Mike Melan Those Were The Days – Indie Rock From London

Radio Static, Gasoline, and That One Summer That Still Follows You

There are songs that hang around like a smell. Cheap cologne, burnt tires, and someone’s laugh echoing down a street you haven’t walked in 20 years. Those Were The Days is that kind of song. Listening to Mike Melan feels like sitting across from someone who remembers everything clearly – and isn’t afraid to say it out loud.

Born in the heat and dust of South Joburg, now planted in London concrete, Mike takes what he remembers, feeds it through the strings, and lets it speak in its own voice. And it works. Just because the truth doesn’t need glitter.

The song opens like someone flipping through old Polaroids with calloused fingers. First line: It seems like only yesterday that we were young / Wild and free and having fun… Yeah, that line’s been written before. But not like this. Not with this tone. There’s no cheap longing here, and it’s obvious. And you can feel that quiet burn you get when you realise the best days already happened and you didn’t know it at the time.

A Beat-Up Benz and Sounds That Remember the Same Things You Do

This thing started with an acoustic guitar and a memory too loud to ignore. Then Mike did what Mike does – he stacked layers. Electric guitars that sound like engine trouble and thunder, A beat-up Benz, always too loud, and guitars that carry the same kind of reckless energy we used to. Driving around in a beat up old Benz / Always looking for something me and my friends…

I’ve lived that line. Maybe you have too. That endless search for something undefined, with windows down and volume up – until the tank’s empty and the sun’s already rising. No destination, just movement. Mike Melan traps that feeling in a jar and shakes it loose across three and a half minutes.

The mix was handled by George McFarlane (yeah, the guy behind Rick Astley and Jason Donovan), but don’t expect that super-pop polish. This is rough-cut rock, recorded at Echo Studios in London, but it still carries the dust of Joburg in its lungs.

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For All That We Lost, Those Were the Days

This track stays where it is. It lingers. It breathes in its own time. And that’s the part that gets you. The chorus reads like someone standing in their old bedroom after years away: Now it’s all just a song, a melody / A distant dream, a memory… There’s no grand statement or pretend wisdom, just the ache of having lived, and the nerve to say it plainly.

I don’t know Mike Melan personally. But listening to this track, I feel like I do. There’s no branding exercise. Just one guy remembering what it felt like to be full of noise and possibility, and brave enough to share it. And there’s more on the way. Mike’s halfway into the next album already, riding whatever current this one kicks up. He’s not standing still, and if you’ve made it this far down the page, maybe you shouldn’t either.

Those Were The Days dropped June 21st, 2025. It’s the first shot fired from Mike Melan‘s upcoming album Lightning Strikes at Altitude. If the rest of the album hits like this, I’ll probably need a cigarette and a walk when it’s over. Follow Mike Melan on Spotify and YouTube. Don’t wait for someone else to tell you it’s worth it.

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