A band name that really does beg the question, “Who are The Mayflies?” Well, we can tell you that The Mayflies USA is a power-pop band formed in 1996 in Chapel Hill. The band have just completed their new album, their fourth and the first in 23 years. Matt McMichaels, Matt Long, Adam Price, and new member Tony Stiglitz—decided to record their fourth full-length album after a mysterious illness struck guitarist Matt Long in 2022. “He had his whole system go insane, to the point that the doctors said he’d have been gone in a week had he not come in,” says guitarist and singer Matt McMichaels. “After he got out of the hospital, he told us, ‘I really want to record with you guys again.’ It brought into stark relief that we may not have as much time as we thought. We’re all getting older, so it’s now or never.”
And having cleared that up, what about the song title? Well, the band says of the track: “Cabbagetown is a historic neighbourhood of Atlanta, GA, a city the Mayflies played many times when we were touring in the late 90s and early aughts. It’s become gentrified in recent years but has a rich history as a haven for artists and bohemians, and the song, like several on the album, is written from the perspective of a former druggie freak looking back with a kind of wistful ironic grandiosity on his glory days. As a point of minor Mayflies trivia, it is the only song in the catalogue to feature anything approaching a drum solo.”
