Midnight Reruns
The best bands often emerge from the ashes of another.
Milwaukee’s Midnight Reruns formed five years ago with members of a previous group, the Sleazybeats. The four-piece blends punk, classic rock and pop into lively, addictive anthems and has released two EPs and one full-length album. Another LP, Force of Nurture, is set for an Oct. 23 release.
Isthmus spoke with Midnight Reruns singer/guitarist Graham Hunt in anticipation of the new record and his band’s performance at Mickey’s Tavern on Thursday, Oct. 22.
Ex-Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson recorded Force of Nurture. How did you meet him?
I used to play guitar for my friend Trapper Schoepp, whose manager, Ben [Perlstein], also manages Tommy. Ben gave Tommy our last album, and apparently he really liked it. He was trying to get into producing bands, and he said that if we wanted to come out to his house in Upstate New York, we could make a record with him. I have a distinct memory of being at the largest truck stop in the world, tagging along on my buds’ Platinum Boys’ tour, getting a call from an L.A. number and being like, “Who is this?” He wanted to talk about how the sessions were going to go down. That was a surreal feeling.
Working with Tommy led to your band opening for the Replacements last May at the Rave’s Eagles Ballroom in Milwaukee. What was that experience like?
It was nice that I could really only see the first couple of rows with the way the lights were — it would be kind of weird to see 3,000 people stare at me while I sing. It was mostly drunk dads there, which is also good because that’s pretty much our core audience.
Midnight Reruns released a video a few weeks ago for Force of Nurture single “Canadian Summer.” It features the band playing in a basement. How did you decide on the concept?
[Drummer Sam Reitman] and I practiced in his dad’s basement for over a decade. Hanging out on the northwest side of Milwaukee, getting a little faded, going through the dang Wendy’s drive-through, skateboarding and playing music — that was pretty much our life for a very long time. We don’t play there anymore, so we thought it might be cool to do a little homage to how we basically grew up in that house. I almost felt like we owed it to Sam’s dad for putting up with us for so long. He’s a total rocker, though, so I’m pretty sure he loved having us there.
