By Andrew Bansal
San Diego-based classic heavy metal band Monolith formed in 2013 and first caught Metal Assault’s attention with an incredible live performance in 2014, which they followed up with a stellar debut full-length album ‘Against The Wall Of Forever’ in 2015. The album deemed Monolith one of the most promising young clean-singing metal bands. Now with the introduction of new singer Keith McIntosh, Monolith are ready to take the next step. A few days ago, I had a detailed conversation with guitarist and principal songwriter Doug Walker, to talk about the lineup change, and lots more. Check out the interview below, along with a glimpse of the new singer talents through his cover of Iron Maiden’s ‘Purgatory’.
Doug, it’s good to have you on Metal Assault. Thanks for making the drive down from Oceanside! So, Monolith released a full-length album earlier this year. Since then, what have you been up to and what has been going on with the band?
Well, we did some shows around the record release, and those went pretty well, and then we did some shows in July, but for the most part we’ve been having some down time, making lineup adjustments and getting a lineup that can be active so that we can take the shows we want to take. Running a band with members in different states is really difficult. We did the best we could with that for a while, but we had to make some changes. So, 2015 has been basically laying the groundwork for 2016 for us.
The last time I saw you was at the Silver Dollar in El Monte with Livin Alive and Tyranis, and you mentioned on stage that night too about having people from different states. How did that come about in the first place?
Aaron Howell’s band MF Ruckus used to play with my old band The Hookers every time we would go through Denver. So, I got to know him really well and I was always very impressed by his voice every time we played with them. He’s got a great voice, and I always thought, man … his voice would be perfect for a heavy metal band. At the end of my time with The Hookers I decided to move out to California and I wanted to start a metal band, because I had never done just a straight-up metal band. It has always been something else. I’d never been the primary songwriter and I’d never really run a band. So, I had this concept where I was just going to do a record with a bunch of different singers I knew, people that I respected, and I was just going to write songs specifically for them. Aaron was the first person I contacted, I sent him some material and he liked it, and he asked me whether I could write some more material, and I said, absolutely. Then he asked me to write a record. Once we recorded the record, we were sitting and listening to it in my car one day, and he was like, we should do a real band. So I recruited some local guys and put together a live lineup, we did some shows around our first release and got picked up by Funeral Noise. That’s pretty much it. It was one of those things where he was a talented guy and it just started off as messing around, and then we both liked it so much that we decided to do something with it. Since then I’ve put so much of my own time, energy and money into it, and I’m at a point where I’m going to do this until it puts me in the grave, but in the meantime I’m just going to keep on pushing it.
Obviously now, with MF Ruckus being a very busy touring band, you’ve had to make a move for the betterment of Monolith. Tell me about that.
With Aaron, it was a situation where, when we started Monolith, his primary band MF Ruckus wasn’t entirely all that active, so he kind of had more time to do this, but they started picking up a lot of speed and really getting their popularity going up in the last year. He was unavailable for a lot of stuff and we had to turn down a lot of shows that we really wanted to do. It started becoming an issue, so before it ruined a friendship, I decided to look for someone else that was local, to where we wouldn’t have to fly someone in for every show. We found a guy, we auditioned him and it was great, and that was pretty much it. There was a handshake between me and Aaron, he’s focused on Ruckus and I’m focused on Monolith, we did some shows together. If boyfriend-girlfriend relationships ended that well, there would be no problems in the world. It was so smooth. That’s how it should be.
That’s awesome, man. So, what do you have planned with the new lineup and when will you be ready to do shows?
Well, the rate at which we’re going, I think we’ll probably be show-ready by the end of November, but honestly I think we’re going to hold out until we find a really good show to come back with. For around New Years 2016 we’re looking at some shows in and around San Diego, and looks like in February we’re going to be up in the Bay. We’re working on a trip to Mexico. We’re trying to get as much rolling from all the stuff that we had to say No to, just contacting all of those people again. People seem pretty excited about it. I’m used to being the only person who really cares about my band, and it’s kind of an interesting thing to think that, wow, someone else actually gives a shit about what I’m doing and want to work with me (laughs). So, it’s going to be a good time.
You were saying off-air before the interview that for you it’s more about the raw energy in the live show and the expression of the music itself rather than any visual gimmicks. Has that always been what you like to see in other bands too?
