Interview With Monotonix

I began my interview with Yonatan Gat, Haggai Fershtman and Ami Shalev of Monotonix sitting on the floor in front of them, as there were only three chairs in the interview room.

Haggai was having none of this and went into an adjoining office to get a swivel chair. He wheeled it back towards us and tried to fit it through the narrow gap, almost got it wedged as he tried to force it through, then shrugged his shoulders in a Laurel and Hardy fashion, before hoisting it clear over the dividing wall, accompanied by the ridiculously exaggerated gestures and warnings of his band-mates.

Strange Glue: So how did you get involved with Drag City?

Yonatan: David Berman came to see us, and later he told them they should come see us play in Chicago, and then they came to see us once and they told us “your demos are not good, we don’t want you on our label”. And then they came to see us again and they were like “Ok, we all like your show but your demos are not good, you can’t be on our label.” And then they told us there was a guy called Tim Green and we went to record with him and it sounded good.

Ami: It’s more like the Who Live at Leeds and less…

All in unison: Magical Mystery Tour! (all laughing)

Yonatan: Our demos were too Magical Mystery Tour for them… (laughter) What’s the Magical Mystery? Kind of like the song that your mother should know, that’s how our demos sounded. And then we became Who Live.

SG: So what’s next?

All in unison: Who’s Next! (all laughing)

SG: So you recorded this with Tim Green, of the Fucking Champs and they have a really clear, punchy sound as a band…

Yonatan: I think that the album is dirtier though..

Ami: You know The Fucking Champs? You know the Fucking Champs records? You know the one, what is it called, Four?

SG: Yeah… (kind of embarrassingly blagging it here…)

Ami: You remember how it begins? With a very weak and low sound, and then it explodes? You remember this sound?

SG: Yeah…

Ami: Well our records sound like the weak sound! (all laughing)

SG: I don’t think many people will believe you!

Ami: Well, we’ll see!! (laughter)

SG:When you go into the studio, do you recreate any elements of the live show. Do you have to get into how you would perform live in order to record those songs, in order to give them the right energy?

Yonatan: We just tried to play really naturally. Just play the songs how we feel them. I think that on the record it’s more energetic and sounds more like the live show than the last E.P, for sure.

Ami: It’s more dirty, more dirty.

Haggai: We kind of played some of the new songs before we recorded them, live. So when we entered the studio, it was already, err.. boiled!

SG: Since the first time I saw you, you’ve made that leap into what the press releases call infamy, how has that changed things for you?

Ami: The only thing that changed right now…

Yonatan (interrupting): Is that we ride in Limousines and err… (laughter)

Ami: No, that someone picks us up from the airport. Sometimes a very small car, you know before…

Yonatan: We had to get a taxi, it was very expensive…

SG: When I first saw you, it felt like two thirds of the audience had no idea what to expect…so that had an element of…

Yonatan: It’s still like that in some countries, when we play in America it’s not like that at all, it’s more like, people are more ready than us or something. We come to the UK and it’s kind of in the middle I guess? But we can go to play countries in Europe we’ve never been before… We played in Ireland, in Belfast two nights ago and nobody guessed what was going to happen. It’s just a different kind of show, a different challenge, but we like both. But I’m glad we get to play shows where we get to surprise people.

SG: What makes a show really enjoyable for you? You know, the atmosphere, the crowd?

Yonatan: Sometimes I like it, sometimes it’s hard. You know when it’s physically hard to play, and it’s a challenge just to keep playing? It kind of makes it exciting, because it’s dangerous, and physically hard.

SG: You must all keep fit… (dumb stumble non-question...)

Empty Pause, apologies for poor interview technique… Guy comes into the room and expresses annoyance that I am sitting in his swivel chair, takes it back, tries to take it through gap but cannot, Hagai solemnly helps him lift it over the wall…

SG: I was talking to someone earlier on, and they were under the impression that in Israel you guys aren’t allowed to play anymore. Is that true, or is it a rumour?

Yonatan: In the beginning in Israel we just wanted to play everywhere all the time because we liked playing shows and didn’t care about the money… cause we didn’t make any money… So we just wanted to play everywhere and most of those places weren’t set for a show like ours. Nobody came to the shows anyway, and they didn’t like us so we found ourselves unable to get a show in Israel.

SG:What do you do to keep yourselves going on tour? It must be tiring, you often do your own driving, the shows are intense. What do you do to lessen the pressure?

Yonatan: We talk about Haggai and how his mind works.

Haggai: I try to talk on the phone with my wife. I try not to drink or take drugs or that kind of stuff. So it keeps me more straight and there’s less pressure, and I try to sleep whenever I can.

SG: I noticed when I first saw you that you didn’t drink before the show. I was impressed; I think the way in which you engage with the audience, without having to be drunk, without turning it into some kind of… You know, if you were getting wasted every night I think it would give it a violence but to me there’s no violence in your show, it’s theatre. You make people feel like it’s right on the edge, which is a wonderful feeling, but it’s not aggressive, you’re clearly not trying to intimidate, and I think it’s a real achievement…

After that long winded ramble Ami said “That’s the whole idea behind this live show” and we brought the interview to a close. Yeah I had been stating the obvious, but I was trying to get at something which I think is really valuable. Walking home after their show I felt returned to a world where people avoid contact, emotional and physical.

That’s all fine and dandy, it’s how this culture has been getting by for a very long time (and it’s not about to change soon, unless the oil really does run out that is…). It made me think about other times where I felt the feeling that a Monotonix show gives me, and I couldn’t muster a single one. It makes you feel like you’re back in the schoolyard, out of the classroom, and two kids are being pushed inevitably into some kind of fight. You and your friends and all the other kids you don’t like gather round, all united in a hope that a teacher won’t arrive too soon, but secretly you hope they will arrive eventually. You all want to see some action, something to break the uniformity of the day and the only kind of action you really understand is violence. It’s in the computer games, it’s on the televisions, and it scares the teachers. 

At a Monotonix show you feel like you’ve been plucked out of the cosmic classroom and are gathering together, united by an energy that resembles the bloodlust, but there’s a new kind of action on offer. I never joined in with the chants of “fight” back at school, I just couldn’t do it. I enjoyed the danger, but I didn’t see the point in two kids throwing lame punches (or one kid getting completely humiliated by some vicious little fucker/giant bastard…) over some petty disagreement. Thing is, back then, you never think about rising up against the school…you think grades actually matter…

Monotonix channel those dangerous feelings, the repressed and volatile ones, into some crude form of Love, they’re hippies with an Actual Plan. Let’s be honest, it was never going to come out pretty. When Ami Shalev get’s his tiny arse out while being held aloft a crowd of sweating freaks I feel more inspired than I ever have been by a book, or a film.

For all my talk of it being “theatre”, don’t go thinking it’s tame, because it’s certainly not. There is danger out there, and they challenge me too. I’ve always been an uptight kid about a lot of things and it’s an easy crutch to fall back on. But deep down I know that if I don’t start having some more fun soon I’m going to become an old man with a lot of regrets. If I’m being honest, I never got right to the front of the crowd, I never got totally drenched and I never got shoved to the floor, but I hope to next time. The band are touring America for the next two months. If you live there, get out there.

Monotonix release Where Were You When It Happened? in the U.K on August 31st and a week later (Sep 8th) in North America.

Here's what to expect when you go see them live: