ROCK CARNIVAL INTERVIEW: Dave Wyndorf of MONSTER MAGNET

With Rock Carnival Music Festival about two weeks away, anxious fans scramble for last minute plans for the 3 day rock n’ roll extravaganza in Lakewood, New Jersey, featuring 60 acts including MONSTER MAGNET, TWISTED SISTER, HALESTORM, BLUE OYSTER CULT, DAUGHTRY, THE USED, ALICE COOPER, and CLUTCH.  MONSTER MAGNET fans are psyched to finally see these madmen rock a festival show this side of the Atlantic Ocean since… since… Who knows when?

MONSTER MAGNET live is one of the best shows to see, but unfortunately you have to see them in Europe since they rarely play in the States, and when they play the States they usually play psychedelic theatre shows. The light show with the hypnotizing sound effects plus rockin’ songs mesmerizes the audience. Their music is an eclectic mixture of psychedelic, garage, British, and surf rock with the quizzical lyrics of Dave Wyndorf.  In two words: They rule.

I had the rare opportunity to interview the mysterious wizard behind the curtain DAVE WYNDORF, who happens to be a Red Bank, NJ native.   He grew up spending much of his time reading books, comic books and keeping to himself.  It wasn’t until he was asked to sing lead in a punk band that the introvert realized he wanted to be a rock star. Self-taught guitar and music composition he later formed MONSTER MAGNET in 1989.  Dave Wyndorf talks about who he’s going to go see at ROCK CARNIVAL and the set list for the show on October 1, 2016, at the Blue Claws First Energy Park  in Lakewood, NJ.

Here’s our interview:

RR:  Hi Dave! Great to talk to you! What is going on with you?

DAVE WYNDORF:  Just got done writing the new MONSTER MAGNET record and now bring it to the band and make the magic happen.  And I’m looking forward to ROCK CARNIVAL.  It’s going to be great!

RR:  When was the last time you played a music festival in the United States?

DAVE WYNDORF:  20 years? It could be 15 years. I don’t remember the last time.

RR:  Are you psyched to play a festival so close to home? 

DW:  I’m ready to rock!  Can’t wait! We haven’t played in months. We play all the time in Europe. So I’m psyched to play the Rock Carnival so close to home. It’s going to be a hoot!

Do you know what your set is going be like?

Yeah! It’s going to be very A&M centric. We just did a tour in Europe celebrating the A&M years.

We have rereleases like really nice vinyl rereleases and CDs with bonus tracks of all the albums that we did for A&M: Superjudge, Dopes To Infinity, and Powertrip so it’s going to be a lot of songs from them and a couple others too. It’ll be a full-on rock set as opposed to a full-on psych set which is better off done indoors.

Are there any other bands or looking forward to hear play?

I’m going to have to come the first night because I really want to see CLUTCH because they are friends of ours. Many of these bands I’ve seen plenty of times because they play the European festivals. One of those festivals in Europe we opened up for ALICE COOPER. He was great.

TWISTED SISTER are amazing live. It’s like you won’t believe it. We were laughing and saying, “What do they got? We haven’t seen them play in a billion years – whatever!” We played with them at the Download  Festival last year and they completely came out and ruled. They stomped over everyone. They crushed modern bands you know like modern hipster bands that everybody just went down in a pure act of complete macho, rock fury. They came out and crushed everybody (he laughs). It was like, “I don’t believe what I just saw!” They were great!

And I love BLUE OYSTER CULT! Who else is playing?

THE USED, HALESTORM, PUNKY MEADOWS…  How about PUNKY MEADOWS?

I wonder if he’ll use that ANGEL introduction.  Did you ever see you ANGEL back in the day?

No, I never did.

It was hysterical. It was the best! That was in the days of KISS and everybody had to outdo each other with the light shows and ANGEL had an unbelievable light show. In the beginning of the show a narrator’s voice, “and in the beginning God created PUNKY MEADOWS!” And he would walk out, and then, “AAAAH!” The glory and majesty of rock!

I’m looking forward to ROCK CARNIVAL.  It’s going to be great!

Have you figured out the name of the new album?

I haven’t figured out the name yet but I have a couple of cool ones, but I’m not gonna drop it yet because I reserve the right to switch things madly around until the last minute. It’s musically very up-tempo like Nitro-fuel injected, Nitro-powered muscle rock. If a muscle car can make a sound it would be this music: up-tempo, full-on rock MONSTER MAGNET style.

