Interview: Dave Wyndorf Talks About Latest Monster Magnet Album, Tour

By Casey Moffitt in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 14, 2013 5:20PM

It's been 10 years since Monster Magnet last toured the United States, and the band will perform at Bottom Lounge Saturday night to support their 10th studio effort The Last Patrol released on Napalm Records last month. We caught up with frontman Dave Wyndorf to talk about the new album, the upcoming tour, why it's been so long since we've seen them and the passing of Lou Reed.

The Last Patrol finds Monster Magnet going back to its psychedelic, space-rocking roots. The album will remind long-time fans of the band's earliest material, but Wyndorf is reluctant to call the album a throwback.

"It was not my intention to recapture what we've done before, but rather try to up the game with this work," he explained. "This album is more song-oriented while the earlier work is more of a soundscape. This album is more personal. It's creepier."

Although Wyndorf said tunes from The Last Patrol are "more song-oriented," it still has a few elongated jams. The title track is a nine-minute epic, which starts as a rhythmic number that warps into a spacey journey and swells to a wicked crescendo. "The End of Time" also echoes works of Monster Magnet past as it explores a sense of doom with a spaced-out, Sabbath-esque ending.

"We could try to recreate what we've done before, but that always ends in a horrible disaster," Wyndorf continued. "Instead I took the methods and instincts with me to form this new work. I mean let's face it, we've basically been writing the same four songs over and over, you know, like everyone else from Mozart on down. 'Oh! That's Mozart!' 'How do you know?' 'Because it's the same fucking song!'"

However, Wyndorf did admit making the record was more of an old-school approach, which could categorize it as a throwback. It was recorded at Studio 13, which is basically the home of long-time Monster Magnet contributor Phil Caivano.

"It's more of a boutique album," Wyndorf said. "It's hand-crafted. There's not a lot of big technology behind it. This is the way I'll be making records from here on out."

Wyndorf said he's wanted to make a space-rock album in this manner for a long time, and had some of the material in his back pocket for a few years before getting to work on the album. The recording process takes a bit longer, and with the band's intense European touring schedule, it was difficult to find the time to make the album the way he wanted.

"There's a certain level of attention that needs to be paid when you do it this way," he explained. "With digital editing software, you can leave mistakes and know you can go back and fix it. You can go back and fix certain beats. If you take care, you can make it sound glossier that way, but you lose the quirks you get with a hand-crafted record."
Although Monster Magnet has released four albums since the band's last full North American tour, Wyndorf said the band is going to stick to a lot of its early material along with some tunes from the latest effort in its live set.

"That stuff does fit in better with the new album," he said. "But I know what people want to hear. If I go up there and say, 'Here's a little number we wrote in 2003,' I know that's not going to fly."

"The lucky thing about Monster Magnet is that we have a lot of songs we can pick and choose from," Wyndorf continued. "If we want to explore the psych aspect, we can do that. Some people argue that you're only as good as how your last record sold. Well, that's not going to work with Monster Magnet. We've evolved over the years. It's a living thing."

Wyndorf said he's ready to hit the road and is "feeling great" after overcoming a dependence on benzodiazepines, an anti-anxiety medication. He said the drug was prescribed to him as he sought a method to get more sleep while on tour. It lead to a fairly well-publicized overdose in 2006.

"It worked better than anything I had ever taken before," he said of the drug. "I was like, 'Fuck that Ambien shit! I want the stuff that puts the Iraqi war vet to sleep.' But the thing is, I knew something was wrong at the time. Nothing that worked that well could have been legit. It was brutal. I got fat taking anti-seizure medication after getting off the other pills. It really was brutal."

"It figures, the one time I get hoodwinked by drugs they came from a guy in a white coat," he said. "But that's all behind me now, and I'm feeling great." Not only that, Wyndorf said the band is sounding better than ever, after touring through Europe on a regular basis.

Wyndorf said audiences in Europe have taken to Monster Magnet better than they have here in the United States, which is why the band has spent so much time there. He argued audiences in Europe "try harder" and are more willing to check out something new.

"In Europe, they're into things from other countries, other cultures and the history behind it. And I'm not just talking about a handful of people. I mean all the kids are into it over there," he said. "It's not like the States where people are like, 'Heh, heh! Where the fuck are you from, you fucking foreigner?'"

"I've written 10 albums and I'd love to write 20, but I'm not going to do it if I have to play one more metal bar to a bunch of bearded farmers in Cincinnati," he said. "I know not everybody is going to get it, but when people see leather pants and stuff they think one thing. They don't get the references to weird stuff, junk culture, comic books and other metaphors I use. They just get one thing - metal band. And when we play a metal bar, we're just not metal enough for them."

Wyndorf also argues people in the States have been trained throughout the 20th century to look up to pop culture icons on television or the movies. As technology and media have evolved, people are trying to portray themselves in that same manner, leaving little room for searching outside themselves.

"People are making their own art and poetry. Is it any good? Probably not. There's not a lot of big-time thought behind it except for what supports them," he said. "People can make their own magazines of themselves. Look at Facebook. That's basically a personal magazine. So why go see a rock band? Why go see another interpretation of life other than their own? I don't blame them. Like I said, they've been trained to think that way."
However, Wyndorf said Chicago is one town he'd like to visit more often.

"To me, it's one of the last great music cities in the States," he said. "Things stay open in Chicago at a decent time. The last time I checked, rock'n'roll is nighttime thing. You can't do it when everything closes early. The rest of America is turning into fucking Disney Land. 'We're closed! Go home! Get out of here!'"

We happened to catch up with Wyndorf the day after Lou Reed passed away, and this writer felt a certain obligation to ask him about his thoughts on the news.

"Lou Reed was a New York guy, you know, so I always thought of Lou Reed getting super old in his New York apartment, sitting there and being grumpy," he said. "I didn't see it coming. I'm bummed out that our half-uncle Lou won't be around doing something weird every once in a while."

"But when you talk about Lou Reed you're talking about a guy who was a part of something so far ahead of its time and influential in so many ways," he continued. "I'm not just talking about music, but also in style."

Monster Magnet performs Saturday, Nov. 16, at Bottom Lounge, 1375 W. Lake St., 8 p.m., $22.50, 17+