Band Interview: Standing Crew

Games, Brrraaains & A Head-Banging Life bring you an interview with Michael Monteao of hard rock band, Standing Crew.

1. How did you get started as a band?

Well Jay, TJ and Michael had a band before Standing Crew, called Dokumentia. Michael got so busy at his work in a major project so he just couldn´t find time for the band, so one night Jay and TJ was at the rehearsal doing some new songs and noticed that they sounded much more of hard rock than punk. Then they started thinking of setting up a new band for their new music and invited fellow musicians to come and play with them. There was a lot of friends playing in the beginning, but slowly they kind of dropped out. Actually there was 3 different drummers, but when the band first live gig was booked it turned out, that none of the drummers had enough time to rehearsal enough to get a show done. At that time Michael had got his work project at a good state, so they asked him to join this new band as a drummer, and he did. Later on after a few line up changes they were missing a guitar player and as they were doing a music video for Dokumentias 20th anniversary, with the Circle doing the video shoot, they asked, brided and blackmailed him to come and play the guitar in Standing Crew. He declined but said that he could come and play the drums. So Michael was brided with a few sausages to leave the drums alone and pick up the guitar. Later on after a few songs and music videos Alf MacClaren our singer got in to too much of personal projects that he just couldn´t find time to be in the band and so he decided to step a side. Then the band almost shut down but luckily at a summerfest gig, where TJ and Michael did the singing, we found a new singer Mr Fire, who had a solid history in many bands, although he had been retired for almost a decade. With him we recorded our newest single Burn in hell (like me) and let´s see if the rest is history.

2. How would you describe your sound?

There is a lot of influences from the hard rock in the 80´s and 90´s but still we have a modern hard rock approach to our sound. We’re not trying to sound like the bands we love but the influences are there of course. The thing is that we have noticed that a lot of our fans have been listening to those same bands that we like too. Old and young people alike. The best thing to find an answer to this is to go and listen to our music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maqrbQcy9-M

3. What bands/artists would you say have influenced your style of music?

The list of bands would probably go on and on, but here is a small list of them that first came to our minds. Hanoi Rocks, Billy Idol, Mötley Crue, Motörhead, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and a shit load of other rock bands, old and new.

4. Has the rise of YouTube & music streaming helped or hindered you as a band?

It has probably helped us to spread the word about our band and get more listeners all around the globe. Earlier before the internet it was much harder and slower to get the word out. You had to have a record company or someone to publish your music, do the promotion and everything to get heard. There are a lot of people that would probably never hear about us if it wasn’t these streaming services, YouTube and social media.

5. What do you enjoy doing when you’re not making music?

The Circle likes to work on his motorcycles and even ride them when they’re not in parts.

Mr Fire spends his time in his log castle somewhere out in the wilderness. Recently he has been doing a lot of music there too.

Michael likes to watch a lot of movies and TV shows, mainly Sci-fi and other fictional stuff.

Jay is always on other bands’ shows doing sound engineering and other roadcrew things.

TJ likes to build model kits of aeroplanes, big warships and he got a huge miniature railway landscape, about 10 square meters big. Then he trains his pet lamb (no, it sure isn´t a lamb of god, it´s a nasty one).

What are your future plans musically? Tours?

We are recording new music for a couple of singles and later on for a full-length album. There are some gigs agreed for the summer and when we get the album done there is hopefully going to be a tour. Probably in southern Europe and maybe other places too. Let´s see what kind of plans our record company has for us.

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