Who the f*ck is… Mickey Nomimono?

Written by Charlie Sweeney

Who the fuck is Mickey Nomimono?

There is, perhaps, no singular music entity who best encompasses the Sheffield music scene more than Mickey Nomimono. The variety, the attitude, the pure fucking craic of it all. I recently described Mickey as “easily the most entertaining live performer in Sheffield”, and that is honestly under-selling him. It is safe to say, I am a fan.

So, ahead of his new, debut album, The Second One Is Always Better, we decided it would be a good time to get together, have a few pints, and chat all things Mickey.

---

So, first off: who the fuck is Mickey Nomimono?

Well, that’s me. I am making electronic, dance, punk music in Sheffield, and it’s bridging the gap between the club and the pit.

Oo, I like that.

It’s good, isn’t it! That’s my tagline.

Annoyingly, my next question was gonna be to ask you to describe yourself as if you were writing a really wank-y LinkedIn profile.

Well there you go! *laughs* You can tell I have been writing press releases for the last month!

Yeah that makes sense! The next question, right, is based that cliche question that’s always asked in interviews, and you can tell the artists hate it, where they are asked who is someone they would you love to work with. So, instead, who is someone you would hate to work with? Like, honestly, just utterly despise the idea?

*laughs* Sean from Drastic//Automatic! No, but seriously, I wouldn’t want to work with fucking anybody. A lot of people have asked me to collaborate on stuff. Well, not a lot of people. Nobody really gives a fuck. But no, at the moment I am happy, like, I tend to just do my own thing. I quite like the limelight, I don’t really wanna share it!

What would make you want to collaborate with someone, in that case? Like what would motivate you to want to do that?

Maybe if someone’s sent me something that was just like, fucking world changing. Yeah, I mean, like you know, you’ve got my heckles up. There’s a difference between collaborating on something for the sake of making something, and collaborating on something because it’s your mate and you wanting to hang out? Like, Sean’s jumped on vocals on one of my tunes. I really like the idea of other musicians and bouncing ideas back and forth.. At the moment, it’s more the vibe and it’s more like, if you can have a laugh with it.

Can you tell me a bit more about your new, debut album? Is it what we’ve come to expect, based on your singles and live performances?

The album is like an introduction to the character of ‘Mickey Nomimono’. I think it sums him up pretty well. I mean, this also sums me up pretty well. It won’t be completely what you’ve come to expect. It’s the culmination of everything I’ve been doing for the last two years. It’s twelve tracks, and I’ve only got four singles out so there’s eight relatively fresh tunes in there for you, unless you’ve been going to all my gigs. So to the ‘layman’, there’s eight fresh tunes on. And it’s just something I’ve always wanted to do, putting out an album.

I guess, describing sound, I’m trying to carve out a niche between dance music and punk music. Yeah. Because that’s where I started, making shitty indie tunes, like most people do when they’re younger, you know? You go off what you know, what you’ve been told. Then, when I was older, I ran a dance music label down in Bristol for a while, which was really good fun, and I’m big into dance music. So that’s what I’m trying to do. I was tired of being behind a desk, DJing, and I wanted to come around and shout people out a little bit more. Yeah., I think it sits between those two genres, dance and punk, in an original way. In my opinion!

How about the launch party gig, at Sheffield General Cemetery. How come you’re doing it at such an unconventional location?

Well, I’m putting out this album, and so I just wanted to have a big fucking party! I thought it would be great to just get some mates together and just fucking play through these tunes and just have party. And then I was like, “yeah, but what if we did it in a chapel?” and then I thought “what if you projected live visuals?” Things just sort of snowballed from there. It’s gonna be for me, really, like it’s all just about celebrating the album. It’s a party, innit. There’s gonna be a couple of DJs on as well, Adam Chapelwalk and Dennis Roswell, who are both wicked. And then, obviously, this screaming mess *laughs*.

Now, I have to ask you about your cover of ‘Anaconda’ at Shakelines this summer. I think it might have been the most fun I have had at a single song performance.

*laughs* Yeah, I wrote that the morning of Shakelines!. I’ve got this little box called an Electron Digitakt, and that’s what I do a lot of writing on. I was just fucking around with it in the morning, and I accidentally wrote that fucking Anaconda beat. I was just like, “Oh fuck, I am definitely doing this tonight!”. I tried to do it the first time on stage for the soundcheck, and we’re having some mad like, technical problems. I think one of the cables was fucked, like I was standing on it, and it was buzzing, and then I tried to try to play it, and I was just gonna fuck it off out the set. But then in the set I was like, I’m gonna revert back to it. I was only meant to play for 30 minutes but I think I ended up doing 50.

