By Andrew Bansal
Los Angeles-based stoner doom metal band Behold! The Monolith won the respect and admiration amongst supporters of LA’s local and underground scene with their 2009 self-titled debut full-length and the crushing 2012 sophomore effort ‘Defender, Redeemist’ to go with their sonically destructive live performances since starting out in 2007, but they suffered a massive setback in mid-2013 due to vocalist/bassist Kevin McDade’s sudden and extremely tragic passing as a result of a fatal car accident. But guitarist Matt Price and drummer Chase Manhattan wanted to keep the band intact, and have now successfully transcended Behold! The Monolith into its next chapter with the recruitment of two new members to fill the gaping void left by Kevin McDade. Bassist Jason Casanova of Sasquatch joined in late 2013, and vocalist Jordan Nalley of Fractalline (a band featured on Metal Assault earlier this week through this detailed interview) completed the last remaining piece of the puzzle, playing his first show with them at the Five Star Bar last July. On August 23rd, I had a chat with him about his joining the band, songwriting for the next album, his grasping of a scene and sub-genre entirely new to him, and the local metal community. Enjoy the conversation below and LA folks are highly encouraged to catch Behold! The Monolith live with Fractalline, Vampire Squid and others at Loaded Hollywood tomorrow, Wednesday 9/03.
Jordan, having known you since much before you joined Behold, it’s exciting for me to see you as the band’s new vocalist. First of all, how did this come about?
It’s kind of a long story, actually (laughs). Well, one night I just went out with my friends to a show at Complex in Glendale featuring Bombus and Behold. So I saw them play, it was pretty cool and a week or so later I met guitarist Matt Price at a Mastodon show. We started talking through mutual friend Blake Mount from Holy Grail, and I ended up giving him my card because I do vocal lessons and he said he was interested. He called me the next day, and I started giving him vocal lessons for around a month. We just met up once a week and I was coaching him on all these vocal techniques, working on his tone a bit. He left the Behold album here the first time he came for a lesson, so I put it on to give it a few listens so I could give him feedback on how to mimic the tone and things like that. At one point he was like, “Well, how would you do it?” At that point I was kind of really into the band, it just sparked something in me and I started tracking my vocals over their songs to show him how I would approach that tone. I initially didn’t know about the old singer/bassist Kevin’s passing away, even when I started booking the vocal lessons with Matt. So when I found out about everything that happened, it was an interesting place to be in.
When you learned of Kevin’s passing, it must have put you in a frame of mind where your involvement in the band became more important and meaningful than you thought it was.
Yeah, it was just a little more powerful somehow, you know. And the fact that they were doing the band still and Matt was trying to learn his buddy’s vocals parts, and that the music was cool and all that together seemed meaningful. So I spent a lot of time learning the songs and I learned four of the songs within the first two weeks that I was rehearsing with them. They asked me to join the band after that, and right away we did a show that was already booked, at the Five Star. It went really well and after the show we all kind of gave each other a look that said, “Hell yeah, let’s do this!” (laughs) Since then we’ve just been writing. Me and Matt have been contributing creative ideas back and forth, and he’s been going into the rehearsal room jamming with the guys for the past two weeks, ironing out all the details of the songs. It’s been awesome now that it’s a full unit and the fact we’ve got that one show done. There’s opportunities out there, Matt’s been doing a lot of stuff for the band lately and I just booked a show for us, the one with Fractalline on September 3rd. The momentum is there for everything. Everybody gets along but has their own lives, their own steady good positions through which the band can do things. That’s been the one thing holding back pretty much every project I’ve been a part of since I moved to LA, personal lives of the members. It’s not really about how talented you are or how much drive you have, at the end of the day you’ve got to figure out a way to deal with putting in time into the band, specially in metal where it’s really hard to make money off the music. It creates a whole lifestyle in itself. But when everything is smoothed out, you can just focus on the music and not have to worry about how everybody will pay their bills at the end of the month. So yeah, we’ve been really focussed on writing the new record. There’s going to be a lot of conceptual writing on this one for sure (laughs). I pretty much just come home, get high and think of what I have to say, and what I’m interested in writing about. I’ve been following up on current events and reading up on some philosophers. I’m learning a little bit while I’m writing, basically. I think and I hope it’ll create an interesting mood around the music.
What kind of philosophers have you been reading up on? Anybody in particular?
