The band The Mundanes started as a duo formed by Zak and Connor in 2010. Zak, who had studied music but took over his late uncle's engineering business, found solace in listening to Connor busking. Connor, who had been kicked out of school, worked as a manager at Waitrose to save money for music college. They bonded over their shared love of music. After inviting vocalist Karishma to join, they named themselves The Mundanes and began gaining popularity through local performances. Their dedication to music led to mainstream success.

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Inside MM this week...
...Issue No.62
features
THE MUNDANES
06
The story behind the trio who created the infectious disease ‘Mundane
Mayhem’.
ALINA HAQ
06
12
We’re still buzzing about their recent
smash hit, sell out concert. And we
finally got a chance to meet them.
THIRTY SECONDS TO MARS 39
New album, new video. At last. Is it any
good? Of course it is. Also, the boys
have some exciting news to tell you all.
THE 1975
31
Why the band have decided now is the
best time to step out of the shadows
and into the spotlight.
PARAMORE
12
33
MM talk to them about their outstanding performance at Wembley Stadium
NEWBIE: ALEX
WESTBROOK
Talks boys,
fashion, “X Factor sh*te”,
parties and
politics. We like
her already.
24
18
We get to sneak
backstage at the
Select Recording Studios to
get a glimpse
of the next
possible tracks
from the one
and only Alina
Haq.
Are you an innie or outie? Find out
in our questionnaire and find the best
pair for you.
42
FACTFILE: BIFFY CLYRO
See what secrets this fortnight’s
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50 UPCOMING GIGS AND EVENTS
editor’s note
31
regulars
18 GADGET REVIEW: HEADPHONES
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28
We can never get enough of Hayley’s
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MM get to put the headphones on
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IMAGINE DRAGONS
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Well, what a week it’s been- Imagine
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Seconds to Mars finally displaying their
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4. MM
www.musicmattersmag.co.uk
exclusive
Issue No. 62
music matters
“
Music is life. Life is
music.
”
Move over Blink 182, Alice in Chains, Bullet For My Valentine,
U2, even The Vaccines- there’s three new kids in town. And
they’re more determind than ever to rip up the ground and
set the world on fire.
W
hen asked their preferred drink, Connor
replied ‘a cold Starbucks frappuccino.’ (with cream.
Obviously.) Zak’s reply was a ‘nice simple cup of
tea.’ (Tetley’s mind you.) And frontman, sorry frontwoman, Karishma honestly replied “anything that’s
going to keep me awake from dusk till dawn mate.”
With a high flying 24/7 packed schedule, MM were
lucky to get a few words that fell from the lips of
the brand spanking new kids on the block formerly
known as The Mundanes. Have they got good vocals? Check. Have they got great hair? Check. Have
they got soul? Check. Have they got class? Definitely. Have they got a badass style? They’ve even got
that too. Is there anything that the alternative indie
08
rock trio don’t have? “Well there is one thing,” Zak
says as we speak with him briefly at the Nickelodeon
Awards where they’re due to perform, “peace and
quiet! Nah, I’m kidding the fans are great, it’s just
my comfy, tatty old couch whilst watching ‘Who
Wants To Be A Millionaire’ and sipping Tetley’s tea
is great too!” Well they certainly looked anything
but tatty when we first interviewed them back in
May this year right before the ‘Mundane Mayhem’
as it’s now known as kicked off and the young trio’s
lives were flung in a whirlwind of fame. Where did
it all begin? Well, we can even tell you that it was
in the garage of 59 Holwood Drive in a small town
known as Watford. This was the house of Mr and
09

5. 10
Mrs Labiad, who, for months on end were forced to listen to the
wailing sounds of their son Zak practising his saxophone and
piano all through the day and all through the night. Previously
Zak admitted:
“I feel so bad for my parents, I would torment them with my
practising for hours on end. I’d never admit it then, but I will
now- I was quite cr** really!”
