Mark: I think you’re absolutely right. You’re producing a lot of music now, at a pretty rapid rate, and we’re expecting a lot more as well, is there any big project that you’ve always wanted to do, that you feel you’re not in the right place to do at the moment, or something that you’re saving for the future? Any big, unfulfilled musical ambitions?
Dave: Yeah, a couple of things. I’d really like to do something live in the studio with a lot of musicians, meaning not a lot of over dubbing, a lot of pre-production work, but like a big room with not only rock instruments, but orchestral, and record it as well as a studio recording, but all played live, that’s something I’d really like to do. It takes a lot of time and over dubs to get the sounds I want to get sometimes, if I could get all these people on the floor, I could just write this stuff and then conduct it, that would be great, and if it worked, I could take it out on the road, a psychedelic orchestra, that would be insane!! The other thing is I’d like to record a really mellow album with pretty music on it, that doesn’t say Monster Magnet on it, so no one gets pissed off! Call it something else, and I keep threatening to do that but all the mellow stuff keeps showing up on the Monster Magnet records!! I think maybe I’ll take a turn and work with a piano player, and create songs from the piano!! It will definitely say this is not Monster Magnet! The other thing I’d like to do is work with a really good girl singer, write some songs for a girl singer, they sing so well, it’s a whole different thing!
Mark: I can imagine all those things working!
Dave: I’m winding them up now, taking care of business, I’m taking care of content and working on stuff to be released while I’m working on other things, and it’s all a matter of getting ahead of the eight ball!
Mark; it’s great you’re out there doing all this stuff and trying other things, because no one knows what’s going on with the industry at the minute!
Dave: I know. I gave up on the industry; I gave up on those guys, actually knowing what they are doing. The only thing I trust anymore is doing cool stuff and putting it out there, and not expecting much, but hoping it survives, and that’s one good thing about the internet. If it’s good it’ll find its way, it may not find its way like a big box office movie premiere, and that’s what the record industry still doesn’t understand, that all these big release days only means something to a small amount of people! Bless their hearts! But, to the real world, the best thing is to find it yourself, because it means more. I’d rather be found whole heartedly, by a smaller group of people, and appreciated like that, than to be somehow hyped in to someone’s attention. I’ve learnt through some bitter tears, that trying to ram something down people’s throats, just doesn’t work!
Mark: No, and it’s an awful position for musicians to be in these days, because it seems like most of your livelihood has been ripped away!
Dave: It totally sucks!! There’s no way to help pay for what you do, you don’t get paid for what you do, it’s totally free!! Fuck you, that’s what that says!! Free is great, and appreciated, but it is never respected! Nobody respects free things, and that’s a huge blow to artist’s egos, and I would expect less and less cool stuff for a while, because why should they bother? Life is tough enough, and sometime twenty years from now, it’ll get really, really good, because people’s expectations will all fall away, and hopefully true artists will rise up, that’s the way I see it anyway!
Mark: It’s good that you’ve got such a positive take because for a lot of people out there, it’s hard to see a way back.
Dave: It’s a bummer! There’s a way back, but it’s not going to lead you back to where you think you’re going to be lead to.
Mark: My fear is that the way back is all going to be technology based, it’s going to be about tracking files, and better encoding and things like that, and the problem is that’s going to be owned by someone, and that’s where I see the big labels and the big players stepping in again.
Dave: I don’t know if that’s going to work, even if these guys make the big push, and say we own everything now, you’re going to have to pay for it again, I think that’s over, I think it will be a huge disaster. I don’t think people are going to care; they’ve got enough out there for free to deal with them. Obviously for the mass audience it’s not a matter of quality, I mean the stuff that passes for Rock, come on you got to be kidding me!!! If those guys do that, I think it will pertain to the top artists only, and not the ones below there. It already happened with the whole “pop” thing, they tried to control all their stuff, the Taylor Swift thing, all those guys can do what they want to do, the rest of us though, and the people who are skirting in and out of obscurity, who are doing their art mainly because they love it, but they want to make money too, their bad guy people are going to be things like Spotify, who famously don’t pay, say that they pay, but don’t!
Mark: Anyway, Dave we’ll have to leave it there. Did you want to leave any message for your fans down under?
Dave: Just last year was so fucking awesome, I love coming to Australia so much, I really do, and you guys have a whole thing going on down there that we don’t have here. Looking at the radio, what’s going on down there, you mother fuckers should fight for your right to party!! Because people are trying to take over some shit down there, there’s some badness going on with the music industry, you smell it right?? It’s not good!! And for a country that’s responsible for some great rock and roll music, it’s like don’t give up!!
Mark: We won’t!! Thanks, Dave, it’s always a pleasure to speak to you, and we hope to see you back down here again soon. Take care, mate.
Dave: You too, brother, bye.
Dave spoke to Mark Diggins in November 2014 |