To me, there’s a really fine line in everything you do, whether you put on a big stage show or you just focus on being the most technically proficient band of the night. There’s something to be said about keeping it tasteful. So, if you have a look, have a look. It doesn’t have to be your focus. If you’re writing technical music, write technical music but make it something that people can still get into. I’ve always paid really close attention to detail as far as keeping this really authentic to the period I got into music. We’re careful with the tones we use with the guitars, not too much distortion, so it’s all really clean, so it’s about what we’re playing and not how it sounds. This might sound pretty grandiose, but the power comes from how we put it together and not how we present it. It’s a natural kind of energy that you get from music like that. I’ve always really enjoyed being in bands like that and seeing bands like that. So, when we play live, we might not have as smoke machine or flashing lights, but we’re going to jump up on top of the bar and climb around like monkeys, trying to be the most energetic band out there and just create a sense of excitement. That’s what shows are supposed to be about.
In this style, what are some of the bands that have inspired you?
I look at the first four Judas Priest records as my personal bible. I swear by those things. And of course, Iron Maiden, Tank, and to a lesser extent, Witchfinder General or even Pentagram, Slayer and early Metallica. You name everything that was metal from 1975 to 1985, that’s what really developed me as a player and a musician. Just that entire period of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal to the beginning of speed metal into death metal, it’s just like a sweet spot for me. I love so many bands for so many different reasons. I love Slayer for the drumming, early Metallica for the structuring, Iron Maiden for the guitar work, Priest because of Halford. There’s different reasons why certain bands strike a nerve with me.
You’re playing something that’s more akin to the ’80s era of metal. But when people see you and compare you to that era, is that something you’re going for, or would you rather not be compared to those bands?
You know, a lot of the reviews we get, both for the first record and the first LP, they tend to say that we’re not reinventing the wheel, it’s not anything you haven’t heard before, and honestly, to me that’s kind of a compliment, because that’s the point. The best way I can explain it is, for me, songwriting is like making a cheeseburger. You can be adventurous and put stuff on a burger that no one has ever seen before, and the most adventurous people will go out and try it. Some people like it and some won’t. But for me it’s all about taking the original recipe and just making it as good as possible, because it’s comfortable and it’s fun. You don’t have to think too hard about it. The music just grabs you and then you can go along with it. All this stuff was written because I wanted something new to listen to in my car. I made driving music for myself and then made it into a band. Getting back to the cheeseburger analogy, you can make an adventurous burger and not many people will buy it, but you can make a classic burger and a bunch of people are going to buy it. But no matter what you do, McDonald’s is always going to outsell you. So, no matter how hard you push, there’s going to be some crappy, processed pop stuff that’s always going to be more popular and you just have to be OK with that. But most importantly, you have to make a hamburger that you’re OK eating for the rest of your life if you want to do this for real, because you have to play those songs every night. That’s what it is for me. I’m making something that I’m OK with doing every night, something that I’m going to enjoy every single time. If other people enjoy it, all the better, but mostly it’s a very self-indulgent project that I’m doing.
That’s a very good analogy. I’m, for one, a huge supporter to new bands, probably more than a lot of people in the media. When I listen to new bands, I don’t really like to compare it to older stuff. Sometimes I have to do it just to give people who haven’t heard it an idea what it sounds like. May be that’s what’s lacking. People don’t treat new bands as new bands, specially the new bands that are playing old-school metal.
The type of metal we play, you’re either a band that’s been around for 40 years or people are kind of looking at you cross-eyed and saying, why are you even doing that? It’s already been done. But I come from a punk rock and rock ‘n roll background. You go and see a punk band and a rock ‘n roll band, you’re not going to see anything new. You’re going to see the same thing every night. It’s all about how they present it to you, and I have the same approach about metal. It’s not about trying to blow your mind, it’s about making you tap your foot. As far as the whole new band thing goes, there’s only a handful of bands that really go after the style that we’re going after. For whatever reason, it’s hard to find male vocalists, believe me. It’s really hard to find a good male vocalist that wants to do metal, and finding the right people is not easy. So, there’s a very limited number of bands that are doing this, and the ones that are doing it are doing a really good job of it. There’s this vacuum that’s forming because all of the original bands are either retiring, or unfortunately dying off. This music needs to stay alive. There’s something different about this kind of metal. It appeals to everybody. People that don’t even like metal get into it because it’s catchy. There’s a lot of metal nowadays which is not about being catchy, it’s about being brutal. Brutal metal is great and I’m into it, but I want something that gets stuck in my head. With the new bands, it’s all just a matter of how the scenes shift and preferences change. What’s hot this year is not going to be hot next year and eventually, this type of music is going to catch on again and all those bands are going to have some level of success. Then the next year it’s going to be god knows what. It’s all about doing what you love to do and not expecting anything out of it but hoping you get something. If you go at this expecting to be professional and make money, you’re going to give up in 2 or 3 years because it just doesn’t work like that. But if you got at it because you love it and you’re going to do it no matter what, then it comes through in your music and that’s what people latch onto. So, I hear that in a lot of new bands and it’s really exciting.
