Old-sounding new music is all the rage in Orange County, where fuzzy garage-pop has ruled the local scene for the better part of the past decade, with labels like Burger Records and bands like The Growlers thrusting this aesthetic into the International underground consciousness. May McDonough and her trio The May Company (Lo Schmitt on drums and multi-instrumentalist Rusty Huber) are familiar faces for indie rock enthusiasts south of Los Angeles. They call their sound “psychedelic art punk for soul,” which is a pretty spot-on characterization of the noise the they make. Drenched in SoCal sunshine and plenty of reverb, the band cobbles oddball literary themes into their neo-psychedelia, making them one of the more compelling bands in the region. May McDonough talks to Myspace about the band's origins, her kickass guitar pedals and the penchant for Mark Twain's stories.

Hometown and current city: Orange, California  

Tell me the story of how you put the band together.

Lo and I met in high school and have been in a couple bands together. Rusty and I met through a friend at a bar. When I was making solo music a few years ago, I called upon the both of them in a last-minute favor to play with me an hour before a live radio gig. My previous band had bailed last minute. The three of us, along with a few stragglers here and there, have played together ever since. Somewhere along that journey our sound took a more psychedelic-punk shape and with that we decided to officially become a band.

Has music always been a constant in your life?

My mother always had us singing in the car, and she was in a few bands in her youth. She taught me guitar and bought me a piano. Lo and I went to a lot of underground shows in high school.That opened up our world.  

You have cited Tom Waits and Sonic Youth as sources of inspiration. Who are some of the newer sources? 

As far as more current musical inspiration goes, we love everything from Thee Oh Sees, Black Lips, La Femme, and some local groups like Cosmonauts, Feeding People, all the great bands on Ghoulhouse Records—Sean Gospel & The Night Stalkers—and Burger bands like BomBon. Anything that feeds off of that old ‘60s punk sensibility but takes it to a new creative place. Thrashing guitars, spiraling synths, et cetera.

Describe the moment when you realized you wanted to make music for a living.

That depends on what you call a living. I'm not sure any of us truly expect to give up our day jobs. Not because we wouldn't love to—we would! But there just isn't that kind of money floating around for bands making artful music. A handful of bands get that lucky. As for knowing that this is our calling so-to-speak? There was never a moment. It's like asking when we realized we had legs. If it happened it was too organic of a moment to recall.

Why did you change your name from May McDonough & Company to the May Company?

Well, at some point we realized that a name that's difficult to pronounce out loud is a name that's easy to forget, and even more difficult to find online. Word of mouth is a powerful thing, and apparently much more powerful when that word is a bit less Irish in origin.   

If you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be?

It would be magical if we could break out the guitar pedals and the synths and put John Dwyer to work.  His work is so dense with a dark psychedelia... like he manages to somehow make the macabre bright and shiny. It's just dripping with creativity. Or Ty Segall. He would be fun. Maybe someone out of left field like Jeff Mangum or Ian Svenonious. That would be a real dream team.

I love your guitar pedals. How did you get into building those?

I always wanted to make my own. Over the past couple years, playing with different tones and effects has become an integral part of our sound. I wanted as much control and as much variety in that as possible. So I went online and started learning from anything I could read. Now I mostly make them as gifts for people I like. I should really make more for myself.  

What's the craziest thing a fan has ever done for you?

Nothing crazy yet. We've had some cool artwork sent to us. We hang it in our studio. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

What was the concept behind your Bullyboywithaglasseye album?

Bullyboywithaglasseye is the name of a microbial character in a short story by Mark Twain called "Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes." It was a name that the character was given that was based on a misunderstanding or something lost in translation. We liked that idea so we borrowed it. The album has a few running themes. We talk about the banality and corruption of bureaucracy, the self-importance of religion, and the symbolism derived from it that we all take way too seriously. People get so caught up in dogmas and paradigms that are arbitrary and  insignificant... and more importantly way outdated.