The Melancholy Kings are a New Jersey–based band making sharp, emotional alt-rock with strong hooks and honest lyrics. Built on friendship, shared history and a love for classic indie rock, the band sounds more focused and confident than ever on their new album “Her Favorite Disguise”. Their music is direct, heartfelt, and made to be played loud. We spoke with The Melancholy Kings about several topics, diving into their beautiful world. Mike Potenza (vocals, guitar) and Scott Selig (bass) were kind enough to give their interesting answers, and below you can read our full conversation.
by Dimitris Zacharopoulos
When, where and how was The Melancholy Kings formed? Give us a short biography of the band!
Mike Potenza: Scott and I were both lawyers at the same firm in New York City. Unbeknownst to us at the time, we both had pasts as musicians in the New York/New Jersey indie scene. At the same time, I was going through old songs and thought about recording them some day. We got to talking and decided to form a band. I reunited with my high school band mate, Pete Horvath, and asked him to join. He did, and I joined his band (The Anderson Council). Ray Ketchem introduced us to Paul Andrew, and that’s how we got here.
Scott Selig: As Mike mentioned, we were working at the same law firm and played together at a law-related charity event. We quickly realized that we gelled musically and had similar musical journeys in our pasts, having turned to law as a career shift after souring of the music scene.
Why did you decide to name the band “The Melancholy Kings”? Are you melancholic as persons?
Mike: More cynical than melancholy I’d say personally. I’ve always struggled with band names; I think every band does, except maybe Anal Cunt. (You can print that as AxCx.) We went by The Other Defectives for a bit, after a New Jersey law from the 1920s that permitted the sterilization of “idiots, morons and other defectives”, and we tossed around some others. We came by Melancholy Kings when I saw a graffiti tag in Newark, New Jersey on my way to work. It was a Basquiat-like crown with a sad king with some tears from one eye and I thought, “Why so melancholy?” The Melancholy Kings struck me as a good band name.
Scott: The name is always the most difficult and contentious issue in every band I’ve been in. It’s really difficult to agree on an original name that everyone likes. I was not very fond of our initial ideas, but when Mike suggested The Melancholy Kings I thought it was perfect. Personally, I’m rarely melancholy, but we can benevolently rule over the Kingdom of Melancholia regardless.
Who is the main composer of the new album? How is a typical The Melancholy Kings song composed?
Scott: Mike usually sends us a voice memo of an embryonic song, accompanied by acoustic guitar. Sometimes I’ll send him a basic melody and chord structure, warbling nonsense syllables, and then Mike fleshes it out and adds real lyrics. The full band works out the arrangement, structure, harmonies, dynamics, etc. together. Our collaboration happens fairly intuitively when we’re together.
Mike: I guess most of the songs started with me. Scott co-wrote “UV” and Pete co-wrote “Victoria”. And of course “Alex Bell” is a Guided By Voices cover. But all these songs really come together as a group effort and that group includes Ray as producer.
Your new album, “Her Favorite Disguise”, is described as a nod to ’80s pre-grunge alt-rock. Do you agree with this description? Why?
Mike: I do. That genre is kind of what we grew up on, with, for me at least, a heavy supplement of English invasion and 70’s-era rock. I think what you listen to growing up and then when you’re learning to play an instrument becomes part of your DNA. Pete and I joke that we can’t help but do the Pete Buck picking pattern on certain songs because we grew up on early R.E.M. and knew every song.
Scott: I generally agree, but I’ll add that we don’t set out to make recordings that sound like they arrived via a time machine from that era. While that music is definitely imbedded in our sonic DNA, we are also informed by many sounds and styles that came before and have since arisen over the years, whether it’s shoegaze, modern indie, even hip-hop. Whether or not those influences overtly come through in our recordings, they often inspire us and the choices we make.
Who is the one who writes the lyrics? Where do your lyrics refer to?
Scott: Mike is our Neal Peart. I’m happy to abdicate lyric writing duties to him because I find the process excruciating and I think he’s a great lyricist.