On that note, what are some newer bands you’re into, without any bias towards anyone you know personally?
(Laughs) Well, the thing is, most bands I listen to are things that people I know or friends of mine are doing. Sometimes I get introduced to something I haven’t heard through someone, like I love Graveyard. Those guys are great. There are a lot of good bands in North County San Diego. There is a huge metal scene in that area, and it’s kind of absurd because it’s all classic metal and psychedelic metal. Red Wizard is incredible, The Great Electric Quest is doing a fantastic job every time they play, and then you’ve got Hammered up there which is basically like Slayer. It’s a tightly knit community and they’re all great. Here you’ve got Livin Alive and Warchief, and of course Night Demon. Even though it sounds biased. I like them. They’re good! They’re just a solid, solid band. My buddies in Savage Master are a lot of fun to listen to. So yeah, I can go on all day and it’s going to be a combination of bands that I’m really into and my friends’ bands. But it’s exciting to see a little community starting to form, and getting nationwide support through these networks of bands. Everyone can help everyone else out, and that’s the way it has to be now. Nobody can be the star. Rock ‘n roll is where it’s at and it takes teamwork to do anything. A lot of the guys that are out there understand that. The bands work together and not against each other, and it’s an amazing thing.
You were talking about how there’s certain phases for some styles of music. There’s obviously a resurgence of stoner doom, stoner rock or whatever you want to call it. What do you think about that? Does Monolith fit into that and can you do shows with those bands?
Basically, about five years ago, that Pentagram documentary came out on Netflix and it was like someone threw water on a bunch of gremlins. Next thing you know, there’s hundreds of psych metal bands everywhere. It’s really cool that it sparked that kind of interest in music. It’s just like anything else. There’s bands that do a good job of it, and bands that don’t. But it’s nice to see something akin to metal getting any kind of popularity because it helps everybody out. We have a song or two that’s borderline stoner metal and we can throw it in the set, and for five minutes we’d just be like those bands. But the nicest thing about it is we’ve really had a lot of good luck. We’re played with punk bands, metal bands, rock ‘n roll bands, and for whatever reason, we managed to strike a chord when those people would hear us. So we generally go pretty well with any kind of audience. We’ve only played a handful of strictly metal shows, and usually it’s something else. Like ee did that tour with Voyage Of Slaves and it was nothing but metal bands, and it went well. But even then, when we play with the hard metal bands we feel like we’re the sissies on stage because we’re not bringing it that hard. And when we play with the punk and rock ‘n roll bands, I’m thinking we’re going to be too much for those people. But we always manage to find some middle ground with the audience and connect with them on some level. So, it’s gone really well, which is surprising because I’m not really used to people liking my music (laughs). So yeah, we do well with the psych metal bands because that’s all there is to play with in San Diego. They love us and we love them and it’s a good time. It’s all about the energy. As long as all the band are bringing a similar energy, the show is going to be good. It doesn’t matter what the music is, as long as its not reggae or ska.
That also reminds me of something that Olof Wikstrand from Enforcer posted recently on his facebook that got shared quite a lot. According to his observations, people who copy the ’70s music are not branded as copycats, but the ’80s-inspired bands, like, Enforcer, are. I can agree with that because for whatever reason, that’s the case. What do you think?
