by Wout de Natris
© WoNo Magazine 2012
When I happened to surf the net circa two months back I ran into an offer from the band Monster Cat on The Pirate Bay offering their debut EP to the world there for free for only three days. I was totally impressed by the music the band offered as can be read here. So I decide to return the favour and offer the band some free exposure on WoNo Magazines blog. Here's the interview.
I got introduced to the band through a free download of your
EP Mannequins on The Pirate Bay. Did this action fall into the marketing plan
for the EP and did you get a lot of responses?
Cool. We hope you like our music. We were always trying to
figure out unconventional ways to bring our music to a global audience, and we
stumbled upon The Pirate Bay’s new promo mechanism The Promo Bay
The response was overwhelming. We were getting Facebook
messages, Youtube comments, tweets and emails almost non-stop over the 3 days.
The majority of the comments we received were very positive. We got around
150,000 unique hits over the 3-day period (most of whom we think would have
downloaded the album), from 198 different countries.
We got messages from all over the world, from Brazil
to Finland to Iran to India, telling us that we were doing the right thing with
The Pirate Bay promotion and that they enjoyed our
album. Given the comments from listeners, it was evident that they really
appreciated our move to make our music free for download. In fact, it was a
huge driving force for them to click on us and even make an eventual
purchase.
File-sharing is
a reality that involves millions of users every day. These consumer habits
are here to stay, and it forces all denominations of the music
industry—artists, fans, labels, distributors, and gig organizers—to re-examine
how music is created,shared and enjoyed. These are the consumer habits of
today and we feel that it’s a situation that has no straightforward answers and
calls for creative, unexpected solutions rather than the use of moral force or
the law to protect a status quo. In a way, we wanted to make a statement that
music should head back in the direction where power belongs to the listeners
and fans.
Let’s discuss the band first. Your bio on the website is
mysterious on where you’re from and who you are. What can you tell the readers
of WoNo Magazine about the band?
We are a 4-piece alternative folk-rock band, and we love
cats and large furry creatures with bad tempers.
On the basis of listening to the music I thought you to be a
U.K. band. Presently I think you’re from the U.S., but then I discovered the
video to ‘Underwater’. I’m confused. Where are you from?
Haha. We’re from Singapore. But we believe it doesn’t matter
where the music is from, as long as one likes it. That’s why we’ve never really
emphasised our origin. Besides, we do hope to set up base overseas and bring
our music to more listeners.
I looked up the Monster Cat story on Wikipedia. What is the
link to the band’s name?
Well, we take
our name from the "bakeneko"—a supernatural “monster cat” in Japanese
folklore that haunts households. And there's actually an interesting story behind
it. Copy Cat was home one day when he saw paw prints on the ceiling.
He has a cat at home but prints on the ceiling is a whole other
creepy matter. This led to us finding out about the myth of the
"bakeneko", and everyone was pretty fascinated by it. This came at a
time when we were thinking about a name for the band, and we felt that the
haunting and primal quality of the "bakeneko" myth reflected how the
music sounded well.
The first song of the album is called ‘Initiation’. Is there
a relation between the title of this song and picture on the cover of the
album?
 |
| Cover of EP 'Mannequins' |
Interestingly, ‘Initiation’ was actually the last track that
was written for our “Mannequins” EP. But it’s intended to be an introduction
and ‘initiation’ to the world of MONSTER CAT. We’re pretty obsessed with myths
and rituals, and it’s a subtle way of us ushering listeners into our inner
circle. All the songs, song titles and visuals (album cover, booklet images)
are meant to complement each other. They all help to express what “Mannequins”
means to us, and what it can mean for the listener. And fun fact – the
‘mannequin’ on the album cover is a real person. A friend of a friend. Naked
booty yeeha!
In my review of the album I tried to pin your music as
reference to the readers. I had a hard time as it seems to go all over the
place. Having listened more often, since I come up with this. Ranging from
progrock, Pink Floyd, CSNY, maybe even opera in small parts of the choruses, U2
and Coldplay like guitar playing and singing like Deacon Blue. Let me stop here
and hand over to you. What artists are influences to you?
Wow, that’s the first time we’ve received those references. Haha.
Especially CSNY and Deacon Blue. Pink Floyd! High praise, Sir. Thank you, thank
you. Our main influences are Fever Ray (the way she mashes myth and music so
viscerally) and The Smashing Pumpkins. But individually, we listen to a lot of
stuff – various genres and languages. Some music we’re into now include
Alpines, the new Silversun Pickups album, Siouxsie and the Banshees, producers
like xxyyxx and Daisuke Tanabe.
Funny you should mention Pink Floyd… During the Music
Matters 2012 conference held last month in Singapore, Bob Ezrin (producer of
The Wall, Kiss’ The Destroyer and various Alice Cooper albums) had a listen to
our album. Apparently, he really liked
our music and was annoyed he couldn't find our email off the
"Mannequins" CD to get in touch with us. LOL. So we've been trying to
contact him, to #FINDBOB. It's a real honour to get a shout out from him and
hopefully we'll be able to carry on the conversation with him about our music
and maybe future productions.
A few of your songs seem lighter than their surroundings.
Almost as if they are floating. Is this an effect you’re aware of and go for in
recording songs?
It depends on the song. Especially for ‘Underwater’, we
wanted to create an atmosphere that could fully express the story. We’re suckers
for details and every clink or hum in the album is meant to be there, and has
gone through a tedious thought process. There’s a lot of experimentation and exploration,
sometimes with very unusual processes to create the desired sound. In fact, the
opening ‘metallic’ hits you hear in ‘Underwater’ are a result of us whacking a
steel drain with a baseball bat.
Kazuo
Ishiguro wrote an extremely intriguing novel titled ‘An Artist of the Floating
World’. The protagonist in the book is an artist whose master was very
interested in painting scenes from the pleasure district... he used an
ephemeral style to depict the equally transient floating world of that district
and of those nights. There's something in that which ties in very, very closely
with what you mentioned and our music. Well... we won't go into details but you
should read the book.
From your post about The Pirate Bay action on your website
it’s clear Monster Cat is motivated to affect people, but also that the band
members make sacrifices to make music. Is the latter worth the former?
Individually, we all were willing to make sacrifices to be
able to do music for a living. That was the reason we got together as a band.
It was about giving ourselves a shot at doing this – for making music is a
privilege. It’s always a fight to be able to do what you love, and we wouldn’t
have it any other way.
Through The Pirate Bay promo, we’ve been able to connect
with listeners all over the world. And it’s a joy to be able to converse with
people about music. It truly is. To make music, to share music, to enjoy music
with others – it’s all worth it.
In ‘The courier’ lead singing duties are switched. On what
grounds do you decided who sings?
“The Courier” was meant to be a conversation between two
lovers and having twin lead vocals on the song serves that purpose. We’ve
always worked on the rule that whoever writes the bulk of the song should sing
it. He will have the clearest idea of the imagery, the intention and most
importantly the emotion of the song.
What can we expect in the near future from Monster Cat and
any chance of seeing you live in The Netherlands soon?
We're hard
at work on our full-length album, which will be composed entirely of new songs.
We're toiling to take our songwriting and performances to the next level.
Tour-wise, we may have a few big ones coming near year's end, so we'll see.
We're also looking to play Germany's Reeperbahn Festival organised by Music
Services Asia. It will be a kickass experience so please vote for us! We're
running a Twitter contest where you can win an exclusive new merch line if you
help us out, just head down to our Facebook page for more. We will run naked around the Berlin wall.
Danke. And if all goes well, maybe we can make a pit-stop at The Netherlands!
That will be mindblowing. We’re just afraid we’ll get too high to play
properly. Ahem.
Thanks for the interview. I’d like to add that you have
affected me with your music. Something like the song ‘Dignity’ by Deacon Blue
did at a festival a long time ago.
No, thank YOU, Wout. It means a lot to us, to have anyone
take the time and listen. We hope to bring out more new songs for you! And
we’re gonna check out ‘Dignity’ by Deacon Blue!
You can order 'Mannequins' by Monster Cat here.
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