Interview with Monster Movie ----------------------------- Namur: So who\'s Monster Movie, where are you living now and what do you do besides Monster Movie? Christian: It\'s just me and Sean Hewson. Although occassionally we manage to con people into singing for us. I live in West London and Sean lives in Reading. We earn no money at all from music so we work full time jobs. Sean: we are monster movie. we live in the woods & we work in the office. Namur:This is maybe a repeated question, but can you tell us where \"Monster Movie\" name come from? christian: When we started, we wanted to do some minimal krautrock-ish type music, but when we started playing we soon discovered that it was totally beyond us. Which is probably just as well because a band ripping off krautrock and naming themselves after a \'can\' album would be totally embarrassing. As it is we\'re an indie type band named after a \'can\' album, still embarrassing, but maybe not quite as much. sean: it comes from an album by can that neither of us own or have heard. Namur:How would you describe your sound and musical style? I’d place you in the shoegazing category. Would you agree with this? Christian: I\'m not sure how I would desribe our sound and style, but if people want to categorize us as \'shoegaze\' then it\'s alright because it\'s not so important. I suppose when we started to get reviews and we were described as \'shoegaze\' it was a bit annoying because we are not really interested in it at all. But I see all kinds of bands getting called \'shoegazers\' and I\'ve no idea what the term means anymore. Our sound and songs are really basic, our equipment is really basic, our recording budget is minimal, and we don\'t have much time because of a combination of jobs, family and study. They are major constraints. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if we could devote more time to the music and have good resources at our disposal. I\'m sure a lot of bands feel like that though. Sean: we generally describe each other as handsome. i wouldn\'t describe us as shoegazing as i haven\'t really heard anything by any of those kind of bands other than my bloody valentine and whilst i really like them i would never attempt to recreate their sound. we just try to write good songs & then present them in such a way as to be audible & recognisable as good songs - sometimes we don\'t achieve that but that\'s the plan. Namur:Who\'s the voice (main vocals I would say) behind the songs of Monster Movie? Christian : We all have a go at singing, it just depends on the song and whose voice suits it best. None of us are what you would call singers though. Sean: the beautiful main vocals are usually by Christian Namur:Monster Movie is going to release it\'s second next album \"To the moon\" just in some days (24th august). Where do you guys get the inspiration to create the songs lyrics? Christian: Lyric writing is the hardest part of the song process for me. The tunes come easily, but words are always tricky. I don\'t suppose we are particularly flamboyant individuals and find everyday life a bit of a struggle, which is reflected in our lyrics. I guess on this most recent album some of the lyrics were mainly about wanting to be somewhere else, but knowing that somewhere else is no better. It\'s not exactly Bob Dylan, I admit that. We are the kind of people who are not good at meeting people and the kind of people in a party situation you want to avoid. With my level of articulation, really I should stick to instrumentals. Sean: i just write stuff down all the time then pick out the five or six lines out of a hundred that are tolerable, again sometimes i pick the wrong ones & sometimes there aren\'t any good ones to pick. Namur:What should we expect about \"To the moon\"? Is the continuation of \"Last night something happened\", or it has new sounds or a different musical direction? Christian: We wanted to have a bit more variation of sounds on \"to the moon\", so we tried some different stuff. Some of it worked and some if it didn\'t. However we still tried to write good tunes. It\'s difficult to remember back, as the album was finished ages ago. Sean: it\'s the same kind of songs but it\'s completely produced by us so it sounds worse than \'last night something happened\' and that\'s our fault, the songs are pretty similar i think, but i can\'t really remember it was all so long ago. Namur:What equipment did you use in order to put the album together? Christian: I\'m not sure. I know that a lot of bands like to have vintage guitars and amps and very precise set ups, but I\'m not interested in that side of things at all. Part of the problem on this album was that what equipment we had didn\'t work properly. I had to borrow an acoustic guitar from someone because when we got in the studio we realised that the intonation of my guitar was totally out. We have one keyboard that Sean bought in a car boot sale that I reckon gets used on every song. Sean: we\'re not technical & we\'re not into having equipment. we just use our guitars and then we\'ve got a bag full of keybords, xylophones, harmonicas & percussion and we add that stuff until we can\'t stand to listen to it anymore. Namur:Who do you site as having the most influence in the music you create? Christian: When I started playing guitar I was finding it quite difficult and boring as I\'m not a good musician, everything I was playing just sounded really twee or really boring. then I started going to see \'my bloody valentine\' playing live and watched closely to memorise the chords that Kevin Shields was playing. At first I couldn\'t understand why what sounded great coming from Kevin\'s guitar sounded terrible coming from mine. Then someone told me he used different tunings. So I started messing around with tunings and suddenly the guitar became interesting to me. 90% of my tunes are done in various tunings which I can never remember. I don\'t really listen to \'My bloody valentine\' anymore, but I did listen recently and preferred \'ecstasy\' and \'isn\'t anything\' to \'loveless\'. I\'m not sure what bands influence us though as I don\'t believe we sound like \'My bloody Valentine\' they are tonally complex, whereas we are very simple in