Mike: That’s mostly me. Each song is a bit different. Some are a bit abstract and some are straightforward stories. “Kensington” is about addiction, for example. “Bitcoin Elegy” is a bit more abstract; I was trying to capture the sense of isolation we have in a hyper-connected, all-digital world.
Ray Ketchem handled producing, engineering and all the final sonics. What does he do that most producers don’t?
Scott: Ray is the ideal partner for our recording process. Not only does he possess the technical knowledge to capture our sound fully, he also knows our end goals and sonic reference points and helps us get there. He is also good at steering us away from self-indulgent rabbit holes that we (or at least I) sometimes want to go down.
Mike: Ray tends to take the mode of gentle persuasion when it comes to getting the sound or arrangement he’s hearing; there’s never a “do it my way or the highway” vibe.
What studio moment pushed you furthest out of your comfort zone, and what did it reveal?
Mike: Vocals are the hardest part for me, especially doubling and in some cases tripling them. Hopefully, it revealed some good things – I know the challenge was a good experience for me.
Scott: Like Mike, I’m least comfortable when I’m in the vocal booth. Even though my harmony contributions are relatively modest compared to Peter’s, I often struggle to record a take that I’m happy with. I’m not a natural singer but my sporadic vocal layers add to our overall sound, so I want to get them right. It’s a very different feeling than when I record bass or keyboard parts, which I usually feel comfortable and competent at.
Where would you trace the differences between the new album and your 2019 debut? Do you feel prouder and braver lyrically and sonically on the new album compared to your 2019 debut?
Mike: I think we’ve all gotten more comfortable in the studio dialing in the sounds we want, layering overdubs and, for me, getting the vocals a little more relaxed and natural sounding. We didn’t have Pete or Paul on the first album; I think they added a lot to the record not only in their actual parts musically, but on the structures and overall directions of the songs. Lyrically, I don’t think much changed; a lot of the songs have been written for a long time. I do update my lyrics, but they’re pretty much the same core.
Scott: We’ve come such a long way since the first album that it feels to me like we’re a completely different band now – TMK 2.0. Especially with Peter’s and Paul’s contributions, the new album captures the sound of a fully-formed collaborative ensemble rather than a nascent musical project. The songs are more direct, high-energy and sonically interesting, in my opinion.
What was the biggest thing the pandemic hiatus changed about you as a band?
Mike: Well, we stopped playing for a good while. Getting everything back going again was a bit of a challenge. And we weren’t playing gigs. Gigs focus you, force you to get your ducks at least somewhat in a row, etc. At the end of the day, I think it did give us some time to eventually hone our sound and our performances so when we went back in the studio, we were set to go. We wound up recording something like 14 basic tracks in one weekend when we finally got going.
Scott: Personally, I came out of the pandemic more determined than ever to play and record as much music as time and resources allow. The act of creating music with others fills a place in my soul that is priceless, which I never fully appreciated before the pandemic took it away for a while. So we came out on the other side eager and determined to get back to work.
You pull from influences like R.E.M., Miracle Legion, Dinosaur Jr. and The Replacements. Do you agree with that? Do you have any other music influences that I didn’t mention?
Mike: I think our influences are like a Venn diagram with a pretty big overlapping part. Out of those you listed, REM, Miracle Legion and the Mats were bigger for me than Dinosaur Jr. I also wore the grooves off of my Lloyd Cole records in high school and beyond. Bands like Big Dipper, Blake Babies/Julianna Hatfield, Husker Du definitely up there. I think overall I’ve gravitated toward the power poppy side of things, supplemented with a heavy dose of 70’s rock.
Scott: What Mike said. But our collective musical influences are wide-ranging and vast. The Beatles are the obvious lodestar for us. The Smiths dominated by stereo alongside R.E.M. during my adolescence. Plus the punk bands from the time such as Dead Kennedys and X. Radiohead and Wilco have always inspired me. I was also raised on Led Zeppelin and Queen. I learned bass from the recordings by Paul McCartney, James Jamerson (Motown), Peter Hook (Joy Division, New Order) and David J (Bauhaus, Love & Rockets).
What keeps you motivated to create and release music in 2025?