“Zak was determined he would be the next Frank Sinatra,” his
mother Lilian told us, “he was so dedicated to his playing, I’d
often have to go and remind that there was homework to be done
too!”
Though Zak’s iPod contained nearly of Sinatra’s albums, something still didn’t feel quite right for him. “I wasn’t feeling it,” he
tells us back in May, “something was missing.” It was only when
Zak was wandering through Baker Street Station a couple of
years later that he heard a busker busking out some ‘Radioactive’ by Imagine Dragons that he realised he had downloaded the
wrong genre onto his iPod. “
I stopped right still and even closed my eyes and fell right in love.
I ended up joining in with him at the end!” “There I was, singing
away when I heard this other, strong, deeper voice join in with
me on the last chorus. I looked around for the source and saw a
tall fellow wearing a real sharp suit. Not what I expected,” Connor interrupts –that’s right Mundane
fans, Connor was the Baker Street Busker. Kicked out of high
school for truancy, he found himself on the streets, doing what
he loved best
sharing his musical passion. A naughty boy on show, a soft music
genius at heart. “Education just weren’t for me you know,” he
says, “
all that Chemistry cr**, all that bubbling and fizzing in those
tubes -where’s that gunna get me? So I took off. The only lesson
I enjoyed was music but I felt too stupid to do it at A-Level. So I
stopped going.”
So Connor found himself buying a cheap guitar, and a keen singer anyway, taught himself to play and began to perform on the
pavements. Connor knew what he wanted to, and had an ambition at last- to get into music college. He studied (and partied)
hard, but there was still one problem. “I couldn’t afford it. And
since my parents were still pretty cheesed off about my truancy,
they weren’t ready to dip their hands into their pockets.
www.musicmattersmag.co.uk
Especially my dad, who said that ‘music school is a waste of time,
effort and money. You’ll never get in anyway.’” While Connor’s
relationship with his mother was quite firm, he admits there were
often arguments between him and his father. And music school
was a sore subject. “Vases were thrown, insults hurled...it was terrible.”
Busking wasn’t making near enough money, barely enough for a
rucksack, let alone the course itself. So Connor retells us how he
went and got himself a job in Waitrose, working there for a couple of years, starting off as a check out boy, climbing up the ranks,
until he became an assistant floor manager. “I was nineteen years
old by the time I left Waitrose,” Connor said, “and every Monday
and Thursday evening when I’d busk, I’d see Zak take the Metropolitan line towards Watford, wearing the same sharp suit and
the same sad expression. So one day I stopped my playing and
went up to him and asked him what’s wrong. And he tells me,
‘I’m unhappy. Unhappy with my job, my relationship, my house.
The only thing that actually makes me smile is your music man.”
“
FOR TWO OR THREE HOURS WE’D
GET OURSELVES IMMERSED IN PURE
MUSIC.
”
At age 19, Zak finished his A- Levels just scraping through with
3 C’s but achieving an A in music. Despite this, he decided to
take over his late uncle’s business in engineering. Two years he
stayed and built an engineering empire, but knew deep down it
wasn’t for him. “I’d wait around for Connor, just so I could hear
him play,” Zak admits, “It made me feel better. Cheesy, but true.”
Since that meeting the pair continuously contacted each other
and fast became friends, despite the two year age gap. Gradually
in September 2010, they hatched a plan to form a band but just
as a duo.
Tuesday, Friday and Sunday were their ‘rehearsal nights’ spent
in Zak’s garage. Connor says that “For two or three hours we’d
get ourselves immersed in pure music sometimes trying to copy
original songs in our own style, sometimes we would try to make
up our own, and sometimes we would try and teach each other how to play the instruments we loved guitar, keyboard and
drums.” A couple of months passed, and the duo, who named
themselves ‘A Cry For Help’ in reference to each of their background sufferings, were invited to play at low scale gigs and
events, school concerts, discos, local festivals, even a few rocker
weddings.
“Our mums were our managers,” Zak laughs, “they were the only
ones organised enough!”