that respect. \'Beautiful arctic star\' was influenced a bit by 80s synth pop, but we didn\'t really have the equipment to do it, so it sounds a bit remedial, which I like. I also really like \'Another green world\' by \'Brian Eno\', I\'m not saying we sound like that, but definitely we try to keep things concise. \'Yo La Tengo\' are also a great band who we would aspire to, it would be arrogant to say thay have influenced us. sean: probably christian, i try not to embarrass him by being too crap. Namur:Why Monster Movie does not perform live? Are you going to perform live in a near future? christian: Basically it\'s just me and Sean so we don\'t have the necessary equipment and band members. Also, in England at least, I really don\'t think anyone would come to see us. Sean: we\'re not performers. we make & record songs & those are the limits of our ability. plus i\'m entirely blank, i don\'t have anything to project to people. Namur:Back in the time, there were really good comments about the first Monster Movie album \"Last night something happened\". The highlights in this album are probably \"Shortwave\" and \"4th and pine\". Can you tell us more about the story behind these songs? Christian: Thank you. \'shortwave\' is a melody that I\'m really happy with, although I wasn\'t fully happy with how it turned out on the album. \'4th and pine\' was a song that was written very quickly almost by accident. I got the idea for that song\'s lyrics from a tragedy that befell an acqaintance whose wife very unfortunately had severe problems and shot herself. It\'s not specifically about that incident, because a 3 minute pop song devoted to that incident would be totally insulting and also incredibly pompous. The song is more just about the idea that someone hits rocks bottom and can\'t see any way out. Namur:Christian, you were a member of one of the greatest bands of all the times, Slowdive. What do you feel now when people talk about Slowdive already as a legend, when people pay high amounts of money just to get the ep\'s or the last album \"Pygmalion\", for example? Christian: I\'m certain that we are not legends, but It\'s really nice and almost unbelievable that people like \'slowdive\' after all these years. I\'m not sure what we hoped for when we were making those records, but I guess if we thought that some people would still be enjoying our records over 10 years after they were made, then we would have been delighted. It\'s a shame that those records are a bit tricky to come by and that people have to pay too much money for them. There isn\'t anything I can do about it unfortunately. Namur:When people talk about Slowdive they think most about Neil and Rachel. However, after the split-up, they followed a different musical direction (folk) while you did follow with \"shoegazing\". And after hearing \"Last night something happened\" album, many people started to think about your influence in the \"Slowdive sound\". What can you tell us about this? christian: I wouldn\'t like to say how much or how little my input into \'slowdive\' influenced the sound. Neil was the principal songwriter and producer. We all had input to a certain extent, but it varied on every song. Certainly towards the end, any input I did have was negligble. I think that is natural for a lot of bands though. When we started out we were all pulling in the same direction, we all had similar influences and hopes. It is unrealistic to expect five people to all develop in exactly the same direction. Sean: i don\'t really know slowdive but from what i\'ve heard i prefer neil\'s solo album, i also prefer the stuff Christian does for us. Namur:Many fans out there ask me about Eternal. Do you guys have in mind to re-release Eternal material?. In Perú we did get \"Breath\" and \"Sleep\" some years ago... Christian: It is amazing that \'eternal\' should be even heard of in Peru as we weren\'t even a proper band. I seriously doubt that \'eternal\' single will ever be re released though. Outside of Peru I don\'t think there is any interest. Sean: there are no plans to release it. i think it\'s pretty good that christian could write songs that good when he was 19 Namur:How do you see the \"shoegazing\" scene in the meantime? Christian: I just don\'t know what the \"shoegazing\" scene is. I know that when \'slowdive\' was around there were a handful of bands around with similar influences that were picked up by the music press, but probably there were hundreds of other bands sounding like us that weren\'t as fortunate to be given any media coverage. I suppose the difference now is the internet allows for a community to exist for these bands and to a certain extent they can all get people to listen to them anywhere in the world. I have heard some of these type bands, and the thing that struck me was that they so were intent on replicating the sounds from their favourite records that they forgot about writing decent tunes. They should be less concerned about what effects processor Kevin Shields used and listen to how some people manage to compose great or beautiful melodies. sean: i have no knowledge or interest in that kind of thing. of the other bands on the same labels as us we like dreamend who are on graveface records. Namur:What do you know about Perú and Southamerica musical (shoegazing scene)? christian: Some friends of ours have recently returned from travelling and told us that Peru is an amazing country. I would like to visit someday if I get the opportunity. We have heard of \'Resplandor\' from Peru, they were kind enough to send us their records. Sean: i\'m sorry but i don\'t know anything about any shoegazing scene, we would be delighted to listen to anything anyone sends to us though. Namur:Where do you see Monster Movie in 5 year time? christian: We don\'t have a plan. At the moment we have no money to record. We would really like to record another album, so we will try to find someone to help finance that. Sean: doing the same thing for less money. we\'re pretty old so five years isn\'t a long time for us. Namur:Finally, what to you is the most impotant thing in life? Christian: Trying to avoid death. Sean: to become more invisible.

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