Mona Interview November 2010
By: Stan Morgan
- The below is a transcript of an email interview conducted with singer Nick Brown.
Rockfeedback: You were in the UK playing your first shows last month, how did they go?
Nick Brown: I don’t think we could have expected a better response. It was very welcoming and we had a blast. When we come back over we’re going to go to different parts outside of London as well, we’re all about getting the music out there and seeing how people from all over respond. I think when you have a sound that resonates with people, it doesn’t matter what city they’re from or what country they’re from or what walk of life they are - I think humanity can always kind of find a sort of common ground within a good song, so the fact that we keep getting responses from different demographics, it’s amazing to us.
RFB: I expect you’ve been doing a lot of these interviews lately, are you still enjoying the press attention, or is it something you have to put up with in order to be a successful band?
NB: No I enjoy it. I don’t like lazy questions and I don’t like boring, uninteresting questions but when people are genuinely interested in what’s happening and genuinely interested in the music I mean, being bothered by it or quote unquote ‘putting up with i’ is just arrogant. I mean, we welcome it, and we want people to ask what they want and to know whatever they want to know, and get to know the band and the stories behind the songs and each member and the whole thing. I get annoyed with elitists that try to put themselves in the spotlight and then complain about being in the spotlight. We definitely welcome it.
RFB: Are you worried that your clear ambition to succeed could be interpreted as arrogance by some?
A boxer doesn’t get into the ring and get interviewers beforehand asking ‘do you think you’re going to win?’, and then if he says ‘yeah I think I’m going to win’ well then people go ‘oh that’s just arrogant’. You get into the ring to win. I’m in a band because I love art and I love music and I love rock ‘n’ roll but also it is a business, it’s a music industry and I got into it to be successful, it’s not cockiness or the fact that we think we’re better than anybody, it’s just that we we’re gonna swing with everything we got, and we’re not going to apologise for it.
RFB: There has been a lot of talk about you as a frontman, Nick, being one of the best around at the moment. Are there any frontmen, past or present, who you particularly admire?
NB: I mean for me Bob Dylan is kind of the greatest. The way he just never apologised, he constantly pushed the limits on what he was trying to do and what the way he presented himself, he didn’t show a lot of fear and he’s bounced back more than once from what people thought was falling off the map. Obviously John Lennon is one of the greats. There’s always the charisma that fades and the charisma that lasts and I think I’m always impressed by people who affect more than just music. These are people who have affected fashion and film and politics and religion.
RFB: What do you put your early success down to? Luck? Or being better than other bands looking for similar success?
NB: Erm.. when us four were handpicked by Disney! *laughs* No, I think that a lot of it is timing and a lot of things seemed fast and when it happens it happens quickly but these are things that I’ve been working on for years and these are things that have been coming together for four different people from four different walks of life that it’s all timing when it hits, and there’s karma and there’s this, it’s just time, time for something - it’s bigger than us and it’s bigger than a manager or a label or a band or even the industry. I don’t give a fuck about the economy, I don’t give a fuck about what’s going on in religion or politics, if you strip it all away it’s humanity and right now our humanity is a flooded apathetic time in the arts and in entertainment and especially in rock and roll and it’s not that necessary. Maybe we’re not that special at all, maybe we’re just there. In the 90’s a bunch of kids that were sick and tired with boybands and r’n’b needed someone to say ‘Rape Me’, they needed someone, they needed Nirvana, they needed ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, it’s just right now I think... I don’t know exactly how to define it or whatever, or what to call it, but I would say people need it or at least they want it, y’know? Desire is powerful, and they’re eating it up. Let people think I’m arrogant if they want, but I strive to be genuine and I think that at any stage in history, no matter what the platform, that is always admired.
RFB: Your list of influences on your MySpace page doesn’t have any contemporary bands on it. How do you see yourselves as different to all the other bands around at the moment?
NB: Nothing’s different. Everything’s Britney Spears and Bob Dylan, it’s all how it’s promoted. It’s all just people making noise. I don’t put contemporaries up there because I’m alive now to do what I’m doing so I’m not looking to the left and the right trying to see what other people are doing I’m trying to focus on what I’m doing. I look back because that’s what influenced me, that’s what got us to this point. There’s a whole lot of people that don’t really care who our president was 10 years ago - now is now and I’m responsible for now, for me. It’s not about competing with another band, I’m not looking for that, I’m not in my bedroom writing a song going ‘I wonder what so and so thinks about this?’.
RFB: You reportedly said that you were going to be “bigger than Bono”. Was that a misquote, and if not do you regret saying that?
NB: Erm yes, no and yes, and no and maybe... basically the conversation was about a front man in a rock and roll band and I said U2 in their heyday were the standard. I mean, no one gets into the ring and goes, ‘I think I want to lose this one’, I mean unless you’re like taking a fall for money or something like that. It’s just what they’ve done is stay together as 4 original members and they’ve sold a gazillion records and made a gazillion dollars and it’s like as far as a rock and roll band they’re debatably the most successful of all time - that’s the standard. I could have said the Beatles, that I wanted to be bigger than John Lennon... it’s not about being bigger or better, it’s just that we’re gonna go for it. I wrote the song shooting the moon. I don’t know what that means, whether it’s a 5 year career or a 50 year career and whether we sell 500 billion albums or 50,000.
RFB: How do you take it when people compare you to Kings of Leon? Do you think it’s a lazy comparison or take it as a compliment?
NB: I take it as a compliment, but it is a lazy comparison. I mean, they’re one of the biggest bands in the world. We get compared to U2 we’ve got compared to other people obviously these aren’t bad comparisons and I’m not saying like oh let’s compare them to the band on sesame street or like they’re a shitty bar band or something like that. It’s definitely a compliment and I get it, I’ve used this analogy a million times, any athlete coming into the lead gets compared to a legend - it’s a compliment but takes a little time to put your own finger print on things.
RFB: Have you planned a trajectory for the next year? What do you hope to have achieved by the end of 2011?
NB: You have to put one foot in front of the other as far as day to day living, but that’s where the clear ambition and quote unquote ‘arrogance’ comes in again. It’s just about making the decisions in the moment, like, I dream probably faster and bigger than most humans, I want Brits and I want Grammys and I want to go platinum and I want all these things, but I don’t want them just for 2011, I want them for yesterday. I’ve wanted them since I was kid and I’ll want them after I get them, I’ll want more and I always will. I’m not ever satisfied, I’m grateful for where I’m at but that doesn’t mean that I’m not working even harder than I was yesterday. Really it’s just about making the decisions - whatever tours pop up, there’ve already been some things that have popped up that we’ve said yes to and some things have popped up and we’ve said no to, it’s just about sticking to your guns and, y’know, keeping a clear definitive view of our own identity.
Mona release ‘Trouble On The Way’ as a limited edition 7” and download on December 13th, through the Island imprint ZionNoiz recordings. They embark on a UK tour the same month, dates below...
7/12/10 – Hoxton Bar and Kitchen, London
9/12/10 – Captains Rest, Glasgow
10/12/10 – Night And Day, Manchester
11/12/10 – The Flapper, Birmingham
13/12/10 – The Cooler, Bristol
14/12/10 - The Borderline, London
17/12/10 – Bodega Social, Nottingham
18/12/10 – Audio, Brighton
Artists in this article: Mona