Shrine of the Monkey Interview

One of the best thing about social network sites like Twitter is that you get to hear what other people are listening to, and sometimes discover a great band that you may not hear of otherwise. This happened recently when someone mentioned Sheffield rockers Shrine Of The Monkey and we decided to find out more about these local (to us) boys.

Enquiries with their manager led to the arrival through the CackBlabbath letterbox of the band's debut album "Under Blackened Skies" and as soon as it hit the CD player we knew that this band had something special about them.

Shrine Of the Monkey consists of Brian Prosser on Guitar and Vocals, Rick Gregory on Bass and Vocals, with Kev Lee on Drums. The three piece manage to produce a very full sound that, unlike many other bands coming through today, shows them to be experienced and technically very good musicians.

The album unashamedly shows the bands many and various influences, mostly hailing from the glory days of Rock. Here sounds reminiscent of Rainbow, Sabbath, Hawkwind and Purple blend with more modern influences such as BLS and Down. It's a mix that works very well, taking some classic riffs and sounds but updating them with modern influences which produces something that sounds familiar, but not exactly like anything else you may have heard. In places, such as the excellent Suicide Machine, it has a laid back stoner vibe wheres in others such it's classic up tempo rock.

There is no doubt "Under Blackened Skies" is an album for anyone who likes 'proper' rock in all its many and various forms. Shrine of the Monkey have taken the best of what has gone before, mixed it up with their own feel and produced something that deserves to be heard.

As you may have gathered we really like this album, and we had to chat to the band to find out some of the SotM backstory. We'd like to thank their manager Sue for sorting this out for us, and obviously thank the band for taking the time to answer our questions.

When did Shrine of the Monkey first get together?

2005.

How did you all meet up?

We met at a local Jam session in Sheffield at 'The Deep End'.

The new CD covers a surprising variety of 'classic rock' styles, who would you say were your major influences?

We all have different Influences :- Kev's favourite drummer is Matt Sorum and his musical influences are bands such as 'Guns & Roses', 'Velvet Revolver', 'Van Halen', 'Rush' etc. Brians influences are bands such as 'Black Label Society', 'Iron Maiden', 'Metallica', 'Deep Purple', 'Thunder', 'Joe Satriani' etc. Ricks influences are varied :- 'Black Sabbath', 'Rush', 'Metallica', 'Opeth', 'Orange Goblin', 'Down', 'Wolfmother', 'Sleep', 'Cathedral', 'Iron Monkey', 'The Haunted' etc.

How has the response to the CD been, you happy with the feedback so far?

We have a had a great response so far from the public and a couple of write-ups we have had.

I haven't caught you guys live yet, what can I expect when I do?

When we play live Brian is a bit like a Wild Animal on stage and jumps about pulling weird faces and the crowd are usually transfixed by him, we are heavy and loud and like to see the audience enjoying themselves.

How difficult is it for a comparatively unknown band to get their music out there and get noticed?

It is quite difficult to get out there and get noticed, but our Manager/Promoter - Sue Gregory........Made us play every place around all over Yorkshire & Humberside and booked us almost 100 gigs during the first 12 months. Also she made us stick a few covers in at some venues to keep the audience listening. We had a 4 track EP out during the first 18 months and Sue sent them to lots of venues and Magazines and we got great reviews all round!

I first heard of you when Dom Lawson (Metal Hammer, Classic Rock) mentioned your CD on Twitter, are you active on social networks beyond the obligatory MySpace page?

Sue is on Twitter but is not sure how it works. We have 'My Space' and 'Facebook' accounts also Sue opened a Bebo to promote us too.

The production on the CD suits your type of music perfectly, did you have an idea of the 'sound' (or, i guess 'Feel') you wanted before you went into the studio, or did it just sort of happen?

We wanted the album to sound as near to the live show as possible and didn't want a lot of over dubbing as you cannot always create the same effect on stage. We wanted a Raw Sound and feel we got the mix right.........Eventually!! (No thanks to the First studio we used for the work)

There is a resurgence in 'proper' rock music at the moment, it seems to be back in fashion. Do you think this is a kick back against the X-Factor generation?

Not sure it has anything to do with the media/Charts etc, we just wanted to play music we believed was good and enjoyed playing. We are 'Old School Rockers', so would never join the masses or conform to what is 'Mainstream'. Also the Music seems to go in cycles like most things i.e Fashion. So we felt the time was right, as long as we know we write good songs and play well we don't expect everyone to like what we do. We are proud of the work we have done so far.

What are your thoughts on the 'get famous quickly then disappear' TV shows that fill the schedules?

Recognition from the right places is what we want really. Fame i guess is more readily available for the youngsters starting out. We would love to just do our Music full time and earn enough to give our day jobs up.....But in the Real World this seldom happens. If we did achieve Fame we want it to be positive, we are not planning to go anywhere yet!

On the strength of this CD there seem to be big things on the horizon for SotM. Ideally how would you like to see the next couple of years panning out?

Ideally the next couple of years we would get a new album together and hopefully get recognised by a Major label so we can Tour further afield and be seen by more people. We do sometimes think our age is against us but none of us would give up playing unless we had to due to ill health. We have all always been in bands and its what we enjoy doing best. We are going to advertise the CD in a Major Rock Mag as soon as we have the funds together and hopefully sell on I-Tunes too as this unfortunately seems the way forward. Once we have done that we will put some in the shops too!

What are your plans for the immediate future, more gigs in the pipeline?

After a Major set back with the studio taking 18 months too long to do any work on the album and us having to move elsewhere, it has dampened our spirits somewhat as we were all geared to go and the album ended up costing us over £6,000 to produce. So Sue is on at us all to write some new material then she will book some more gigs for us, we think also our fans need to hear some new 'Shrine of the Monkey' tracks as we have a very loyal following and appreciate them being so patient with us!

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