|
Impressionist Rock
An
interview with Gump, Sean, Zack, and Ryan of Monet Madrid Madagascar
By Bob
Ignizio |
Monet Madrid Madagascar (Gump – drums, Sean – synth and
sounds, Warner – bass, Teresa – piano, Zack – guitar, and Ryan – vocals) are
an indie rock band from Cleveland, OH. They’re been around since the spring
of 2003, playing the occasional show around town but mainly touring as much
as their schedules will allow. In between all the out of town gigs, the
band managed to find the time to record their debut album, ‘If Manatees Had
Trunks’.
Utter Trash – Where did you come up with the name of
the band? Any significance to it?
Gump – Sean was actually born in Madagascar. One of
our earlier members, who’s no longer in the band, actually stayed in Madrid
for a long time. Monet just kind of fell right into place.
UT: How long has the band been together?
Gump: The actual roots of the band started in another
group called Friendship for Style. That band was around for about 2 years,
doing the post hardcore, Glassjaw thing. Monet Madrid Madagascar has been
around for about a year now. We wanted a change, wanted to do something
different.
UT: So how would you describe the band’s sound?
Zack: We have a lot of influences that are
different. We’ve all been playing rock for a while, but I really enjoy jazz
and Latin music, and there’s a great deal of electronic influence in it as
well. I guess the idea is to mix all these ideas together and make
something new out of those.
UT: Do you play out pretty regular?
Ryan: Ever since we started doing the new music, we
took a little time off from doing shows. We’re going to do some touring,
but shows aren’t really the main thing right now. It’s more about writing.
UT: So are you trying to get an album together?
Gump: Hopefully we’re going to do some recording with
this guy Brian in Chicago to do our full CD.
Sean: It’ll probably be just 8 songs. Most of our
songs are pretty long, at least in comparison to modern standards.
UT: Do you want to look for a label or put the album
out yourself?
Ryan: We’re going to try put it out ourselves, 3000
CDs, and then just tour for it over the summer and sell them on the road.
Keep doing that until they’re all gone and then just do it again. There’s
other bands we’ve talked to who have dealt with labels and it wasn’t really
worth it.
Gump: A label would be nice, but I think it would be
better if we went out there and worked our asses off until a label
approaches us.
UT: What sort of things do you like to deal with
lyrically?
Ryan: Since we’re past the stage of writing about
girls and love and jazz like that, it’s moreso focused on worldly views and
things.
UT: What do you think of the area music scene?
Zack: If you choose wisely, there are quite a few
good bands and clubs. The Beachland has really helped us out from the
get-go.
UT: What are your goals with the band?
Sean: We just want to get to where we can tour and
just play and enjoy what we’re doing.
Gump: We’re definitely modest guys. As long as we
can keep touring and have everything we need to progress further.
UT: I’ve noticed you aren’t as focused on just playing
Cleveland as a lot of bands.
Zack: That’s one thing we definitely agreed on. We
don’t want to do a lot of Cleveland shows. Just every once in a while.
We’d rather tour.
UT: What do you think of the internet for promotion,
and the Cleveland scene message boards like Cowboy Club and Experimental
behavior? Do things like that help?
Gump: Well, we got this interview out of it.
Ryan: That and Myspace has actually helped us. It
got us 12 days of out of town shows.
Monet Madrid Madagascar will be having a CD release
show for ‘If Mantees Had Trunks’ on July 20th at The Beachland
Ballroom.
Visit the Monet Madrid Madagascar
website.
 |
