Menew

The New Album 'Wide Awake Hello' Available Feb 21 2012! Get a FREE Download at: www.MENEW.com 'Don't Give Up On Us Now' Video Premiere! (as heard on NBCs 'Chuck' and MTVs 'Jersey Shore') Watch Now www.MENEW.com BIO :: MENEW aren't concerned with playing it safe. In fact, the Toronto trio of brothers continually challenges the alternative rock status quo. On their full-length debut album, Wide Awake Hello, the band?Shade [Vocals/Guitar], Key [Piano/Synthesizers], and Nathan Samuel Phillip [Drums/Vocals]?infuse instrumental intricacy into 11 dynamic and diverse tracks.

Get a FREE Download at: www.MENEW.com

'Don't Give Up On Us Now' Video Premiere! (as heard on NBCs 'Chuck' and MTVs 'Jersey Shore')
Watch Now www.MENEW.com

BIO ::

MENEW aren't concerned with playing it safe.

In fact, the Toronto trio of brothers continually challenges the alternative rock status quo. On their full-length debut album, Wide Awake Hello, the band?Shade [Vocals/Guitar], Key [Piano/Synthesizers], and Nathan Samuel Phillip [Drums/Vocals]?infuse instrumental intricacy into 11 dynamic and diverse tracks. Whether it's a subdued piano hum or an anthemic guitar-fueled refrain, MENEW [pronounced MENU] remain unpredictable, discarding all notions of formula or convention. Say hello to the future?

MENEW's story starts when the brothers were growing up on a Christmas tree farm on the outskirts of Toronto. At five years of age, their parents enlisted them in classical piano lessons. Instantly, the boys became immersed in music, gaining a deep and schooled understanding of composition and theory. Shortly after, they were hosting living room concerts and singing along to The Beatles and Traveling Wilburys on makeshift cardboard instruments. "I think tickets were five cents back then," laughs Nathan.

They've certainly come a long way from that living room. In the early part of the decade, MENEW formally came to life. After honing their chops through tireless jamming, intensive songwriting, and early recordings, the group had arrived at a sound of their own. It nodded to the likes of The Beatles and David Bowie as well as The Killers and Muse with a decidedly fresh and fiery spin.

Shade describes the style best, "We mix the old with the new. We'll have a massive wall of sound, but there's simplicity to the music so it's still memorable."

Key adds, "You can hear evidence of the classical influences, but we pull them back just enough so that the songs stand on their own."

MENEW introduced the world to that sound on their first independently released EP, Of the Future in 2008. In the aftermath of its release, MENEW were short listed for four Grammy Awards including "Album of the Year", and they were invited to perform "This Isn't Real" on The Late Show with David Letterman. However, everything only served as a prelude to Wide Awake Hello.

The band locked themselves in legendary Dockside Studios in Louisiana in order to record the album. Rather than tracking and writing separately, the brothers jammed every note out in the same room, capturing a raw energy vital to their sound. "It's always three of us in the same room," says Key. "We feed off of each other and it snowballs into a song. That's definitely one of the benefits of being brothers in a band. You have a natural sense of what the other guys are thinking and where they're going."

Once the music was recorded, Grammy Award-winning producer and engineer Jack Joseph Puig [John Mayer, Green Day, U2] mixed Wide Awake Hello, fine-tuning everything and bringing another level of refinement. With its cinematic scope and energy, the album's first single "Don't Give Up On Us Now" has been featured prominently in episodes of MTV's Jersey Shore, The Hills and NBC's Chuck. A slow piano resounds during an airy verse as Shade calls for a second chance with an entrancing croon. The song has received over 200,000 plays on YouTube and the official video--which is filmed from a unique first-person perspective--continues gaining views: http://youtu.be/WlcomiUB7OM . Rob Capps, Sr. Editor of Wired Magazine calls it "A masterpiece?The best video of the year!"

Nathan goes on, "The video is a life cycle. It ties to relationships and not giving up on someone or something. Everything can be interpreted in various ways. Each listener can hear a song and make it their own."

Another gem off the LP, "Wide Awake," cruises from shimmering synths into a propulsive hypnotic hook. The song serves as a declaration of the band's arrival and a bit of wakeup call.

"The song is about that feeling of not fitting in," reveals Shade. "It's like time is speeding up while the world is slowing down. We're here to wake everyone up though."

That's what makes MENEW so intriguing. Their boundless approach can't be categorized, and the music comes to life on stage as a result. They've shared the stage with U2 and played to fervent crowds at Rock on the Range, The Frank Zappa Manifesto, on tour with Filter, and countless other shows across North America. In addition, the inventive trio breaks ground whenever they can. In one such instance they rented an industrial crane, and played 40 feet up in the air over the streets of downtown Toronto. As a result, their online presence continues to grow with over 25k Facebook fans.

Ultimately, MENEW provide an escape whether they're playing live or out of your stereo. "We love when people listen to our music and they're transported to another place," Shade affirms. "That's really what we love about music in general. When you put your headphones on and listen to a great song, you forget everything and you're totally into that other world for that three or four minutes."

Echoing his sentiment, Key concludes, "Great music should inspire people to do great things. I believe our music can achieve this."
? Rick Florino