Is the second album always better?

Well, you tell me!

Fair point! But, without meaning to delve too deep into this, does the name signify your attitude to the album? Like is this you saying you don’t really care how its received?

I think you’ll find it’s just called wordplay! But no, it’s definitely not in a self-critical sense. I love this album. I don’t mean it’s the best thing since sliced bread, but I love it. As in, there probably is a sense of finding much more joy in this project recently, by just doing it completely for me. Yeah. And not worrying too much about whether people like it. That is definitely true. There’s a great pleasure in being at the stage of music that I am at, where not enough people give a fuck about you anyway. So you can just do what you want. Many wise people have spoken to me about things like this in the past, but somebody in particular said something the other day, they were like, “Look, if you start doing things to please other people, before you’ve even had any success, you’re wasting the naivety, and the loveliness, of nobody giving a fuck”. That’s the truest shit I have ever heard in my life.

Does your work as a Sound Engineer influence your music at all, whether on a technical level or just in a professional sense?

Yeah, I’ve basically surrounded myself with music, especially live music, because that’s what I want. And obviously, that has an influence on what you want to do as a musician. I want to be there because I’m interested in what people do, even if, like, you know, a band comes through and I’m like, that’s not really my speed, my thing. As an engineer, I’ll always try and drag something out of their sound that sounds interesting. Honestly, it’s just nice to be around like-minded people. The venues I work at at the moment, you’ll come across people just trying to carve out a place in the industry. Like, they’ll be people coming to Yellow Arch who are on their 10th studio album and they’re still touring these 200-cap venues. I want to do that. Like, I don’t give a fuck about ‘making it’, or getting paid loads. I just wanna be able to go on tour with some buddies every year. That sounds great.

Has it been hard for you, as a musician in Sheffield who does not conform to the more typical indie rock/post-punk (whatever that even is) sound, in terms of getting gigs, and getting that sustained audience?

Not really, as in worse comes to worst I can just put a gig on myself, can’t I? Maybe, in other places, there might be bills I might fit better on, genre-wise,. But, it’s quite nice to stick out like a sore thumb, you know? That is the problem with the Sheffield music scene. There’s lots of people here, doing lots of fucking vastly interesting thing. Like, I chat to people every day are doing wildly interesting things. There’s just something in Sheffield that’s holding it back, and it’s not the people that are here. It’s a shame that people want to move to another city to try and carve something out for themselves because they don’t feel like they’re finding their niche here. That’s a shame. And it’s a shame that people skip over Sheffield on a tour because they think that “Oh, I’ll have all my friends and family just drive to Leeds”. I’m not driving to Leeds! That’s Bollocks! Sheffield is great. I’ve been here for three years now. I love it. It’s awesome.

Right, last question. What is next for Mickey Nomimono?

Yeah, good question! We’re putting this album out, which is like, pretty much momentous to me. I’d like to downplay it, but, yeah. It’s fun to have created something pretty much on my own. Like, I’ve had help along the way. There’s a lot of people I could credit now, there’s been loads of people helping me, but it’s all like, a project of mine, and something I really wanted to do. It’s lovely to see it all come to fruition.

But now that’s done, I’ve got 200 Empty logic files, you know, to keep the dread away, and get started on the next ‘thing’, whatever that may be. When I get home from work at midnight I just write tunes, and we’ve got to get them out at certain point. I guess it’s just gonna be writing and developing the set in some cool ways. I’ve upgraded my rig a little bit. I’m also bringing live visuals into the set, and I am just having so much fun making things in general and working with really cool people in terms of like artwork and stuff. I am also going on tour once the album is released, playing 6 dates across the UK at the end of November. It’s gonna be sick.

---

Mickey Nomimono is, above all else, a thoroughly lovely bloke. I was unfortunately unable to attend his album launch party at Sheffield General Cemetery, but from everything I heard, it was a purely brilliant night. I have, however, listened to his new album. It is incredible. If you haven’t listened to it already, do so now. I mean it. Fucking do it. You won’t regret it.

You can listen to Mickey Nomimono’s The Second One’s Always Better here.

Mickey will be touring across the UK in November and December, including playing Shakespeare’s on the 2nd December. You can buy tickets to that gig here.