Inside Miss May I’s Two Year Road To ‘No Place For Me’
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Miss May I spent nearly two years making “No Place For Me’
For a band accustomed to getting into a studio, putting its head down and coming out the other side a month later with a record, that was a very different way of working.
There were long gaps between sessions. Family lives and other commitments had to be worked around. The members were living in different parts of the country and much of what was feeding the lyrics came from a difficult period personally.
“The record was a particularly difficult time, so the chance to get together with everyone was always very welcome. And the subject matter of the record, with it being such a difficult time, was also particularly negative.”
The studio at least gave him somewhere to put it.
“I love the studio. I love everything about being in a band, but I really love the studio. I love the creative aspect, it’s like a bit of therapy.”
Miss May I ‘Pray For Silence’ video
That tension sits all through No Place For Me: difficult material being made during sessions that also gave the members of Miss May I a rare excuse to be in the same room together.
They don’t live near each other anymore. Getting everybody together usually means there is band business to take care of.
This time, there was plenty of it.
Making An Album In Pieces
A normal Miss May I record might have meant 30 days in a room and whatever happened during those 30 days becoming the album.
No Place For Me didn’t work that way.
The band would finish a handful of songs, separate for months and eventually come back with some distance from what they had already recorded.
“This record was nice, it was like, ‘here’s three songs, full tank’. And then we’d get exhausted, go home, come back, three more songs six months later.”
Miss May I ‘Die On The Vine’ video
Each return gave them an opportunity to listen back and change direction.
Instead of reaching the final few songs exhausted and simply trying to cross the finish line, every new block started with something closer to a reset.
Benton says the unusual schedule even made choosing singles difficult because the band didn’t feel the record tailed off towards the end.
There was no obvious group of early songs carrying all the energy.
And while some of his bandmates may have hated the drawn-out process, Benton eventually came to appreciate what the extra time gave them.
“Whereas this album feels like it’s finished. There’s no more stones to turn.”
It also taught Miss May I something useful for next time.
Despite the convenience of sending ideas back and forth remotely, Benton says the band still operates best when its members are together.
“Songs will still get really far remotely, but they especially excel when we’re together.”
It makes sense for a band that came up before writing music through shared folders became normal. Miss May I’s instincts were built around musicians standing in a room and figuring things out together.
With Elisha Mullins now part of that writing dynamic, No Place For Me forced them to work out how that old instinct fits into their lives now.
The Song They Had To Start Again
Miss May I Hand Me A Halo | Photo credit Nate Black
Sometimes having more time meant admitting something simply wasn’t working.
‘Ashes Of The Altar’ began while Benton was dealing with serious frustration at home.
He was trying to focus on the record while also juggling family issues, touring and other work. That frustration immediately found its way into the song.
Then the band went upstairs, slept and came back the next morning.
They didn’t like what they heard.
“We wrote this song really pissed, then we woke up in the morning, we’re like, ‘this isn’t it’. We could hear our adolescence in the lyrics and the vocals. We just sounded so adolescent and childish and pissed.”
So they scrapped it and went again.
For Benton, that rewrite gets much closer to what No Place For Me is actually about.
Miss May I have already made records about being angry at the world. This one came from getting older and having to look at your own role in the things going wrong around you.
“But then you self-reflect later in life and that’s what this album is ultimately about.”
The finished ‘Ashes Of The Altar’ became less about the immediate argument that inspired it and more about understanding what Benton had actually been trying to say.
That willingness to turn the frustration inward runs throughout the album.
Twenty Covers And No Skulls
Then there was the artwork.
Benton estimates Miss May I went through more than 20 covers and four rounds of revisions before landing on the final cobalt-blue image.
They had plenty of options that looked unmistakably metal.
“The amount of piles of skulls and flames and explosions, we had all that initially and it was very cool!”
The problem was that none of them felt like this record.
Miss May I ‘Death Threat’ video
Benton remembers feeling increasingly guilty every time another impressive piece of artwork came back and he had to say it still wasn’t right.
Eventually they found the one.
“But the cover we landed on, I think for the first time maybe ever or at least in a long time, the cover really tells the story of the album in just one shot.”
It has already divided some fans.
Benton seems perfectly comfortable with that.
After four rounds of revisions, he knows exactly why they chose it.
Taking It To The Stage
The next challenge is working out how No Place For Me lives outside the studio.
Benton singles out ‘Hand Me A Halo’ as one he is particularly excited to bring into the set because of how different it feels from much of the band’s catalogue.
The record uses more additional sounds and effects, something Miss May I have leaned into while operating with one fewer member.
Getting all of that onto a stage will take some coordination.
“It’s everyone, hands on deck to be like, ‘guys, we cannot mess this up!’”
Miss May I ‘Hand Me A Halo’ video
There is a lighter side to the album rollout too.
The band have created an online rhythm game around the new songs through play.missmayi.com, somewhere between Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution.
Despite helping create it, Benton admits the fans are destroying the band on the leaderboards.
“The band is not in the top 10 (laughs), we got our asses whooped. We try to beat the fans and I don’t know what the hell they’re doing. I made the game and I’m still getting my ass handed to me.”
After an album built around considerably heavier subjects, it is a welcome bit of stupidity.
More importantly, Miss May I finally have the record they spent almost two years trying to finish.
Not the quickest one they have ever made.
Probably not the easiest either.
But when Benton says there are no stones left to turn, that sounds less like relief that it is over and more like confidence that they stopped at the right time.
