Alternative rock band The Messenger Birds is made up of guitarist Parker Bengry and drummer Chris Williams. If you didn’t know this band was only a two piece, you would never guess it just by listening to their music. With epic riffs, droning synths, and lyrics that lean heavily into the emotional and political challenges of being a human in the modern age, The Messenger Birds are punching above their weight. Starting as a garage rock band out of Detroit, their sound has evolved into a compelling fusion of sub-genres — building their reputation as an exciting and unpredictable voice in the scene. The band just released their new EP, Grammy Award Winning Album It’s All A Blur, and I sat down with Chris to chat about the songs and their writing process. 

Sarah:  Your new EP, Grammy Award Winning Album It’s All A Blur is out now. I’m very curious about that title. It’s a bit of a provocative title. How did you guys come up with that? 

Chris: Parker and I were discussing themes for the album. For example, if you listen to [the first single off the EP] “Fake Lives,” it’s all about how social media creates a space for you to be whoever you want to be. People like to show only the great parts of their lives. It creates a whole different persona for the online vs. real life of that individual. With that being a theme that we had for that song, it’s like, you can be whatever you want to be. Parker was like, dude, what if we just called this thing “Grammy award-winning album?” We realized we could just do that. We laughed but then thought, “Well, there’s no reason not to do it. See if anybody has anything to say about it.” Because it’s like you can be whatever you wanna be. Say it, you think it, you can do it. And then, “it’s all a blur” was the working title that we had before. We decided to just call it Grammy Award Winning Album It’s All A Blur. I love that it’s such a mouthful, and the length of the EP further highlights the ridiculousness of it. Usually, in rock music, an album needs to be 10 songs or more. Our EP is only four songs, so it makes it even more absurd. And, we like that. Ridiculous, absurd everything. 

S: You all have a very unique sound. The Messenger Birds are unlike anything I’ve heard before. People should definitely just go listen to you guys, but if you had to describe your sound, how would you describe it — particularly the sound of the new EP?

C: In general, it’s alternative rock music. We’ve always been pretty indie influenced and leaning, but we take so many other influences from the music we grew up listening to in the nineties — Nine inch Nails, Rage Against The Machine, Nirvana, and Queens of the Stone Age. Those bands still are super awesome, today their music still sounds sick. We’re influenced and inspired by current music too. I think the most important thing is to be doing something that’s clearly your own when you’re doing something creative. Like it’s cool to be able to do something somebody else does, but for me at least, it’s very exciting to make something unique. If somebody could hear a song that we wrote and be like, that’s a Messenger Birds song, the first time hearing it, I think that’s a huge compliment.

S: We created this magazine because we’re fans of music, and wanted a space to be able to talk and write about the music we love. You mentioned a bunch of artists that Messenger Birds kind of sounds like. Are those artists that also influence you all and who are some of your favorites right now? 

C: Yeah. Those bands influenced us, especially when we were starting off. In terms of current stuff, we’re both really into this band called IDLES. They’re from the U.K. They’re badass and they do things pretty gnarly. I’m also really enjoying the Viagra Boys’ new album too. They’re from Sweden. They’re super sweet too, and they’re getting pretty big over in the U.S. now. Turnstile also just put out their new album. Turnstile is definitely making waves with their new music, and they’ve also got their own sound going really hard too. It’s like they were a hardcore band, they still are a hardcore band, but they do so much vibe stuff and it’s kind of bedroom poppy sometimes. So yeah, it’s really cool to see those bands doing what they’re doing now and getting inspiration from that. 

S: Your music and lyrics have a political lean and you clearly draw inspiration from current events and what’s going on around you. It’s a tough time to be a person right now with everything that’s going on in the world, so I really appreciated hearing that reflected on the new EP. I’m curious what you think about music being a vehicle for positive change, when it comes to people hearing some of these lyrics and then possibly taking action. To what extent do you think music can have a positive impact in that sense, and what do you think your all’s role is in that? 

C: We’ve had this kind of political side to our music since the first album we put out because these things are so real and certain things can’t just be pushed under a rug and ignored. So we’ve always thought that it’s good to speak on what you believe in. Everything going on now with the deportations and Gaza and just the violence that’s happening, it’s just so not human. As far as music, as a vehicle, you have words and then when you put the extra emotion and you have the music with it, you’re not just saying something anymore, you’re putting something big to it and that just cuts deeply. When you combine the music and lyrics, it can make a bigger connection and maybe help or force you to reconsider certain things or to take action. So we’ve always included the political side of things, and the emotional element too. When you’re dealing with real stuff — psychology, human interaction — then politics just goes along with it. 

S: Absolutely. You have this song on the EP, “Black Hole Love,” and it’s over six minutes long. I’m curious about your writing process in general, but especially with a song like that that’s so big, do you go in trying to write something like that or does it kind of form organically?

C: So we tried something a bit different with this EP. We were eyeing this piece of equipment, a synthesizer, Moog Subsequent 27. It’s just this key thing, and it makes so many different sounds. Part of writing this music is exploring different sounds and seeing what other ideas that sparks, so we did that with this collection of four songs for this EP. “Black Hole Love” came about when Parker was messing around with that synthesizer making cool sounds and trying to get something that was kind of deep and droney, it’s almost shoegaze. He sent it over to me and I got this vibe going. Then from there, we continue to build on it. We talk about themes and stuff like that. Parker throws down some lyrics and I shoot him over a text with some other lyric ideas and he works those in. Once we get the vibes going, we put together a demo, just recording on a computer, to get all the pieces down. Then we take that when we go to record in the studio. We use the demo like a blueprint, then we work on with our producer, throw the big, loud instruments onto it and just try to take it to another level every single time, like “How can we make that grow and intensify the energy even more, as big as we can get it?” and that’s what we ended up with.

