THE NAME IS ‘BILE, MO-BILE
by Len Sousa

An interview with singer Mat Joly of Mobile

Contrary to popular American pronunciation, Mobile’s name (pronounced Mō-bīl') has nothing to do with a large oil company and more to do with a certain British secret agent. Originally named Moonraker, after the 1979 James Bond movie starring Roger Moore, the band took on their new identity just before recording their first album.

“We used [Moonraker] for about five years,” says singer Mat Joly, admitting the change came when they discovered an American group with the same name. “We chose Mobile because there’s a band we love called The Longpigs. They had an album called Mobile Home and we called ourselves Mobile as a tribute to them.”

Raised in the bilingual streets of Montreal, Joly, who learned English at age 12 and still speaks with a French lilt, has known most of his bandmates since his early childhood. In fact, guitarist Christian Brais, bassist Dominic Viola, guitarist Frank Williamson, and drummer Pierre-Marc Hamelin all grew up together—which made sharing a stuffy apartment a little easier.

“We moved to Toronto, the five of us, into a two-bedroom apartment,” Joly says about his band’s decision to graduate to the Canadian big leagues in 2004, “and we lived there for a year and a half.” Joly claims they got along by staying focused on making a career in music and it worked. By the time their lease was up, the group had scored a record deal.

Their debut, Tomorrow Starts Today, struck big on the Canadian charts with New Order and The Cure influenced singles like “Out Of My Head” and “Montreal Calling.” In writing lyrics for the latter, Joly found inspiration in a fateful fight.

“We were living in Toronto, I had a huge fight with my girlfriend and had to go back to Montreal to fix things,” Joly explains. “It was Sunday night, about midnight, and I told Christian, ‘Gimme your keys, I gotta go back to Montreal’…So I packed my stuff and he gave me a CD with a new song he’d just written called ‘Montreal Calling.’ I drove for eight hours, got to Montreal, fixed things up, drove back, and listened to the only song I had [in the car]. So I wrote the lyrics coming back from that trip.”

But when Mobile was finally ready to make their transition to American audiences, they hit a road block—their own record label. “Before we signed the deal [with Interscope], we knew it was a risk,” Joly admits. “[But] there was a bidding war over the band back then so we felt like this may be our shot.” Unfortunately, things went south quickly.

“In America, Interscope didn’t do anything—like nothing. They never put out the record.” Maneuvering out of their record contract earlier this year, the band signed with independent label The Militia Group and finally released their album Stateside on August 21.

“It’s tough for bands to survive with a major if you don’t have a big radio hit,” Joly says. “I think it’s a big mistake. All the bands that have been really successful, like U2 or R.E.M., it took them years before they had a huge hit, like two or three albums. Now, you have one shot, and if it doesn’t work, you’re done.”