Interview: Majak Door Chat About Their Brand New Single, ‘Seeing Red’

Naarm/Melbourne-based rock act Majak Door have just unveiled their vivid new single ‘Seeing Red’ – self produced and mixed by their vocalist and guitarist Frankie Vakalis. We had a chat with the band to find out more about the new track, inspirations and future goals.

Congrats on the new release guys! Such a groovy track, can you tell us a little bit about the themes behind this song?

Recorded at their home studio “Frazzle Dazzle” where the band resides, “Seeing Red” represents a darker/moodier vibe with a pulsating rhythm and gritty tones. The song touches on feelings of remaining strong, stepping back from yourself, taking a breath and letting things come as they are. There’s a raw energy channelling hope, despair and love. It’s a victorious beat of the drum calling to better times.

Who would you choose if you could share a bill with any band?

The Black Keys would be crazy, they have a great lively energy which would be amazing just to see. Would be sick to cut loose on our rockier/garage-y songs on a support slot with them.

How did you guys start making music together?

It began as a 3 piece, playing house parties and local haunts around Melbourne. Then slowly evolved as we added our former lead guitarist Louis into the mix who then got Joe on drums as our drummer moved to the UK. Joe then got other Joe on keys and since then we’ve expanded to a 6 piece. We used to rehearse at our drummer’s house but after receiving a number of noise complaints started to go to rehearsal spaces and took the band a bit more seriously. We now live together with the exception of our lead guitarist and bassist, so it really feels like a new beginning in terms of how we approach our song writing, producing and mixing.

Who/what are the biggest influences behind your music?

We all listen to quite a broad range of styles from garage, blues/soul, rock to hip hop, reggae/dub and afro. There’s definitely a huge indie rock influence. We reference bands such as Good Morning, Real Estate, Mac Demarco, The Strokes and Tame Impala. Though we also have another side to our sound where we love that Black Keys sound, The Growlers, Allah Las, The Murlocs and even referenced Iggy Pop for our latest single “Seeing Red”.  

What’s on the agenda for the rest of 2022 for Majak Door? Any big plans or goals?
We have just started living together and have the studio set up where we’ve been putting a lot of hours into jamming, writing and mixing our material. This feels like it will open up a completely new approach to our sound over time as we begin to experiment and home in on our craft as a collective. So, there will be a lot of that going on. In terms of getting out and playing live we have a single tour at the end of July playing Melbourne (The Gasometer), Brisbane (The Brightside), Sydney (The Great Club) and Wollongong (The Shy Postie). We definitely want to be touring as much as possible and playing more cities. We do have a few support slots we’ve locked in for later down the year which we can’t disclose right now but we are very excited for. So – more shows, more recording, more releases!