Mar 1, 2022

Interview: Téa Campbell of Meet Me @ the Altar

Photo by Jimmy Fontaine

Meet Me @ the Altar consists of vocalist Edith Johnson, Guitarist/bassist Téa Campbell, and drummer Ada Juarez. Campbell and Juarez met online in 2015 and Johnson later joined the band, forming a fresh and vibrant Pop Punk band ready to take over the scene! The band’s music is upbeat and energetic, and they’re inspiring to many young Women of Color in the industry. From working nonstop at a young age to getting signed to their dream label, Fueled by Ramen, in 2020, Meet Me @ the Altar has released three EPs, with their most recent one being Model Citizen. They embody a fresh and fun style that makes you think of early 2000s Pop/Pop Punk!

READ/ORDER OUR MARCH 2022 ISSUE: https://www.galaxy-mag.com/product-page/mar-2022-mmata

Congrats on releasing your most recent EP, ‘Model Citizen!’ One thing I admire about this EP is that your lyrics are like having a conversation with yourself and being aware of what you're feeling, and that you can always try to better yourself. Did you guys come up with a specific album concept or did all your songs just come together to spread these positive messages throughout the album?

So, it’s actually kind of funny. The title ‘Model Citizen’ came from a random thought that popped into my head when I was in the shower. Like, those words just popped into my head and I was like, “That sounds cool.” I told Ada and Edith and they were like, “That does sound pretty cool.” So, we already had the vibe for what we wanted to go for just off of the name but the songs that we write were kind of leaning towards those type of topics already about self-growth and holding yourself accountable and generally trying to be a good person in a not so good world. But yeah, we had the name first so we kind of steered the lyrics and the songs to make sense under that title ‘cause we like our music to feel cohesive and make sense and tell a story, and we really focused on that with this one.

Yeah, I really love that and it kind of ties into the idea that you guys are like, your own role models basically.

Yeah, it’s true!

I love the message in “Brighter Days” of staying hopeful and not giving up – it puts me in such a good mood! Whenever you face any obstacles within the music industry, what’s something that always gets you back up and keeps you going?

Yeah, so we always try to look at every single experience whether it be good or bad that something good will come out of it. For example, every single tour we’ve done so far, besides this one, which thank God things are changing, but we’ve had so many problems and it’s so easy to like, get down and not want to do it anymore when everything’s not going right. Like, our trailer has detached so many times, we’ve gotten flat tires, we’ve burned through two transmissions, we’ve had shows where our stuff didn’t work – anything can happen but at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter ‘cause something good can always come from it.

I love that – it’s so important on tour when a lot of things can go wrong, to have that positive mindset.

It definitely helps.

Your music videos are amazing and really show off your bright personalities and excitement so how have your experiences been getting to shoot your first music videos and planning out the creative concepts?

They’re so fun. Music videos are something that we’ve always really cared about as a band. Prior to COVID, we were this like, really tiny, broke band. Like, we didn’t have any money backing us – I was the only one with a job. We literally used to have GoFundMe to fund our projects. But now that we got signed by Fueled By Ramen, we have a budget to be making cool music videos. ‘cause that’s something that we always grew up doing – we would just sit on YouTube for hours and watch music videos. They bring something new to the song that you can’t get from just the audio. We had such a blast on video shoots. I can tell you that “Feel A Thing” was probably my favorite shoot to do just ‘cause we got to do it in an arcade and play the games for free.

Photo by Yising Kao

That’s awesome! Do you ever see yourself wanting to direct your own music videos?

Oh, definitely! Edith and I have talked about that. When we do videos, we come up with the idea for it and then we’ll go to different directors and they all pitch treatments for it. But we like the ideas to come from us and I can’t say too much, but for the next one we’re gonna do, we are hopefully gonna co-direct it. We already can see the music video in our heads so we’re like, why would we not direct it? We know exactly what we want.

That’s great to have that artist input – I’m excited for it!

I’ve been to one of your shows and I love how energetic you guys are on stage – you know how to hype up the crowd which can be challenging for an opener.

Yeah, if you’re saying that, that was our first show back and we did not like that show very much, so thank you for saying that. We’re a lot better now!

Photo by Yising Kao

You’ve played shows before getting signed but how has it been jumping straight into playing at bigger venues?

Honestly, it’s been so much fun for us just ‘case this is the type of stuff that we’ve been dreaming about for however long. And from going to playing shows to nothing gave us a lot of time to really just want to play bigger shows and stuff. We are so much more comfortable playing a bigger stage than a smaller stage. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s because the people are further away from you but we just feel so comfortable up there. And yeah, it’s super fun for us. We get nervous sometimes but as soon as we step out on the stage, it just goes away.