At this point Connor had raised enough cash to afford the music course, and so for a whole year he stayed in music college,
playing truant only a couple of times as well as regularly keeping
in contact with Zak, who also decided to use his skills in engineering and play his hand in a new career as an assistant audio
engineer.
“I worked with some of the best people,” Zak says, “I even once
got to work with Jay Z on a new album of his. It was totally friggin’ awesome!”
But there was a downside. “I missed Connor. I missed our garage
session together, the fantastic tunes we used to smash out.
Working inside the studio wasn’t enough for me; I wanted to be
on the other side of the glass.”
Connor’s course finished in November 2011, achieving an A in
his qualifications and the pair were reunited. They set up a YouTube Channel (ACryForHelp01) and uploaded videos of their
collaborations weekly, and by February last year they had over
100,000 views. Aged just 20, Connor joined 22 year old Zak in
his career of music and became an A&R Scout Manager, on the
lookout for younger people with a music potential. And that’s
how the third member of the band came to be found. Connor
tells us how he sought Karishma out.
“It was a cool, crisp April night and I was just on YouTube, checking over our past videos.
One comment caught my eye. It read ‘you guys could do with a
female voice to hit the highs’. I got me thinking; never had myself
or Zak considered expanding our group, let alone have a female
accompaniment. I talked it over with him, and though reluctant
at first, he eventually gave in, and it was my job as a scout to find
the missing piece to our jigsaw. It took a good couple of months
to find her it wasn’t until August that I stumbled across her YouTube Channel (naikmusic_92) that I knew I’d found the right
person.” Connor and Karishma eventually got in contact with
each other at the end of August 2012, sending emails and swap-
ping numbers. “Karishma was perfect,” Connor says, “her style,
her voice, her age - she was the missing piece.”
However Zak was still wavering about the decision to let another
member into the band. In a previous interview he told how he
was “concerned she would let us down” –but then how “Karishma blew that thought away the instant she sang live for us.”
The three agreed to meet in a studio where Zak worked in September. “I wanted to really put Karishma in the spotlight. I think
back now how mean I was. I just wanted to see how she could
cope with all this promising equipment around her, and how she
sang in front of two strangers.”
“
Karishma was perfect... she
was the missing piece.
”
“It was probably the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my entire
life. Even more so than turning up for my exams with no revision done,” Karishma jokes, “Me and Connor already had quite a
good chemistry, and I knew it was Zak I had to impress. My start
was a little shaky, but as I got further into the song (
Titanium by David Guetta) I relaxed and sang what I felt.”
Zak’s frostiness melted away and eagerly welcomed Karishma
into the group. When asked to describe herself Karishma answered:
“A little fiery, a little crazy and a little mad, but you know something? All the best people are.”
From September to January this year, the trio worked their socks
off, which proved to be difficult as 20 year old Connor, 21 year
old Karishma and 22 year old Zak all had part time jobs. In an
earlier edition of MM, the trio describe how their lives were “a
chaotic mess of mayhem.” Karishma also wanted to change the
name of the group as she said “I felt left out. They’d created that
name when they were a duo. We’re a trio now, so we all should
have an input!”
Eventually they decided upon The Mundanes, with Connor and
Karishma’s favourite book series being The Mortal Instruments
as well as Karishma arguing that “It’s a sophisticated name, it’s
got that cool, eerie, earthy vibe to it.”
