The New Mysteries: Leeds songwriter manifests the “imaginary house band” from ‘Twin Peaks’ Roadhouse
In the summer of 2017, when most Twin Peaks fans were diving down Reddit rabbit holes at the conclusion of each new episode of The Return, Matt Humphreys was “reacting” to what he’d seen in a very different way. He shared the internet sleuth’s desire to “unravel the mystery of what was happening each week”, he says, but he chose to channel that energy into writing music rather than theories. Soon enough, in true Lynchian style, he’d created a dream within the proverbial dream—an audio-visual project based on the concept of reforming “the imaginary house band from the Bang Bang Bar“.
“I was starting to write songs literally as each new episode ended, without knowing what was coming next,” Humphreys told Far Out. “So that’s my contribution to the critical interpretation [of The Return], my analysis of the themes and all those incredibly moving moments coming out at us from the TV screen and through the speakers.”
Humphreys, who’s been part of the local music scene in Leeds for many years, also followed the David Lynch model when it came to bringing his idea to fruition. While he slowly fine-tuned his songs, he also gradually developed the concept for the house band at the Bang Bang Bar (aka the Roadhouse), dubbing them “The New Mysteries” with the doubly fictional subtext that they were a reformed version of the original house band from the 1990s, “The Mysteries”, and were forced to slightly change the name for legal reasons.
Along with a semi-regular cast of players, many collaborators, including Matt’s wife and co-vocalist Dani, his sister Amy, Leeds band Lines of Flight, and designer Jon Simmons, helped Humphreys slowly piece together the broader look and sound of The New Mysteries over the next seven years, with the minor delays of a pandemic thrown into the mix. Another collaborator, Samuel Foxton Welles—who’d helped introduce Humphreys to Twin Peaks with a music project of his own in the early 2010s—was also instrumental.
The result, at long last, was three EPs, the last of which is planned for release later this year, with the title Songs from the Roadhouse. The first two releases, Songs for the Trailers (2023) and Songs of Awakening (2024), contain all original songs inspired by Twin Peaks: The Return—no covers or lazy impersonations of Angelo Badalamenti synths or Julee Cruise vocals. In fact, for a project that Humphreys doesn’t mind calling “fan fiction”, the songs, while extremely evocative and referential of scenes, characters, and moods from the series, also stand alone quite well without that context. It sounds, basically, like what you’d want from a scummy but highly capable bar band in the Pacific Northwest.
‘The Trailers’ is a fine booze-soaked acoustic blues number; ‘The Awakening’ is a big booming Springsteen-style pop anthem; and ‘Greetings from the Great Northern’ has the bouncing 1950s rhythm and “shoo-wop” backing vocals that already did, in fact, exist before Twin Peaks. Of course, if you do happen to be a Peaks obsessive, each song lyric offers a fun added layer to the experience, with references both obvious (“Diane”) and slightly more obscure (“Odessa”), and viewpoints from Dale Cooper (“that face in the mirror is not my own”) and Dougie Jones alike (“I’m sleepwalking through my mind”).
“As the focal point of The New Mysteries, I’m not really a lead singer, I’m just channelling these amazing characters from Twin Peaks,” Humphreys tells us. “And when my wife Dani sings co-lead, she is inhabiting the female voices—whether it’s Diane or Laura or Audrey. So it’s quite personal in that sense. But it’s also all about the moment. I want to make it as immersive as possible when we do play shows, and as respectful as possible to the source material. There’s a revolving door where anyone who is passionate and creative can step into the Red Room, lean into the concept and leave their mark on it.”
The New Mysteries have only played a handful of live gigs to date, and Humphreys has no plans to release any material for the project beyond the three EPs, as he feels the death of David Lynch should mark a proper point of closure. There are at least some whispers about another possible reunion in 25 years, however.
You can check out The New Mysteries’ official site here.
[Band photo at top of page taken by Dan Dummer]
