Liquid Mike emerges from a crossroads with ‘Hell Is an Airport’

Hell Is an Airport, the new full-length album from Michigan power-pop quintet Liquid Mike, emerged from a series of crossroads, singer and songwriter Mike Maple having reached a point where he began to feel torn between pursuing music full-time or locking into a career with the USPS, between buying a house or continuing to rent, and between staying in the small Upper Peninsula town of Marquette or moving to a city from which the band might be able to pursue music with greater ease.

“That was kind of the idea on the record, because when we were making it, I was between the job I had and wanting to leave to start touring more,” said Maple, who opted to lean into the latter, forgoing his years-long gig with the postal service to focus more intently on playing shows, including a Columbus stop opening for Militarie Gun at a sold-out Dirty Dungarees on Saturday, Nov. 1. “And it was a little scary at first, but I think I’ve come to terms with jumping ship into a different lifestyle and not having steady work all the time. … And if I ever need to go back, I can go back. And really, I’ve never been happier. I think I really didn’t like working that job anyway.”

Other changes surfaced in Hell Is an Airport are less easily reversed. Witness the driving “Lit From the Wrong End,” which opens with Maple singing about a violent spill he took while sledding post-college and morphs into a loose reflection on the impacts of aging and the reality that there may be certain things we can’t – or at least shouldn’t – do as we get older. “You didn’t see the jump, still you got sent,” the musician sings in a tumble of consonants, the guitars carrying forward with the uninterrupted momentum of steel runners gliding down a snow-packed hill.

While the song recounts his personal experiences, Maple acknowledged that the majority of people encounter that point where it becomes clear they’ve left at least a part of their youth squarely in the rear view. “When I was a kid, I was at a baseball tournament with my dad, and the kids were all having foot races. … And he was like, ‘I bet I could beat you guys!’” Maple said. “And then he tore his Achilles halfway through, and I think that was his moment.”

In stepping back from the USPS – a job the musician said enabled him to interact with people in a way that proved beneficial to his songwriting – Maple said he’s had to be more intentional in his efforts to get out and experience his surroundings, noting the ease with which he could fall into a pattern of either working from home or posting up day after day at the same coffee shop. “Staying still, that’s bad, and that certainly doesn’t help the creative process at all,” said Maple, who has supplemented his income in recent months by substitute teaching and working the odd handyman job. “You have to put yourself in different situations and interact with people. That’s where I usually find the best songs.”

As in life, few of the revelations within Hell Is an Airport are on a grander scale, Maple and Co. instead documenting a series of subtle shifts and revelations that collectively show some degree of progression. At times, this can be as simple as coming to terms with the reality that the destination we might have had in mind isn’t all that different from the point at which we set out, or an acceptance that there can be silver linings to lingering in place. “Nothing here ever gets too bad,” Maple sings on “Groucho Marx,” a line that reflects the appreciation the musician has developed for Marquette, even if he doesn’t exactly relish the cold, snowy winters.

“Even going to all these new places and new cities on tour, there’s always something that grounds me in something familiar from back home, whether it’s landscapes or just the attitudes of the people, which I find comforting,” said Maple, who allowed that Liquid Mike might sound like an altogether different band had it formed in a more bustling metropolis with an active music scene. “When we were cutting our teeth early on, we didn’t even play shows, because there were no places for us to play. There were no pressures or distractions, and all we could do was write and record, which I think for sure impacted the band and the sound and what the songs are about.”

The pace at which Liquid Mike has worked is reflected in both its music (relentlessly propulsive) and its rapidly expanding discography, which has seen the band release six albums in just five years, driven, Maple said, by a simple yet innate desire to create something. “I was just hungry,” he said. “That whole time early on was such a blur, and I don’t remember most of it, but I was working every day, and I was super hungry to make something cool and to just be good at something. … I mean, at the end of the day it’s just rock music. We’re not trying to outsmart it.”