Monkey3 interview with Boris

Bands come in all shapes and sizes but it’s
hard to believe that spanning half a dozen albums and better than a decade of
live performances Monkey3 is still providing a unique and interesting take on
the Swiss psychedelic sound. Thunderous
drum and bass teamed with sky-high keyboards and searing guitar solos team to
create a living beast threatening to steal your breath away at any moment,
these guys seem to bleed a stoner-rock aesthetic. Songs stretch like never ending roads before
the listener, only held in check by the occasional track change or time
signature shift keyboards and strings spinning off into a psychedelic
oblivion. With a new album in the works
and a busy year of touring coming up I thought now would be a good time to ask
about the history of Monkey3, what it’s like being in the band ten years down
the road and exactly what the future has in store for one of the most
interesting bands from the past decade.
So kick back, put on some tunes from the media section of Monkey3’s
website (http://monkeythree.com/video) and enjoy a tasty slice of the cosmic
stoner-rock sludge that is Monkey3!

What’s the band’s lineup? Is this
your original lineup?

Monkey3 is Walter on drums, Picasso on bass, dB on keys and me, Boris on
guitar. It’s not exactly the original
line-up, during an early stage of the band our keyboard player was someone
else, but he quit the band after one year and dB joined us and took his place.

Are any of you in any other bands?
Have you released anything with any other bands?

We’ve all played separately in several Swiss bands (Sludge, Sideburn)
throughout the years and we’ve released several albums with those bands.

How and when did you all meet?

Picasso and I met in a bar in Lausanne.
We didn’t know each other but he had a Kyuss shirt on and I started to
talk to him. We talked about jamming
sometime, there were always musicians coming and going, and one day my friend
brought Walter along to jam; he never left!

When did it start and what led you to form Monkey3?

The jamming stuff started around 2000-2001, after a lot of jams and
different musicians we thought “why don’t we start a band”? Four guys (Picasso, Walter, Boris, Darkman)
were down for that and we started working on real songs for live shows and an
album.

Where are you all originally from?

We are from Lausanne, Switzerland.

Where is the band located now?
How would you describe the local music scene? Are you very involved with that local scene?

We are located in Lausanne. The
music scene there is quite active, lots of bands (some of them are really good)
and quite a few clubs to play. Most of
the scene is various metal genres or pop stuff.
There’s not really much going on with stoner, psych or heavy-rock music,
so we’re not really involved in our home town’s music scene, but we do
sometimes play in Lausanne and people show up and dig the show. I think in the future there might be some
space for that kind of music there too though.

Has the local music scene played an important role in Monkey3’s history
or evolution?

Not really…

There are some pretty obvious influences in your music but there are
tons of hidden sounds, tones, effects and influences peppered throughout
Monkey3’s music as well. Can you talk a
little bit about who some of your personal musical influences are? What about the band as a whole as opposed you
as individuals?

We are big fans of classic-rock bands like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin,
Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath and AC/DC… We
more or less have the same tastes.
Walter loves The Black Crowes, Picasso is a Kiss fan, dB digs Jimi
Hendrix and I really appreciate Ten Years After. The influences that brought us together most
though were probably Kyuss, Jane’s Addiction and 35007.

I
don’t like to label or classify music, how would you describe your music to our
readers?

Difficult question… Let’s say
we play rock music with a psychedelic vibe, a progressive spacy edge, and a
taste of stoner rock all with a big smile on our faces!

Can you describe Monkey3’s writing process? Is there a lot of exploratory jamming or does
someone come in with a more polished, finished product to share with the rest
of the band?

We usually do a lot of jamming, record everything, listen to it back and
then work on what we like the most in order to have proper tracks that we all
enjoy playing and make sense.

How has the songwriting process changed or evolved since your debut
album in 2004?

Our writing process hasn’t changed that much since the beginning, but
the process is probably a bit faster and we know a bit better where we want to
go much quicker.

You just announced April 16th that you are working on a new full-length
album! Can you tell us a little bit
about that upcoming release? Are you
going to try anything radically different with this album? When is it going to be available? Where’s it going to be recorded? Who’s going to be releasing it?

The new album will be recorded in June 2013 and will be released at the
end of October 2013 by Napalm Records/Spinning Goblin.

Do you have any other releases planned for this year?

Apart from the album, not yet.

You released a live DVD in 2009, Live At Aventicum, how did you go about
recording the show? Was it a soundboard
tap or did you mic all the instruments up?
Who released it? Why a DVD?