I like Plato’s stuff. I’m breaching the surface of this kind of thing and I’ve never really been interested enough to dive into it and spend the time reading. But I find it exciting now.
In terms of the songwriting, you said that you and Matt have been working on new stuff, but was there any material lying around that was written before you joined, possibly with Kevin?
Yes, there was a good deal of riffs that the guys had already started working on with Kevin. But from the sounds of it, they were all ideas thrown together and none of the songs were really finished because that’s the way these guys write. They write ideas together, jam them in the room, write lyrics and then change things around. Nothing is really final until it’s on the album, and even then, Chase has added a couple of drum fills and things that aren’t on the album. Matt has the same mentality with his gear, his guitar tones and his pedals. I think he’s changed his rig quite a few times since I’ve joined the band (laughs). But it’s something I can totally vibe with and it makes it easy to be a part of the band, be myself and say what I really mean.
So, what I wanted to ask you more than anything in this interview is, you come from Fractalline which is a totally different band, and part of a whole different scene altogether. Before being a part of Behold, how much were you even aware of the music in the doom metal scene and how much did you have to learn or observe after joining?
That’s been the biggest thing, and that’s why we’re not rushing to write the music either. We’re just letting it fall into place. We are very actively writing right now, but it’s a different kind of writing. My way of writing is, I properly listen to three new albums a day where I devote time to just do nothing but listen to the music. I’ve been getting really into a lot of Black Sabbath and Yob, and I’ve been getting back into Intronaut. I was into them a long time before but then I got more into the prog rock, prog metal stuff. I have wandered in my musical interests for sure since moving to LA. There’s so much good music in every sub-genre and there’s talented people. I’d say I’ve been a metalhead for 12 years but it’s been totally different styles of metal throughout the years. I think there’s things to learn and grasp from different sub-genres that can really be done effectively because at the end of the day it’s just music.
You’ve also been checking out some of these stoner doom shows around LA, right? There’s a lot of such shows happening here nowadays.
I know! Going to shows is interesting, specially in LA, because there are so many, as you know. I’ve been playing shows around in the area for so long that I’ve met a lot of people who are doing it more actively now, playing shows, going to shows and things like that. I’ve been trying to go out but as I’m working on all this music, some nights even when I’ve made plans to go to a show I just end up getting ideas in my head and then I stay home and write. That’s the way things have been lately, but there is a lot of awesome shows out here, and when I’ve been able to make it out and some of the bands I’ve seen, it’s exciting. When I used to go out before when Fractalline first started doing stuff, there was not really much going on. Pretty much every time I went out to a metal show I was disappointed. Either that or I didn’t know where the good local shows were. It’s really hard to get off the ground in LA, so going out and supporting local shows creates a family of musicians and friends. But it’s really easy to get caught up elsewhere (laughs).
I agree, there’s definitely a higher number of local shows in LA now, and there is a misconception among some people that the scene is ‘dead’.
Yeah, it’s definitely not dead. There are a lot of venues that have been opening up even around this Hollywood area and they’re doing cool stuff. Like the Whiskey Blu that just opened up down the street and they put on free shows. So there’s stuff happening in every area around here.
I think there’s plenty for your bands to carry on playing shows without even doing any pay-to-play. There’s enough number of venues now.
Yeah, for sure, because you can reach out to venues yourself without having to go through the promoters to get the shows. You just have to be active. If you wait for things to come to you then you’re going to end up getting stuck with the people trying to make a buck off of you instead of putting together something yourself.
And finally I wanted to ask you, after you started discovering this old-school stoner doom music, what’s been your favorite band or album?
The new Pallbearer record is pretty sweet. I’m really digging that. I’ve been getting really into Anciients, and then one of the bands I got into recently is Black Crown Initiate. The EP they put out is pretty sick. And as I said earlier, I’ve been listening to a lot of Yob and Black Sabbath lately. So, that’s where my mindset has been. Communicating with people that like listening to music the way that you do is great because everybody gets to share their experiences. With vinyl coming back, I can even see in the near future friends getting together, putting on vinyl, hanging out and just listening to music. That whole vibe is coming back, instead of how many albums I can download online, because that’s over and everybody knows you can get the music for free now. All that hype is gone. I think the current business model is very beneficial to the metal scene, specially in the big cities where you can play for people and open for bigger bands that are coming through, just using your music as a means of advertisement for the product that you do have.
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