Mike: In terms of the creative process, I don’t really think about it; it just kind of happens. Songs come or they don’t. The motivation is really just that I have fun doing it. It ain’t financial! It’s really, to me, a kind of privilege to be making music with my friends, some of whom I’ve known for decades, and having a great time doing it.
Scott: I’m told by those closest to me that I’m a better person to live with when I’m creating music, and I believe them. It is one of the most enjoyable things in my life. Whether or not we ever reach a really wide audience or enjoy significant monetary benefits from what we do, the very act of creating our music is vital to me. When other people enjoy the fruits of our efforts, it’s even more fulfilling.
Do you play live shows? How important are live shows for you? How would you describe the energy of your live shows?
Mike: We do. Probably not as many as we’d like given our day jobs and the fact that there aren’t that many places around New York City and New Jersey these days that feature original bands. I think they’re important for some of the reasons I mentioned earlier – they hone your sound and they give you a chance to see what’s working, what’s not, what needs to be tweaked, what you need to work on. For me, the ultimate goal is to get the songs ready for recording them. I think we bring a lot of energy to the live show when we play. I’m terrible, though, at the stage patter thing. Gotta work on that.
Scott: I try to remind Mike that when it comes to stage patter, less is more. When I see a band, I’d rather hear them play music than babble on between songs. But really, I love playing live. That adrenaline rush is unmatched. We try to give our all onstage and infuse our full energy and intensity into the songs. I also have the advantage of having absolutely no shame or fear of making a complete jackass out of myself onstage, which can be liberating.
Are there specific artists/bands you’d love to tour or share a stage with someday?
Mike: AxCx for sure. I mean any of the bands I mentioned as influences.
Scott: All of the influences mentioned earlier, to the extent still active, for sure. It would also be fun to share a bill with some other New Jersey bands like Yo La Tengo or Elk City.
What do you think about the use of AI in music?
Mike: Some of it is a bit scary. I certainly don’t want to see it replace or usurp the market for musician-made music. I’m not sure it ever will because AI by its nature is backward-looking; it can only build on what’s in it, and music is forward-looking and innovating on what’s been done. Maybe LLMs will get there someday, but at least for now, AI-generated music sounds massively formulaic. That said, I do like the AI drummers you can use for rehearsal purposes if your drummer is sick and things like that.
Scott: So far all I’ve heard AI do is generate credible-sounding facsimiles of really boring, formulaic and mediocre music. If one considers music merely as a commodity to provide ambiance in a shopping center, at a cocktail party, in commercials or behind sports highlights, then maybe that’s fine. But music means so much more to me and I hope most others too. Music, like all of forms of art, is a manifestation of the fundamental creative human impulse – our way of reflecting, commenting on and making sense of our world. If this is left for machines to do in our place, we are denying a fundamental element of ourselves.
If you had to describe “Her Favorite Disguise” in three non-musical words, what would they be?
Mike: Clever, irreverent, wry.
Scott: Interesting, cheeky, fun.
If someone only had time to hear one song from you, which would you point them to first?
Mike: I think “UV” is a good overall exemplar of our style and ambitions.
Scott: Agreed, “UV”. It was certainly the most fun to record.
How do you want your music to make people feel?
Mike: I want them to enjoy it first and foremost. I think we all want to make pop music in the finest sense of that word – songs you like, that you remember and that you wouldn’t mind having playing on a long road trip.
Scott: I want people to feel the way I do when I hear music that grabs me: interested, inspired, energized and happy.
Which are your future plans?
Mike: We have most of the next album recorded. We’ll get to the studio early in the new year to record the last three and hopefully have the next album out by the summer.
Scott: I’m finishing the edit for our next single and video release, so stay tuned! Then, finish and release the next album! Book more gigs in the region.
If listeners walk away remembering only one thing about The Melancholy Kings after this record, what do you hope it is?
Mike: That we put out clever pop songs with memorable hooks and lyrics that engage you.
Scott: That we are four sexy beasts!
Send a message to our readers.
Mike: If you want us to tour Greece, we’d do it. Hey, twist our arms . . . Seriously, though, if you haven’t, please take a listen, follow us, etc., and let us know what you think!
Scott: Ditto.