We miced all the instruments in order to do something really nice. During the show there was a power outage and
we lost a lot of what was recorded, but we managed to release it without studio
overdubs anyways. The purpose of the DVD
was more promotional, it shows how the band is in a live situation. We released it ourselves.

2009’s Undercover was comprised of cover songs featuring guest vocals by
John Garcia and Tony Jelencovich, what brought that album about? Why an album of cover songs? How did John Garcia and Tony Jelencovich get
involved with the album?

We wanted to do something for the fans that shows the band in a
different way. We thought that doing
covers of songs that had influenced us as musicians was a good way to show the
band from the inside. When we were
producing Undercover, we figured out that some tracks needed vocals. We started thinking of what singers would be
great on those recordings and the names John Garcia (Kyuss) and Tony
Jelencovich (Transport League) just kind of came up naturally, they are great
vocalists and they have a real vocal tone signature. We contacted them and they liked the
project. It was a bit different than
usual, we had to think slightly different in regards to the arrangements of the
songs, and we had to leave space for vocals, which we’re not used to. We recorded all the instruments in Lausanne
and then sent them to John and Tony.
They did the vocals on top of those versions. John Garcia did the recording in California
and Tony Jelencovich in Sweden.

You’ve dealt with several record labels as well as having self-released
some of your own music. What are the
upsides and downsides working with a record label? What about releasing your own material?

When you work with a label you have a lot more distribution and
promotion possibilities. We prefer to
work with a label, so the band can focus more on the music side.

I
know that some of your back catalog is out of print at this point; can you tell
our readers what you still have in print and where the best place for people to
get copies of those albums is?

All if our back catalog has been re-released in CD and LP formats. You can purchase it at our shows, on our
web-site (http://www.monkeythree.com) or on Napalm Records/Spinning Goblin’s
web-site.

When you perform live do you have everything planned out behind the
scenes or is there a lot of improvisation involved with Monkey3’s live
performances?

A lot of it is planned and very close to the album versions but a bit of
it is jammed in order to keep it fresh, for the audience and for us.

Monkey3 has been around for over a decade at this point, what does the
future hold for you? Do you plan on
continuing to perform and release music for the foreseeable future? How is the band’s creative energy after all
these years? It doesn’t seem to have
diminished at all!

We still want to play music. We
want to keep releasing records and play as many shows as possible. Right now we have a lot of energy to put into
the new record!

What do you have planned as far as touring goes this year?

Burg-Herzberg Fest, DE, the 21st of July, Robstock Fest, DE, 14th of
September, and a European tour around November for the release of the new
album.

You’ve been gigging for almost a decade at this point and have played
with some absolutely amazing musicians, who are some of your personal
favorites?

It’s too hard to pick a favorite, we shared the stage with a lot of
different bands and we have a lot of respect for all of them.

Are there any funny or interesting stories from live performances that
you’d like to share?

We were playing in a Swiss festival called Rock Oz’ Arènes, it was a
Wednesday and we were the last band of the day, right after Nine Inch
Nails. We were recording what became the
Live At Aventicum album. In the middle
of the show we had a power cut that lasted for about fifteen minutes and we
thought that the audience would go home, but instead of leaving they started
screaming and yelling, supporting the band and it became this big party!

Where’s the best place for fans to keep up with the latest news like
album releases and upcoming live shows at?

Our web-site, our Facebook page, Napalm/Spinning Goblin’s web-site or
Sound Of Liberation’s web-site.

I
love having a digital copy of an album to listen to wherever and whenever I
might want, but there’s something irreplaceably magical about having something
to hold in your hands. The art along
with the music makes for a much more complete experience, at least for me. Do you have any such connection with physical
releases?

I agree. Vinyl, as opposed to
digital formats, has something magical about it. The cover looks great and they sound better,
you don’t just have music but a real piece of art in your hands.

Digital music is rapidly changing the face of the music industry to say
the least while at the same time it’s exposed me to a vast world of music,
including your band that I probably would never have otherwise heard of. How do you feel about digital music and
distribution?

The advent of the internet changed the way promoting, listening and
selling music worked. It allowed small
bands and small structures to be heard and promote themselves worldwide without
radio or TV promotion and without a big budget.
A lot of underground scenes were able to survive and even thrive because
of the internet, passion and hard work.

I
ask everyone I talk to this question in hopes of hearing just a small amount of
the amazing musicians out there right now; who should our readers be listening
to from your local scene or area that they might not have heard of?

A rock band from Lausanne: Azazel Blue’s Earthworms.

How about nationally and internationally?

My Sleeping Karma, Glowsun, Colour Haze…

Is there anything that I missed or you’d like to talk about?

Thanks for the interview and cheers to all our fans!