S: That’s awesome. I love that you just keep building and expanding until the sound is where you want it to be. So I did a bit of research and I know you all kind of grew up together and started jamming together when you were like 14. Does that make your collaboration at this point easier and more fluid because you all have been writing and playing music together since you were kids basically? 

C: Yeah, I think a band is kind of its own connection, relationship, friendship. The longer you’re friends with somebody, the more you’re able to develop that connection. When you’re developing music, some of this stuff takes time to discover new areas of it. We’ve been growing as friends and as a band together. It makes for something that’s very kind of interesting and unique because we’re always talking to each other. I can’t say it’s like any other friendship that I’ve had, I can’t compare it to even like a brother or a sibling. We’re just always talking to each other and chatting — talking about ideas for music but we’re also hanging out and watching hockey together, or like, sharing new standups, all that stuff. We have those common interests. I think it all helps and it all just grows the connection and helps when we work on stuff for the band.

S: That’s very cool to have this creative partnership with your best friend. 

C: Yeah, it’s all very DIY too. We haven’t had a record label. We’ve had different management, a booking agent and stuff, but it’s fairly bare bones. I guess it’s kind of a DIY band. We’ve done it in a way where it just stems from the two of us and branches out from there. We’ve got people who have been by our side who are amazing and supportive and we all work as a good team. But yeah, the band is mostly the whole time, just the two of us. 

S: Totally. I wanted to ask you about DIY stuff too, because I feel like a lot of the ethos of DIY is obviously being very scrappy, figuring out how to do things on your own, but I feel like a big part of DIY too is also building community and getting people to come along with you. So I’m just kind of curious, how has your community shown up for you since you’ve been growing this band over the years? 

C: Oh, absolutely. I mean, we couldn’t have done anything on our own either. It stems from the two of us, but it’s nothing without the support of everybody. We’re in the Detroit area, and every time we play around here, the same people show up and then more people show up on top of that. We’ll see people, bands that we played with like eight years ago. It’s like, “It’s so good to see you again!” We try to play a show in Detroit at least once a year. Our buddy Ray does our music videos. Our buddy Steve is our producer. We couldn’t have done nearly as cool shit without them helping us out. Also our buddy Jake has been there for music videos, photographs, artwork — starring in music videos, filming the music videos, getting in the robot suit on a super cold day when we were shooting some photos for the album cover.

S: As a band you’re very rooted in Detroit and the surrounding areas. How has that music scene or the city of Detroit influenced your music, if at all? 

C: We started off thinking that we were gonna be a kind of garage rock band. That’s a very Detroit sound, that dirty rock, garage rock sound, similar to the White Stripes [also from Detroit], who had already done their thing by the time we started this. There are so many other bands like that, that come from Detroit, that have that dirty rock sound and we were vibing with that too. That’s kind of how it started, and now we’ve got a lot more different sounds going with it as well. Detroit’s always had this soul for music, people love it, and the city kind of feeds it, you know? It just fits so well. The rock crowd, the community around it, is pretty awesome. We just connected with it right from the start. 

S: Awesome. Well, I’ve got a couple of quick fun questions to wrap up. First, if you could choose either to make an album or go on tour with your favorite band, which one would you pick? Album or tour? 

C: I’d probably go on tour with my favorite band, just because the excitement and the antics that come with being on tour is so much fun. Album’s great too though. 

S: Totally. Who would be like your dream band to go on tour with then? 

I’m not sure. Probably right now, IDLES. Those guys seem like a riot. They’re making sick music, their energy is just cool and crazy and I just feel like that’d be a fun one.

S: Definitely. I feel like you get more experience making memories and getting up to shenanigans while on tour. What is on your pre-show playlist? Do you play anything to hype yourself up before a show?

C: When we’re touring, we’ll listen to a lot of the band that we’re touring with at the time, and it gets kind of like amped up for it. One of the maybe more unique ones would be Andrew W.K. He’s one of our biggest hype men. That “Party Hard” album. Or it’s called I Get Wet, but yeah, that’s the most common one that we play to hype ourselves up.

S: That’s amazing, that is a great album. What is your favorite concert memory? Either a show that you played or a show that you attended as a fan. 

C: We got a really fortunate opportunity to open for All Them Witches at the Ryman in Nashville. It was sold out. It was just a beautiful giant room that sounded great. There was a full house and it was just all around this very exciting experience. I don’t know if Parker would have the same one, but it’s probably up there for him too. 

S: That sounds incredible. Finally, what’s next for you guys? The EP is out now, very exciting! Do you have a tour on the horizon or anything else that you want to let people know about?

C: The only show we have announced right now is the release show in Detroit. It’s gonna be a party. It’s on August 9th at The Loving Touch in Ferndale just outside Detroit. We’re booking some other stuff right now too, talking to some people and seeing what we can cook up. We’re looking at something possibly being announced soon, but we gotta see if it goes through first. Other than that, yeah the EP is out now. Take a listen, hope you enjoy it!

If the lofty title and the massive sound of their new EP is any indication (and I believe it is), The Messenger Birds are heading for soaring heights in the alternative rock scene. Stream Grammy Award Winning Album It’s All A Blur and follow the band on Instagram for updates!