I can’t wait to hear it!

It’s good. It’s the liveliest one in a long time.

Do you own a muscle car?

No, I’d kill myself (he laughs). I’m just one of those guys who lives in his bad-ass imagination. Everything comes out of my head. In real life all I do is stare and read books and think about plotting to take over the world so that I don’t have to physically get involved. That’s what being a writer is: sit back and try to dream up shit.

(I laugh) When will it be released?

I’m shooting for springtime in 2017.

There is no lyrical theme as yet, but I guarantee the lyrics will fit the music just fine.  It’ll be demented tales of excess and wish fulfillment and failure, all the things that make life interesting and probably lots of sex.

So tell me a little bit more about you.  When did you know and how did you know you wanted to be a musician?

When I was about nine years old I think I started singing a song that was on the radio I can’t remember what it was I was singing it to my mother and I was like wishing the one part lasted longer because I really like that part and I wish it was longer and I just sang it longer and then I realized that I could do it myself I thought maybe I could do this someday. You know make the magic part last longer because music is magic. But I never thought I could do it until somebody asked me to sing at a band practice when I was about 17 but at age 9 I started dreaming.

So what did you do from 9 to 17?

I masturbated, read comic books, you know… the normal shit.

(I’m cracking up here) Are you kidding? You didn’t play guitar or something that whole time?

I was too lazy! Well actually, get this: I didn’t play guitar till I was about 28. When I was asked to sing for band I was just the singer.

I was a complete fuck-up: high school dropout, the whole bit, you know. It was like I was too lazy or scared. It’s pretty common, I think. So what happened was I tried to form a way to make sense of things in my head over the years not really realizing I was imagining how to arrange songs with the way the guitar parts should be, using bits and pieces of guitar parts that I have heard.  I guess all that time I was cataloging and putting in my mind all the cool parts of songs which was actually just figuring out what chords and stuff were. I never realized I was doing it at the time, “what if you put the cool part from the Iggy song into a Black Sabbath song, wouldn’t that be cool?”

When I was in my mid-20s I got one of those little 4-tracks tape machines and a guitar, and play two strings at a time and I made enough noise to make it sound cool. I wasn’t fluent but… that kinda sounds like Alice Cooper.  And that’s enough!  That’s why music is so great because you can write your own rules so long as you have command of a little bit of it.

And from there it just went it was like a light bulb went off over my head like “Ding! If you don’t want to work in a comic book store forever maybe you should do this!” And I did, and it worked!

So you’re basically a self-taught musician?

Yeah. Uh-huh.

Unbelievable.

I think if I were taught I would have wussed out. I’m one of those people and there’s many like me that as soon as someone tries to teach you, you fold. Like I’d really rather go home and just stare at a wall instead of deal with this sort of anxiety of somebody trying to teach me. I don’t know why it’s this way. It didn’t really stop me from doing things I just had to do it whichever way worked for me.

What do you listen to that’s new?

I listen to a lot of new music but most of it is not heavy. Weird experimental stuff, psych, lots a good psychedelic stuff out there.  There is FOLKAZOID from Peru: it’s just weird instrumental. It’s nothing to speak of; you’d hate it.

(I laugh.)

There are bands from Europe that I like, like GRAVEYARD and KADAVAR that are all like a proto-metal style. It’s got soul.

I like the last couple of CLUTCH records. It’s rockin’!

I would love to see things switch back where people would sing blues-based again in hard rock. It used to be that. That’s where all the great vocals came from. All those great vocals from the 70s bands were all blues-based singers.

What about your vocal style? Where do your influences come from?

It comes from everything. But I think mostly I get my vocals from the 60s garage rock stuff. I was into it from when I was a kid, and you can’t shake offs even the influences you don’t want. So I listened to a vocal and I’ll hear Gene Simmons in there and I say, “Dude, I can’t go with that vocal; it sounds like Gene Simmons!” And I tell myself, “Well, you saw a KISS like 17 times within two years when you are 15 years old. Maybe he’s left an influence?!?”

See MONSTER MAGNET live at Rock Carnival Music Festival on Saturday, October 1, 2016, at the Blue Claws First Energy Park in Lakewood, New Jersey.  It’s coming up fast so make your plans!  Get your tickets here!

 

Check out new video “The Duke” by MONSTER MAGNET:

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Read more about Rock Carnival Music Festival 2016 here!

by Jen Rubino 9.17.2016