in a row, and there was ‘criminal and there was ‘mixer’ and I was like ‘OMG criminal mixer, like if you mixed vodka with milk’ and he was like ‘What are you talking about’”
How would you describe your sound?
Miranda – “I would say that we all kinda lean into a grungier kinda sound, maybe with a bit of indie influence or like a heavier rock influence as well, because we have a broad music taste but it lines up nicely, we have specific things that we all like to draw from”
Nathan – “Our first kinda cover was Alice In Chains and like… Rooster was one of those… I saw a video of us playing heart shaped box once and that was fun. It’s a mix and match of grunge. I wouldn’t say we’re as rough around the edges as grunge can get, so we’re a little closer to that indie sound”
Miranda – “I would say we’re sorta like the pixies. We do have a male and a female voice, so it can get fun to play around with that, sorta like Westside Cowboy”
Nathan – “I heard a song on the radio that I really liked by a band called, I think they’re called Lime Garden. They’ve got a new single out called ‘Cross My Heart’ I really like that one. I thought they had a really nice playback between the guitar and the bass, it’s an all-girl band, but the bass is almost like a male voice to balance it out. It was really catchy”
Where did the idea for garden gigs come from?
Erin – “Nathan kinda came up with the idea early on, just looking at older bands and what they did to get big. I think there was one band that used to do gigs in the desert -“
Nathan “Oh – Queens of the Stone Age”
Erin – “Oh yeah QOTSA, they were like ‘come here we’re gonna host a gig here’ and then we realised our garden happened to have a rectangle of concrete that would be perfect for a stage and it all tumbled down from there”
So how did you setup and organise that?
Erin – “Last year and this year I have been the treasurer for LiveSoc” – LiveSoc is Southampton Uni’s Live music society – “So we kinda knew we could borrow stuff from LiveSoc also Alex” – The right venerable Wall Street – “Helped set everything up”
Nathan – “We also had a Friend called Mel who helped out with all the drinks and stuff like that, especially with the second one”
Erin – “We got our housemate to do the barbecue as well”
You guys posted a Bandsoc live Youtube video – are you recording?
Erin – “So we’re actually gonna try to record our songs next week, record like a demo.” As of posting, They’ve already started “For the Warwick Bandsoc thing, We were trying to film something we could send to our families.”
Nathan – “The Warwick thing was actually filmed by my dad, cause he kept asking for videos, and he never got them, and I kept telling him that I would, and he got so annoyed that he came to our show just to take a video.”
Erin – “We tried recording over Easter, but -“
Miranda – We didn’t know how to use any of the kit, so it didn’t go very well.
Erin – “We were doing the whole thing on audacity, and we did that thing where we recorded each individual drum over multiple playthroughs, and it ended up sounding a bit disjointed”
Nathan – “I’d say we were very diligent with it, but we were kinda like a machine gun shooting everywhere but doesn’t actually hit the target, compared to a sniper that shoot’s just once but actually hits”
Miranda segued this into songwriting better than I could ever write.
“To be fair, that’s how we do our songwriting. We make loads of riffs and loads of lyrics and none of them fit together, and we kinda have to convolute something out of that”
Nathan – “Well have like ten ideas and one of them will stick”
Erin – “We’ll write a chorus to something be like ‘Oh, maybe that can be its own song’ or something”
Miranda – “We’ll try to finish one song and end up with three half songs.”
What’s the culture of your band?
Erin – “Thankfully, from Nathan, we have a lot of kit in the house, that makes it really easy for us to come up with stuff. I’d say, compared to other bands, we have a lot more time to mess around and just to do what we want and to come up with stuff, which is really nice”
So often are you rehearsing
Nathan – “Last year, at the peak of our practices, we were meeting like 3 or 4 times a week. If it was the week before a gig, every day. We’d literally just do it to the point where, if we had 3 hours between this lecture and that lecture – Jam? And we’d go jam for a bit. We’d just play for an hour, hour and a half, between lectures”
Nathan – “I think, the fact that it’s a three-piece means we’re really really close. It’s not like you have to muster up an army to jam, just two other people. And the fact we all know that we’re all really into it, and that we all genuinely enjoy jamming, if someone says their unavailable you know that they’re actually unavailable. There’s no passive-aggressiveness that you find a lot of the time in other bands, there’s no side-eyeing each other there’s no messaging behind backs. It’s just like, ‘Oh yeah, fair enough, another time’ which is probably my favourite part about the band.”
Erin – “When we’re writing stuff as well, and it is truly complete dogshit, we’re confident enough to say ‘maybe think of something else’”
Nathan – “None of us take it personally, and none of us wade to deep into it. We’re just like ‘Oh. OK.’ and that’s the end of that conversation. I just like it so much, because I feel like, so much of the tie you can get really excessive drama that’s just unnecessary, and tears and temper tantrums and I don’t think we’ve ever had temper tantrums, nothing even close. The most we’ve had is just minor disagreement on song choices”
Miranda – “Staying on topic”
Nathan – “Staying on topic, and that’s the end of the convo. I think that’s the thing that lets us play and jam so often. None of us are ever at each other’s throats, so it’s never a tense environment to jam.”
Miranda – “We also don’t take it too seriously, because I feel like when you take it too seriously and your trynna write a serious song, or you’re trynna do a practice that runs completely perfectly – no ones gonna enjoy it, and its just gonna be the worst thing in the world. I’ve been in bands before, at Uni, where people take it way to seriously, and people get really upset with you and that’s not fun at all. Or the other side where the guitarist is two hours late and just goes ‘Ah yeah I just shagged this bird and I’m wearing my clothes from yesterday’ and we’re like ‘great, thanks, but we booked this practice for two hours ago’”
Nathan – “A lot of the time, in band’s I’ve been in the past, band members will be really, really reluctant to do originals. Almost to the point the word original becomes a forbidden word to say. And I like doing covers, I think there really fun in moderation. Rather than just having cover diarrhoea all over the place, and then no-one enjoys it, you don’t enjoy it because it’s coming out of you and the audience doesn’t enjoy it cause it’s going all over them”
Any shows lined up?
Miranda- “Probably the hobbit, and we probably will do garden gig again”
Nathan – “We’ve put our hat in the mix for opening for an act in November”
Well I’ll be there! Go follow Criminal Mixer on Instagram
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