Like a fine wine with a rare vintage, Mayfield have taken the time to become a strong and bold flavour within Melbourne’s underground soul scene. Boasting heavy, rich vocals, theirs is the kind of sound that has meant detailed care and attention. Making the rounds on the live circuit, they’ve had their fair share of performance opportunities but with the release of their debut album Victim Of Circumstance in July, Mayfield are only just getting started.
“We’ve been working on it for three years – it’s definitely been a labour of love,” says vocalist Carla Troiano. “Being a completely self-funded band, it took a little longer to get it out than expected. We had the opportunity to play lots of live gigs and then try things that worked well in the studio – it gave us a lot of creative ideas.”
The whole album is a collection of the members’ lives over the last five years. There’s a real story behind each song, and each is a real experience lived by Mayfield. “We’ve all fused our musical love to create an evasive sound,” says Troiano. “We’re predominantly soul, funk, and R&B, but there are influences of rock and hip hop and that reflects the six of us bringing what we love to the album.”
When people think of music and Melbourne, the automatic association is likely to be indie and rock music, but there are a wealth of soul and funk bands on the rise. “The soul scene in Melbourne is incredible. There’s some incredible soul acts around like when I first started in the industry – it’s a family vibe and I think it’s making a revival. People are really digging it. It’s becoming trendy again. There’s a lot of R&B going on, lots of up and coming artists.
“I think it’s making a strong revival. There are a lot of soul nights happening and venues wanting to book that kind of music. Mayfield have been up and coming through the scene and making a mark in the last two years. We’re all about the soul family, we really want to expand and create more of this kind of music.”
Having been together for five years but only, as Troiano puts it, making their mark in the last two, Mayfield are the type of musicians who felt they needed that time to make Victim Of Circumstance what it is now.
They couldn’t churn out something for the sake of doing it and it took all this time to reach their vision, to get this result. “I think the biggest thing is, that when you’re writing and creating music – and I heard it for the first time when I saw the Amy Winehouse doco, she said ‘I can’t write music that I haven’t lived.’ Maybe there are artists who can, I know I can’t and the band, we’re really collaborative,” Troiano says.
“We took the time because we needed to live it – we needed those experiences to write about and create and that’s also very much to do with the title – it’s a universal thing. We’ve all been, no matter what walk of life you come from, we’ve all experienced the emotions in our songs.
“At times, we weren’t able to get in the studio and say, ‘Okay, we’re going to write an album.’ For us, it was a natural, organic process compared to other bands. We let it all happen naturally and that’s when the album was born. Each song on the album is really close to us and has a different meaning.”
Such has been the positive reception to Victim Of Circumstance, that Mayfield are still touring like it’s a newborn – fresh and fascinating. Their upcoming show at Bird’s Basement is an honour that Troiano is very much looking forward to. “It’s such an iconic venue – it’s our debut show at a world-class venue such as this.
“So many people we love have played there, so it’s a real honour to be on that stage. We’re so passionate about music, so we’re really honoured to be playing songs from the album on such an iconic stage.”