That’s really cool, you guys just keep getting better and better and I get that bigger venues could probably be more comfortable ‘cause you don’t have to make direct eye contact with someone.

Yes, exactly, it’s the worst when you’re playing to a room with like, fifteen people ‘cause they’re right there.

MMATA has performed alongside some of your favorite artists such as Twenty One Pilots. Have any artists you look up to given you advice about anything that has stuck with you?

Yeah, back in like June of 2020 when were first blowing up, we got to have a call with Halsey. And it was really cool because we got to talk with her artist to artist, person to person, and she gave us some really good advice about what it’s like to be a woman in the industry. And we talked about how people always assumed that she doesn’t write her own songs and she always had to prove herself. And we found ourselves in that position too where you feel like you have to go the extra mile and be really good at what you do just because you’re a woman of color or person of color or woman in general. But yeah, that advice definitely stuck.

Aw, I love that. That’s really true that you have to work twice as hard as a woman of color.

Luckily though, that just makes you better regardless of what anyone thinks. So, it’s not even necessarily a bad thing to us.

You just keep on proving them wrong!

Photo by Yising Kao

How do you feel about performing at the When We Were Young Fest this year?

I know everyone on the internet is like, “Oh my gosh, it’s a scam!” but like, we knew we were gonna play it but we only knew that My Chemical Romance would be playing. We didn’t know about the rest of the lineup. So when it came announcement day and we saw the flyer, we were like, “Oh my gosh, we’re gonna play with Paramore! Are you kidding me?!”and literally like every other band that we’ve been influenced by. So if you can’t tell, we’re very excited about it haha.

Yeah, I’m really excited for you guys! And it’d by Live Nation so I would trust them.

They know what they’re doing!

As a Woman of Color, I want to say that you guys are incredibly inspiring and I’m glad that you’re getting recognition for your art, rather than only your ethnicities. I know you guys have talked a lot about representation so what would you want to say to Women of color who aspire to work in the white male-dominated Pop Punk scene?

First of all, I just wanna say thank you that’s really nice! I would say don’t let anything or anyone stop you from what you wanna do. Because people did try to stop us but we were just kids who didn’t care and we somehow turned it into getting signed by Fueled By Ramen at like, twenty and twenty one years old. Like, how did that happen? You can really do anything you set your mind to and if you don’t know how to do something, just look it up. That’s what we did – we were fourteen years old when we started this band and didn’t know how to play a show, didn’t know how to put your music on platforms but Google is your best friend.

That’s so true! I also like how you hire people of color too like Leigh Ann Rodgers is killin’ it!

Yeah, and our tour manager, Nicole Stephens.

I met her at a show recently, she’s super nice!

What upcoming projects can we look forward to?

We are currently writing our debut album. I cant say too much about it – I don’t know when it’s coming out but we’re working on it. This is definitely the most musically inclined release that MMATA has come up with. We’re super in love with these songs and we’re really excited for the world to hear new MMATA!

Photo by Jimmy Fontaine

RAPID FIRE QUESTIONS

What’s a song you wish you wrote?

I can probably think of a better one but this is what came to mind at the top of my head – Waking Up In Vegas by Katy Perry. Oh wait, redacted, I wish I wrote Here We Go Again by Demi Lovato.

Oh my gosh, that song is a bop.

So good, like I wanna play that song every night.

If you had to work in another touring crew position, what would it be?

I would wanna do lighting. I love good lighting and I hate bad lighting! It’s like my biggest pet peeve so I would love to be able to learn how to do cool lighting stuff.

As a concert photographer, I feel that, when the lighting is so dark.

I know you know! It’s funny because, not to talk crap or anything, but yesterday was our first day of tour and the lighting for the first couple of songs wasn’t the best, and LA was just like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so mad!”

What’s your favorite childhood TV show?

How does I choose?? I’m gonna give you two answers. My favorite cartoon show was Chowder. I was a Chowder kid which I feel like, most people know that and could tell. My favorite live action show would probably be Hannah Montana or Sonny With A Chance. Sonny With A Chance might be the top actually now that I think about it.

What’s a song or cover you want to perform live but haven’t already?

I want to perform that Freaky Friday song, “Take Me Away.” I love that song so damn much and that would be so fun. I feel like it would be too niche to play it. We’d have to find the perfect crowd. Like, if Lindsay Lohan decided to have a comeback – well no she probably wouldn’t but love that song.

That movie just has all jams in it.

Yeah, “Ultimate” is a bop.