The thing is, the psych metal bands from the ’70s all sound kind of similar. Obviously there’s going to be differences. Like, if you listen to Pentagram and Black Sabbath you can tell that they’re different bands but if you listen to them structurally and if you listen to their chord progressions, just their phrasing and the way they play their solos, it’s all similar. So, it’s less about these individual bands and more about an entire sound that a bunch of different bands had, that, in my opinion, started with Black Sabbath, and to a lesser extent Deep Purple. But Deep Purple also started the first wave of what became the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. With that style, you have bands that don’t sound alike. Like, Judas Priest doesn’t sound like Iron Maiden. It’s apples and oranges. They’re both really active guitar bands and they both have powerful male vocalists, but they’re absolutely not the same. All those bands are so unique in their specific sound, and that’s why when you hear a band that sounds like a band from the ’80s, you hear something specific, like an Iron Maiden riff or a Judas Priest part or a Metallica ripoff, and not like, oh, that sounds like stoner metal. That’s why it happens more often then not, and the trick is (laughs), to rip off so many things at once that no one can tell who you ripped off. I can listen to a Monolith song and tell you second by second what I’m ripping off, because I rip everything. That’s what writing music is. It’s about emulating your heroes. For the most part, we get described as generic, and people say, “They’re not all that original but they’re good”, and that’s fine with me. I would rather someone listen to us and feel like we sound familiar, than not. That’s what I go for.
It’s like you either rip everything off or you rip some obscure stuff that nobody knows about, something that inspires you as much as the music of bands that everyone knows.
You’re always going to be ripping something off. If you’re not ripping something off, you’re not making music, honestly. It goes back to all the classical music. Any kind of music that we have a historical record of, it hasn’t changed in centuries. The progressions that Bach, Beethoven and Mozart were using, they are still present in pop music and all over the place. It’s still the same patterns, it’s just a different presentation of it. So, unless you’re just putting together notes that don’t go together because it sounds like the beginning of the Van Halen song where all the car horns are going off, you can call it art but no one wants to listen to that for 30 minutes. For the most part, everybody is ripping off somebody and it’s a matter of being honest with yourself about it, and embracing it or trying to be above it. But I laugh at the bands that think they’re really doing something no one has ever done. No, you’re still repeating somebody.
I have just one more question for you. You said it’s hard to find good male vocalists singing the type of old-school metal you play, but do you think it’s easier to go with a vocalist/guitarist or vocalist/bassist, and would you ever go with that for Monolith, if needed?
I want Monolith to have a frontperson, somebody that’s not going to be anchored down by an instrument, that can move around and be really expressive, and be the fifth instrument of the band, not just in the vocal performance but in the stage performance too. So, if we ever found ourselves in a situation where the other guitar player couldn’t do the show, our new guy can play guitar. But it would never be a regular thing. I like having two guitar players on either side of a singer, and whoever’s moment it is, he’s taking center stage. That’s part of the whole package of a solid big epic heavy metal band, to have that lone gunman of a frontman that can just be his own entity. That’s the difference between us and a lot of other bands. We go for the full package and we try to give you the full experience live. Ultimately it’s us getting up on stage and jerking off for 30 minutes acting like 5-year olds watching MTV, jumping on their beds and trying to mimic their favorite rockstars. It’s fun, we believe in what we’re doing, and it translates. People can feel the energy that we have for our own music, and that’s contagious. So yeah, I prefer a frontman, unless it’s a power trio, because that’s cool, and it’s like, hey, look what we can do with almost nothing. But we have a lot of moving parts, and our music is not complex but it’s complicated enough to where it’s nice to have the full spread up front. As far as male vocalists, it’s not like it’s any easier to find female vocalists. That’s a needle in a haystack. Savage Master managed to do it, I don’t know how. But just finding anyone that wants to sing, push their voice and get up in those high ranges and really be a face-melter, that’s a style that hasn’t been popular in decades and nobody really cares to do it. So, when you find someone who really wants to do it, it’s an amazing connection you get with those people. Like I said, it’s the fifth instrument in the band. There are bands that just do yelling, screaming or grunting, and that works too. It has its own particular power to it, but if you want to be really acrobatic sonically, it helps to have a strong vocalist. I’ve always wanted to do it, but where I come from, nobody sings, and finding people even out here is tough. But I’ve always wanted to do a band that has the focus on the vocals, because it’s never been that way. And now that I can do it, it’s like I got a brand new toy at Christmas and I just want to play with it all the time.
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