>
www.musicmattersmag.co.uk
11

6. DETAILS FOR THE
‘BEWARE OF THE MOON’
UK TOUR 2014
April-June
Date
Venue
O2 ABC,
4/04/14
Glasgow
6/04/14 MEN Arena,
Manchester
19/04/14 O2 Academy, Sheffield
O2 Acade20/04/14
my, Sheffield
Supporting Act
A Rocket to the
Moon
Bastille
30 Seconds to
Mars
Two Door Cinema
Club
25/04/14
The Institute,
Birmingham
2/05/14
Millennium
Imagine Dragons
Stadium, Cardiff
3/05/14
Millennium
The Vaccines
Stadium, Cardiff
4/05/14
Millennium
Vampire Weekend
Stadium, Cardiff
Sub 89,
Reading
Sub 89,
24/05/14
Reading
23/05/14
28/05/14
1/06/14
7/06/14
13/06/14
15/06/14
Biffy Clyro
The 1975
All Time Low
Wembley
TBC
Stadium, London
O2 Arena,
London
O2 Arena,
London
Mr Kyps,
Dorset
Bullet for My
Valentine
Deaf Havana
TBC
Apollo Theatre, TBC
Isle of Wight
S
ince January, the trio worked together
every time they could, and now with Karishma’s vocal addition, their stats on YouTube flew up to a staggering 650k views
and 600,000 subscribers. When asked what
the comments included Karishma replied
“You’re always going to find a negative comment in there somewhere. But when I have, I
just ignore it - focus on the thousands of people that compliment and congratulate you!”
It was in March this year when The Mundanes truly made their mark upon the
musical world, when they first appeared
on The Voice UK. Spurred on by the positive comments they had received, as well
as the many bookings to perform at various events, they decided to give it a go.
“
We wanted to prove
we were different.
W
hen asked what their personal best
achievement or experience so far was, it seemed
Zak spoke for all of them. “I think for us, because
of our tough journeys, our favourite ‘event’ if you
like, is that this year we have been asked to put
on the Christmas Lights at the Great Ormond
Street Hospital as well as give a performance.
It’ll mean so much to them, and we can’t wait.”
Before they had to go, the group was asked
one final question: What will the future hold?
“Do you know what? I don’t know, and to be
honest I don’t want to know. We are having
the time of our lives, and we are still only in
our twenties. We work hard, and are currently producing our first album which is called
‘Beware of the Moon.’ It’s a follow on from
our single, ‘Reflection,’ which tells the story
of people wishing for something they want
to achieve. It’s a very personal song, as it’s a
metaphor of all of our lives. We just hope that
people like it as much as we enjoyed making it, and who knows? Perhaps one day we’ll
be performing on the stage of Glastonbury.”
12
-The Mundanes November 2013.
‘Reflection’ is out on the 6th December 2013
‘Beware of the Moon’ is out 21st March 2014
Article written by Sophie Boston.
www.musicmattersmag.co.uk
”
“I wasn’t sure if the audience or judges would
like it...our style of music isn’t the same as
everyone else’s. We like to shake it up a bit,
but sticking to anything indie or rock. We
wanted to prove we were different.” –Zak.
A
nd after smashing an acoustic version
of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida in their first
round, they found all four judges turn round.
“It was overwhelming,” Connor says,
“To find the audience up on their feet
and all four famous faces applauding you...it’s a feeling I can’t explain.”
And with a mentor like Danny O’Donoghue, who can blame them? With his help,
The Mundanes made it all the way to the
finals, but just losing the winner’s crown
to R&B wannabe, Rebekah Anderson.
“I was gutted,” Karishma said, “But you
know what? It spurred us on even more.
Being that close to winning...I wanted
for us to be known even more than ever.”
Since their appearance, they’ve been signed
to Epic Records,the same company that
sign The Script. Back in May 2013, the trio
revealed how they had already worked
with The Script and acted as backing singers for various music acts, and have appeared on several TV programmes, including The Jonathon Rossand Graham
Norton shows, as well as performing and being interviewed on Alan Carr’s Chatty Man.
THE MUNDANE FILES
Band Members: Zak Labiad, Karishma
Naik, Connor Evans.
Birthdays: July 14th (Zak), 9th February
(Karishma), 18th October (Connor)
Favourite film: Batman (Zak), Harry Potter
and the Goblet of Fire (Karishma) and
Inglorious Bastards (Connor)
Favourite song: Demons by Imagine Dragons (Zak), Pompeii by Bastille (Connor) and
City of Angels by Thirty Seconds to Mars
(Karishma)