November 24, 2013
Space Lords of stoner rock, Monster Magnet, land at the House of Blues in Hollywood on Nov. 27. It may have been 10 years since the New Jersey band toured the states, but they’ve been plenty busy playing around Europe and releasing numerous albums, including the latest, “Last Patrol.”
“Since we’ve been away for so long I plan to do a couple songs off the new record but we’re going to be primarily focused on more overtly psychedelic Monster Magnet material and that would be from the first three or four albums,” lead singer, guitarist, and founding member, Dave Wyndorf said.
“Spine of God” was the 1991 debut on German label, Glitterhouse, followed by “Superjudge”, “Dopes to Infinity”, and the gold record, “Powertrip” which all came out on A&M.
“It’s important for me to remind people that this thing started with album number one and keeps on going.”
Monster Magnet performed a couple of the earlier albums, “Dopes to Infinity” and “Spine of God”, in their entirety in Europe. There’s talk of doing something like that in the states after they finish touring “Last Patrol” around the world. If people want to see it, they’ll do it.
“Playing albums in their entirety is especially cool. It’s a challenge to make that one release an entertaining evening live. We love to do it,” Wyndorf said.
“When transferring a studio album to a live setting, there’s changes that have to be made. Some of the music is made longer, more tripped out, stripped down in certain ways. “
While writing the lyrics for “Last Patrol”, Wyndorf noticed a recurring theme about a guy giving up.
“I’m writing about this guy, of course this guy turns out to be me, and I’m like, ‘wait a second, I recognize this guy’,” Wyndorf recalled.
“And it’s just me in a bleak February in 2013 going, ‘you know, I don’t particularly like what I see; I turn on the news, I get disgusted; I spend too much time on the internet; and I’m disgusted with myself.
“I’m like, ‘can I get out of here? Can I leave? This is the last patrol. This is it. I’m not trying any harder in life. I’m leaving.’
“I’m not going to commit suicide, I would rather go into my own delusions and get a ten foot blonde with giant tits and move to the moon. Then nuke people and have some adolescent style revenge on the rest of the world.
“So ‘Last Patrol’ seemed like a dramatic way to say ‘ok, this is it, fuck it, I’m leaving.’ Unless, of course, I get some more bookings in which I’ll come back from the moon and finish up my contractual obligations. I can be persuaded.”
Wyndorf finds there’s more pressure when writing the lyrics than writing the music because he wants it to be very good and he never seems to give himself enough time.
“When the deadline happens it’s like giving birth to a watermelon. What’s going to come out? It’s an excruciating experience for me every time.
“Maybe if I ever get my mind completely right I’ll come up with a new method that will have me writing all year. But for rock and roll songs and the kind of music I write, it seems there should be a little pressure.”
But Wyndorf finds that coming up with the music “is fun, it doesn’t have any literary expectations.
“I write the words to the music then what happens is I tend to beef it up. I’ll trip it out more, I’ll use a lot more metaphors, explain through the vernacular of science fiction or religion or something to give it an operatic, over-baked feel. Words and music should compliment each other at all times.
“I think if I wrote words first, I would probably write country and western.”
Wyndorf seemed to always know he wanted to be in a band. He never had any formal training but he was always the guy that knew all the words to all the songs.
“All I did as a kid was buy albums, bags of pot, and go to shows. That was it. That was the training ground.”
To this day, Wyndorf is a huge fan of vinyl, and he has managed to keep most of his albums from when he was a kid.
“They’re like magnificent works of art. What a way to deliver music,” Wyndorf mused. “It’s like a Christmas present compared to the stuff that you get music on now.
“There was this time in the 60s and 70s, and any vinyl freaks will totally agree with me, there was this spot in publishing and album making that was so good.
“It was a golden age. When commercial art is delivering stuff like ‘Sgt. Pepper’ that’s an amazing time. That doesn’t usually happen.
“Last vinyl I bought was a Blue Cheer reissue, ‘Outside, Inside’. It was really, really nice. I mean I’ve got the original cover, but mine was kind of banged up. I’m always looking for reissues that are art specific. I hate when they reissue and chintz on the art. You can keep your 125 grand vinyl, I want the cover.
“But the granddaddy of them all, thee best vinyl cover of all time: Hawkwind’s ‘Space Ritual Live’. It must fold out 16 times! It’s the size of a small child when you open it up. It’s amazing. Talk about getting your money’s worth.”
Monster Magnet is happy to be on the road and they’re excited to play L.A. again after such a long time.
“There’s so much rock history there. For the longest time L.A. was the center of the universe as far as the record industry was concerned,” Wyndorf said.
“L.A. crowds are fickle. They’re tough. It’s great. It’s the way it should be.”
concertgirlca 