It takes a lot to jump into the unknown in pursuit of your passion, but Graham Harrington, known also as Mirror Days, isn't worried about what will come. He just wants to make his music and have his fun. After dropping his second EP, Solstice, last October, Graham has shown no signs of slowing down. Keep your eyes open for a lot more Mirror Days in 2015.—Sam Muller
Mirror Days 'Close To Real' Live
Interview bySam Muller
Lets start with your beginnings, where did you grow up and how did you get into skating and playing music?
I grew up in a town called Waterford about twenty-five minutes north of downtown Detroit. I just had a bunch of friends out here in Los Angeles and I had my buddy Matt that told me that when I turned 18 I should come crash with him until I got on my feet. There wasn’t shit going on in Michigan so I said fuck it. I didn’t really come out here pursuing anything in specific. I had some small sponsorships, but nothing like a career was happening for me skate-wise. Through skating, though, I reconnected with my friend Justin Cefai and we ended up moving in together. That’s how the music thing started.
Was Justin already doing music when you guys moved in together?
No, actually. We were both drummers but we didn’t know that the other played music. I just moved in and brought a guitar and he was like, “Oh shit you play guitar?” And then he pulled one out of his room and it just went from there.
So it seems like you tried to get out of Michigan as fast as possible. Did that desire have an affect on how you write music and the music you write? I know for a lot of musicians the place where they write music or the place they’re from is really important to the process. Can you talk a little bit about Michigan and California and how they’ve influenced your writing?
I don’t know of any specific city or place that inspires me. I think you just find inspirations wherever you are. I’ve definitely thought about things like growing up in a super small town where there aren’t a lot of people and not a lot of shit going on. I came out [to California] and it felt like I was living in fucking sin city. Yeah I've definitely written songs in Michigan and [in California], and I personally can hear the difference, but I don’t know if either one inspires any more than the other. I just think where ever you’re at you’re going to find inspiration.
Who are the people that you look up to and who influences you both in skating and outside of skating?
I think the people that inspire me are the people that I know and see doing shit like in skating, music—whatever they’re passionate about. I’m inspired by people who are putting in work, because both skating and music are so saturated and so over blown to get anywhere in either of them you have to pay your dues. I used to skate a bunch with Stevie Perez, Cyril Jackson, Kevin Terpening, and Tony Karr, and I saw how their hard work paid off. I saw their dedication and said to myself, "Fuck it. These guys I know are doing shit, I should be too." That’s what inspired me to really buckle down and start making albums, to start writing a bunch of fucking songs. I think I’m mainly inspired by the people I play music with just because we’re all on the same level and it's not like I’m looking off in the distance at someone that has already made it. I’m just inspired by the people who are also struggling doing their best whether it being a solo artist or being in a band or being an engineer or whatever.
How did you come up with the name Mirror Days?
I’ll never let that cat out of the bag [laughs], I’ll give you the PG version. It’s pretty much just self reflection. You have those days where you did something stupid. You get wasted one night and you do some shit that you forget about and then you find out about it and you just feel like a sack of shit. You have to pick the puzzle up and put it back together. So I guess it’s just about self-reflection in any way and everything coming back to you full circle.
You just released your second EP, Solstice, on [October] 30th. Can you tell us the process of making that music as opposed to your first EP? Did you learn anything about yourself or anything else over the course of making it?
It was very different from first one as far as the recording standpoint because I didn’t take the first EP as seriously. I mean we recorded at the house I was living in at the time and we were literally mic-ing the drums with the worst microphones. I just had a bunch of songs that I wrote and recorded so I picked four or five songs and put the EP out there under Mirror Days. Then after that, something not a lot of people know, I had a full length ten song album come out.
Where did it go?
I just took it down from everywhere. I was going through a really weird time. The music wasn’t cohesive with the stuff I was writing. It didn’t really make sense even with the first EP, so I took it down and spent more time thinking and writing. I wrote about twelve more songs for this new one. This time around, when I had new material, I’d record in a real studio. My buddy Jesse, who plays guitar for me live, runs a thing called Hazel Street Recordings with his buddies Doug and Greg. They have a house in Glendale and are equipped to do live living room sessions but they also record real shit. They were super busy recording a bunch of other people but they fit me in a few days and I actually recorded about eight songs. I ended up using five of those and they became Solstice. That process was a lot different from the first one because we didn’t have real equipment. Moving to Hazel Street and having everything there at my disposal was amazing. I even recorded an acoustic piano in the living room—I’d never done that before.
You were saying that the album that you took down wasn’t cohesive with the first stuff you wrote, how important is it to you that all your songs are cohesive and how do you make sure you are growing as an artist while making it sound like Mirror Days?
It’s important to keep a general sound. Every artist has a general sound—not that you can’t change it. For me, I look at it more as if the songs are progressing rather then just changing. If you listen to the first EP and you listen to the Solstice EP it sounds a lot different, but you can tell it’s the same dude making the stuff. I think with this EP I finally found myself as an artist. I listen back to it and this is what I’ve always wanted my music to sound like. The other album didn’t quite get there. It was just too left field off the wall. I don’t think it’s important to stay the same, I think it gets super boring if you keep doing the same chord progression, the same drum beat. Where do you go from there? I don’t want to have any certain idea of what my next song is going to sound like. I think, like I said, now that I have found kind of my niche and myself as an artist I think naturally they are going to sound alike enough to go on an album together.
What aspect of Solstice excites you the most? Is there something that really stands out to you, whether it be the music, album art, the process of recording, anything?
