With each new year, a new round of The Zone @ 91-3’s Band of the Month begins. The program features the best up-and-coming musicians and bands in the Victoria area. Once again, Rocktographers is proud to be part of the Band of the Month program as an official sponsor and purveyors of photo shoots for the bands.
2020 gets off to an explosive start with Victoria’s Shed Monkeys being the first to wear the Band of the Month crown. The four piece band is made up of Rhea George, Nathan Margetts, Steve Clark, and Max Gordon.
Tyson Elder caught up over dinner with Rhea George and Nathan Margetts to chat everything Shed Monkeys on a blustery New Year’s Eve.
Tyson Elder: Congratulations on being 2020’s first Band of the Month.
Nathan Margetts: Thank you!
TE: First things first I need to know where did your band name, Shed Monkeys, come from?
Nathan: When the two of us started jamming it was in a shed at Rhea’s old place in Victoria. It was an old, rundown and freezing cold shed. Whatever temperature it was outside it was the same temperature inside. It was kind of terrible and horrible working conditions.
Rhea George: It wasn’t that bad. You’ve got to have somewhere to start from and move up from.
Nathan: The Monkeys part kind of came from trying to put something after Shed. A friend called us the Shed Monkeys and I really liked that.
TE: Was it just the two of you when Shed Monkeys started?
Rhea: I moved to Victoria and the first thing that anyone does when they move to a new city is they download Tinder. Well… anyone who is lonely and wants to meet someone cool. [Laughs]. Nathan and I ended up matching because on his profile it said “I play music, I’m in a band and I’m a super fan of Jack White.” So I was like, okay this guy sounds cool. We matched and we met. One of the first things Nathan did was send me pictures of his… all of his gear.
[Laughs]
TE: And this is how Nathan got robbed.
[Laughs]
Nathan: Exactly. She showed up at my house and stole all my stuff.
Rhea: I decided this guy is legit, we met and really bonded over our musical influences. Bands like The Kills and anything Jack White has ever done. Then we started jamming in a shed from there. It worked out really well.
TE: When did you decide to go from being a duo to a a full band?
Nathan: We played one show… and it felt terrible. [Laughs] It wasn’t like it was the first show and felt bad. We played everything right, but felt like something was missing.
Rhea: People came up to us after the show and would say “you guys sound really good but…”
Nathan: Things like, “It would sound better if you had a real drummer or an actual bassist.” It felt very robotic. We’d playing the same thing with the same time signatures where as everything changes when you play live with a band.
Rhea: After a song we’d be like, “We just have to hit next on the laptop.”
TE: That can work for a lot of bands with backing tracks, but I see where you’d want a band with the music you make. It works well with former Band of the Month, Hush Hush Noise.
Rhea: They kill it though. Hush Hush Noise has such a cool vibe. I really like them.
Nathan: We really love raw music and we wanted to make something genuine.
Rhea: It’s hard to fake raw rock and roll when you are limited by not having those instruments in your band.
TE: That feels like the growing pains of starting a band anyways. You can go through several band members before you find what fits for your band too.
Rhea: Our bassist Steve came from Nathan’s other band We The Few and our drummer at the time, Shishy came from another match on Tinder. I’m really good at starting bands with Tinder. I only match with music stuff. It worked out really well, but he moved and Max from Boy Leadfoot joined the band as our new drummer.
TE: Has bringing Max into the fold changed your songwriting and band dynamics?
Nathan: He’s totally different from Shishy who was a very serious and precise drummer. He was like a human metronome. Which was awesome. Max is equally as good, but very different. He’s like controlled chaos.
Rhea: I love Max’s explosive energy. He’ll do a drum fill different every single time and you never know what’s going to happen.
TE: While I was editing photos from our photo shoot I really noticed that energy. He’ll be doing something completely different in every shot. These are taken a split second apart. It was baffling how fast he was changing it up.
[Everyone laughs]
Rhea: You never really know where it’s going to go. Max has an intensity and spontaneity but also the openness and a great vibe. He cares so much about what he’s playing.
Nathan: He’s extremely genuine. I really appreciate that as well.
Rhea: I think the new turn with the band is going to have more of that controlled chaos. A little heavier, but more expansive and open.
TE: Let’s talk about the new single, Elephant. It’s really good, but I have to ask is the sound that opens up the song a Proton Pack from Ghostbusters firing up?
Rhea: Oh no! [Laughs]
Nathan: It could be.
Rhea: It should be.
Nathan: It’s actually the flash on an old polaroid camera firing up.
Tyson: I should have known that. I’d still go with the Ghostbusters sound. Get some of that sweet Ghostbusters money when that new movie comes out.
Rhea: We will just send it to them with a note “put this in your movie, please.”
Nathan: I’d take a cheque for that.
TE: That’s how Imagine Dragons or Twenty-One Pilots did it. Either way, they’re on Billboard’s Top Songs of the Decade.
Nathan: [sighs] Top ROCK Songs of the Decade.
Rhea: I don’t understand it. Brothers by the Black Keys came out in this past decade. How is that not on there?
TE: Or Mumford & Sons. They aren’t the rockiest band but they were one of the biggest bands of the decade. Why are there three Imagine Dragons songs and they are all at the top?
Rhea: It kind of where the shows you where the Industry is right now.
TE: It actually makes a lot more room for bands to open up and make rock music again. Like Black Pistol Fire, Reignwolf, The Black Keys, and Jack White have a more guitar-driven sound now. They decided to go back to their roots with blues rock. More and more that’s what people want. Not whatever Imagine Dragons is.
Nathan: That drop in the middle of the song and the yell.
Rhea: HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY! HEY! How many of those do you have to use to make a hit song? They could just sample my voice for all their songs.
TE: Hey Ho made the list. Maybe it’s just based on the amount of heys in a song.
Rhea: [Turns to Nathan] We should write a song called HEY!
Nathan: We’ve figured it out. We’ve cracked the code.
Rhea: We’re going to be on the next list. I can tell.
[Everyone laughs]
TE: Let’s jump back to the new single. While listening to Elephant I noticed some definite Jack White influence in there. Especially with the guitar solo.
Rhea: Really? [Laughs]
TE: Just a little bit. [Laughs]
Nathan: A tad.
TE: I didn’t know you were a big Jack White fan until recently and after I heard the song it made way more sense.
Rhea: The amazing thing is that solo came out of nowhere. Nathan had that first riff down but afterwards it was all just freestyle. Everyone in the band was listening to him do take after take and saying “that’s the one!”
Nathan: …and I was like “No!”
Rhea: Each solo was better than the last one. He kept going and going until the culmination of all the previous takes came into one. When it finally happened we knew that it was the one.
Nathan: That’s why I’d like to record to tape someday. It’s nice recording digitally. You can try as many times as you’d like to get the take you want, but recording to tape is less forgiving. You can’t just keep going when you record to tape. You’d be spending a lot of money.
Rhea: I think this new single and EP we recorded really encompasses the direction that we are currently heading in. It seems like the beginning of something exciting and new.
TE: If you ever want to go to San Fransisco, there’s a great analog studio called Tiny Telephone.
Nathan: That would be very cool.
Shed Monkeys’ debut radio single, Elephant, will be featured on on The Zone @ 91-3 for the entirety of January 2020. The single is available for free download, along with two more of their songs, at The Zone @ 91-3. Rocktographers is proud to be a supporting sponsor of The Zone’s Band of the Month program.
On January 30th, 2020, you can find Shed Monkeys at Victoria’s Vinyl Envy for an intimate set celebrating their tenure as January’s Band of the Month.