MONSTER MAGNET: 'I Wanted To Make A Record That Was Minimal And That Will Play Well Live'

Dave Pehling of KTVU.com recently conducted an interview with MONSTER MAGNET mainman Dave Wyndorf. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

KTVU.com: It seems like the last couple of records you did leaned more towards straight-ahead hard rock, but this new album definitely embraces the psychedelic sound of MONSTER MAGNET's early material. Was that a conscious decision to return to your space-rock roots, or did the songs just naturally move in that direction?

Dave Wyndorf: It was definitely a conscious decision to go back. I try stuff, you know? I don't mind going into all the different kinds of music I like, but if I make one record that's a space-rock record, I don't want the next record to be another space-rock record. So the reason that the record sounds different is because this time I definitely looked back and realized it had been a long time since I'd done that. Because we play the stuff live all the time. It's not like I don't play space rock; I play space rock every night [laughs]. But I realized I hadn't put it down. I was like, "You know, we haven't gone and done this kind of stuff with new material in a long time. I want to go back." So that's exactly what it was. I made a decision to do that. There was a couple of other things too. I wanted to make a record that was minimal — as far as the tracks were concerned — and that will play well live.

KTVU.com: It's minimal in some ways, but it also has that really spacious sound with the layers of guitars and effects on your vocals...

Dave Wyndorf: Well, yeah, I can say minimal, but once you go in it's hard not to start fucking around. I mean every record I've ever made could have gone completely over the cliff and turned into a space-rock album. A lot of the delays and stuff I'll actually track on a guitar track, so there will be alternative guitar takes that are drenched in delay that I may not use at the end because it's just too wet. And if I really wanted to go total space rock, I could always pile on the effects during the mix. But I wanted to get a nice balance on this one, because I like songs too. With the space rock thing, something totally drenched in space rock, that should be a dedicated project all unto its own. I don't think it should be just a couple songs here and there. And that's going to come out. I actually going to make a full-on space rock record probably sometime next year.

KTVU.com: So something more along the lines of the "Tab" EP?

Dave Wyndorf: Yeah, kind of like that, but probably more driving. There will probably be more songs. It won't just be one 30-minute song and three shorter songs, but it will be very close to that kind of vibe. I'm going to do it fast and lo fi and a lot of the effects will be played live rather than after the fact.

KTVU.com: That leads me to ask you about the announcement of your own label — Studio 13 — that I saw on the MONSTER MAGNET web site. I immediately thought of it being a parallel to the kind of thing Josh Homme has done with the Desert Sessions recordings he released in addition to proper QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE albums. Are you going to use it for a chance to stretch out without the commercial expectations you have with a MONSTER MAGNET album?

Dave Wyndorf: Absolutely. It's a place for me to go to do stuff with different members of MONSTER MAGNET and special guest stars where we don't have to worry so much about scheduling the way you do when you're making one big long record. And we can do it on our own time and I can write, produce and overdub on my own time in a lo-fi manner so its not a big headache. And we can do the kind of material that wouldn't always show up on a proper MONSTER MAGNET record: weird space rock, space rock proper, dirges, garage rock. A lot of garage psych. That kind of stuff. It's a really great thing for me, because I've got all this material hanging around out there. I'm writing a lot and it's way more than I'm ever going to get to if I keep waiting for it to be on proper MONSTER MAGNET records.

Read the entire interview from KTVU.com.