What stands out the most is that these songs are way more fun to play live. Everything has been super fun to play because we all just love to play, but this shit is definitely like when we first started playing. When we play live we’d end the song laughing. This shit is so fun and people are fucking with it, which is cool.
You released your album and then pretty much right after that you decided to quit your full time job at Diamond to make music. In this day and age it’s nice to have some stability, and you went the opposite direction. How did you feel when you quit and what challenges have you faced now that you're just a musician?
Working at Diamond was just not for me. Me quitting was just something that needed to happen. I think they saw it when we had the talk about me not working there anymore. It was more or less them letting me go, but even through that, everybody I spoke with was saying I needed to be doing music. The HR lady told me this isn’t where your heart is and, not that I wasn’t doing my job or being an asshole, but she said everyone could tell that music was my passion. They’ve always been really good to me but I didn’t have enough time to focus on music and it was bumming me out. It was just kind of a split in the road, them going their direction and me going mine, but it wasn’t a bad thing.
Did you know what you were getting yourself into? What challenges have you faced being a musician, now that money is not a steady thing?
For a guy like me, money is never going to be good [laughs]. I don’t think I’ll ever be at the point of ‘just chilling.’ I was eighteen when I moved out here by myself—I left Michigan with 450 dollars and arrived in California with 60. The first year was I was sleeping in a little studio with three other dudes, and about 100 cockroaches, on a mattress I found in a parking garage in downtown LA. Any point where I'm above that, as long as I can feed myself, put gas in my car and pay my bills, I’m stoked. I don’t really need a lot, I’m not a flashy club going type of dude. Basically as long as I can keep myself afloat, I’m hyped, and so far its happening. Let’s hope it keeps going.
What similarities do you see between skating and making music physically and mentally?
It’s actually pretty funny because everything with music and skating kind of goes hand in hand. You have to go on the road, you have to play a show at ‘x’ time—for skating you have to go on the road and do demos at ‘x’ time and you have to perform in front of people. I’m not currently on a record label, but if a label hits you up and they ask for a full-length album by the end of next year, it’s the same thing as a shoe company hitting you up saying "We need a video part by the end of next year." Obviously you put your heart and soul into it and you want to do it correctly because you want to be perceived in a certain way. Nobody is telling you how to do it, or the right way to do it. You have to find yourself and do it the best you can. I’m sure there are a lot of professional skateboarders that have parts out there that are absolutely mind-blowing, but to them they remember ever little memory and detail about what they had to go through to get it done. They are probably super fucking over it. The same goes for music—you struggle, you have to write and put everything together and the process can take you to a pretty emotional state. So I think it’s the same shit except it’s video parts, demos, photos, and photo incentives, when in music, it’s albums, interviews, reviews, etc. I think the most common similarity is that it's not fucking easy.
I think the similarities they share are probably why skateboarders connect with music so much, in addition to it being something that they use to disconnect. Do you use skating to do that? Like when you’re losing your mind about a song, do you watch a skate video and think "Alright dude, calm down, let’s go back to the fun," or is it something else?
I’m really bad at keeping up with skating now a days. It’s not that I don’t care about it, but it's just I haven’t been skating really. Actually, I just set up a board last night. I play in a band with Austyn [Gillette] and he just got knee surgery in both of his knees a few months ago. The doctor said he’ll be rolling around in a month and a half, so I told him I’d start skating with him when he got better. In 2015 we’re going to start skating. I’ll probably be able to skate on his level for like a week and a half, so I’m going to take advantage of it. The first week he’s back I’ll be able to keep up with him. I would love to skate more, but the risk of hurting myself is too great. I cant really risk my fingers or my wrist, you know? I could break an ankle and still go play shows or record, but if something happens to my hand I’m fucked. That being said, the occasional slappy grind never hurt nobody.
What are some of your other escapes? When you're going crazy about music, how do you unwind?
Unwind? Fuck man, I drink whiskey [laughs]. I drink a lot of whiskey. I paint too, actually. I got really into old traditional tattoos and tattooing. I just try to find little things to do, with out much pressure, because if your escape is something else you have to work super hard at, that can be really fucking frustrating and not an escape at all. Usually if I’m trying to get away from everything I just chill out and drink whiskey.
What kind of whiskey is your favorite?
Eagle Rare Bourbon, although I just discovered Moscow Mules, but I’ve been doing them with whiskey or with rum. Ginger beer with fresh lime juice and bourbon in it.
The copper cups make the fucking world of difference.
Yes dude! I went out and bought two of those cups the other day. I got them from Target so they’re probably not real copper but they look pretty cool. It makes me feel a little cooler when I’m drinking [laughs].
Do you have a specific song of yours that you would think would go really well with skating? Who would you ideally like to skate to your music?
I would be down for anybody to skate to any of my songs. Anybody who is down for it, I’m down for them. Stevie [Perez] did say he would like to skate to a Mirror Days track, which would be fucking legendary. I don’t really know what song though, I think that would be on them. I’d have to see the skating to match it up, but hopefully one of them will get used one day.
What’s next on the horizon?
I’m writing a bunch. I was going to do another EP but it’s turning into a full length album. That’s already in the works. We’re playing three or four new songs in our live set these days. As far as future plans, touring would be nice but its super expensive, so we’re aiming for the Summer of 2015, and until then, keep booking shows. I’m booking up February—we’re playing the House Of Blues, better shows like that. I just keep writing and playing and pushing it. I would love to play South By South West. I’m just going to keep pushing as hard as possible, booking, playing, recording, writing, and drinking as much as I can [laughs].
Follow Graham on Instagram:@mirrordaysmusic
