The members of MFV are influenced by a range of genres. The band will perform at the Port Kembla Festival on 12 April. Photo: Kirsten Hammermeister.
Meet MFV, the Wollongong six-piece ready to bring its “folk songs for the apocalypse” to the stage at this year’s Port Kembla Festival.
The one-street, 10-venue event, to be held on Saturday 12 April, will be the first time Josh Flintwood, Maggie Fletcher, Wilson Mendel, Tyler Rose, Blake Gee and Tim James perform at the festival, which has run since 2022.
The band originally formed out of the friendship between Tyler, Wilson, Josh and Tim that started in their youth.
The early days of their music were marked by garage jams and a mixed skill set. Josh, who sings and plays guitar, said Tyler and Wilson were established on their instruments, whereas he and Tim didn’t really know how to play.
“We were learning how to play our instruments together, based on our mutual love for a few bands like Neil Young, Spaceman 3, and Fairport Convention,” he said.
The mates didn’t take themselves too seriously until they landed their first gig in 2019. Josh said their initial aim was to make slow, heavy folk songs.
“[Our music] looks back towards American music of the 60s and the 70s but puts our own spin on it. We’re continuously influenced by bands like The Doors and Velvet Underground,” he said.
The band’s music comes from a blend of inspirations.
Wilson (drummer) said: “Tyler and me definitely came in and had our own influences much more steeped in post punk and 90s indie.”
The band is not afraid of putting its “apocalyptic” spin on unexpected songs.
In 2020, the band released its first single Merrily On High, a Christmas song cover steeped in the band’s dark and lo-fi aesthetic.
It was at this time that Maggie, on keyboard and vocals, joined the project, after Josh heard her playing piano and singing on New Year’s Eve.
Three years later in 2022, after playing with Wilson in another local band called Miners, Blake joined the team. Since then, the band has released four singles and two EPs.
Maggie, one of the two main songwriters, said she was influenced by female singer-songwriters such as Angel Olsen, Bedouine and Julia Jacklin.
Josh, who also writes, said his influences were more literary: “Cormac McCarthy is massive.”
He said he was inspired by “the imagery of that dark apocalyptic Western. It’s so rich to me. A lot of the stuff I write is of Western environmental apocalypse”.
As the band navigates different voices and sounds and continues to evolve, the musicians “don’t like being pigeonholed”, according to Josh.
“In the last year or so, we decided we [don’t want to be at the] cowboy cul de sac.” Although he said it had been a good scene, he joked, “none of us look good in a cowboy hat”.
The band is looking forward to its gig at the Port Kembla Festival, where it’s planning to share some new music with audiences. Beyond that, they’re hoping to have an album out later this year.
Wilson said the new music showcased all the influences of the band, because everyone contributed a song.
“There is a thread of consistency through it, but the styles are different,” he said.
“There’s more acoustic, quieter country, classically country songs; then we have heavier psyche, krautrock inspired. It covers a lot of ground.”
Though the band continues to find new sounds and inspirations, the musicians remain fond of their older work.
“I’ve come to love that first song we ever recorded, which is that Christmas song,” Wilson said.
“It’s incredibly lo-fi; the energy was great. I don’t think that was our best song at all, but there’s something nice about how dusty and raw it was.”
If you’re wondering where the band’s name comes from, it was a tongue-in-cheek reference to “Manson Family Values”. However, it proved to be a weak selling point when it came to booking gigs, so the band shortened it to the more intriguing MFV.
The Port Kembla Festival will be held on Saturday 12 April, featuring more than 40 artists. MFV will perform at The Servo at 3 pm. Click here to reserve tickets for the free event. You can also find the band on Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp.
