Band Interview: Jon Harvey (Bass/Vocals) of Monster Truck

Ahead of their raucous show in London as part of their current UK tour with Those Damn Crows, we spoke to bassist and vocalist, Jon Harvey of hard rockers, Monster Truck. You can read our review of the London show here and a review of their new album, Warriors here.

What follows is a select transcript of the interview. The full thing can be heard via Soundcloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

Well, first things first, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. It’s awesome to speak with you, especially when we’re knee deep into this current tour. Tell me, what does a Monster Truck day look like when on tour?

It’s pretty chill for me. I try not to stress myself. I find that the more stressed you are, the worse your voice is. So I try to stay low key and relax. A lot of touring for me is trying to relax and keep my voice in good shape for the show.

Do you get any opportunities to get out an about? I know you’re literally city to city to city at the moment.

Yeah, we try to do touristy stuff as much as possible in the afternoon here and there, but it’s pretty chill. The day is usually just trying to find somewhere good to eat.

Well, how’s the tour been so far? Any particular show so far in this run that stands out?

They’ve all been really good. KKs in Wolverhampton was great but nothing’s really standing out because every night it’s been surprising. It’s been weird. Like Cambridge last night was a Monday and it was great. I think it was like I don’t even know what the final counter is. Over 600 people on on like, a Monday. We’d never get that. So it’s been pretty great. Overall, it’s been surprising to me every day, so I’m quite grateful to be able to just get to do this. As a guy from Canada, come over here and headline these rooms. It’s pretty awesome.

You ever been to this venue before? It’s quite unique environment.

Never been to this one. No. It’s pretty neat. Yeah. It seems more like a theatre kind of mine. I like it.

Any expectations for London tonight. What you want from the crowd?

Not really. I mean, I just want everyone to have a good time, like always. I mean, we go into the crowd or go into every show the same, which is the desire to put on a good rock and roll show, have a few laughs, have a few smiles, and then go home and have a good night’s sleep.

The dust isn’t even close to settling on the new album, it’s not been out long enough for that. But so far, how have you found the reaction to it?

It feels pretty good. Yeah. I think everyone seems to like it. A bunch of my friends have hit me up, so they like it. So it’s good. I’m happy that it’s out, and everything seems to be going in the right direction, so it feels good.

Going back to the early days of its inception. Did you have a vision of what you specifically wanted to do with it, the direction you wanted to go in, and did the final product match what you initially set out to do?

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, we wanted to sound like we did on our first two releases. We wanted to have more of a sound that reflected who we were at that time of writing those songs. I think we were feeling very nostalgic about our beginning or early days. We thought, for this record, let’s just do as many songs as we can where we just bang it out and it feel like they used to. So that was the goal. The goal was to basically use our own nostalgia as inspiration.

Considering the state of the world and how things are, were there things that happened along the way that dictated the direction for better or worse, or were you able to kind of control exactly what you wanted to do?

I think we have a pretty good vision of what we want every time we start, and we usually achieve close to it. You’ll never fully get what you picture in your mind, but I think we got pretty close this time.

What about pressure? Considering you’re talking about a nostalgic look, from your own perspective, did you feel any pressure to kind of live up to the Monster Truck mantra of ‘good times’?

Not really, but, I mean, I don’t think we ever feel pressure because I feel like we’re trying to be ourselves all the time. So it’s pretty interesting when that kind of stuff comes up, when people are like, do you feel any pressure? It’s like, not really. I mean, yeah, we felt like we needed to go back to where we was. I think we felt more pressure from ourselves than anyone else. Fans were like, oh, yes. Go back to sound like you used to.

Well, what should we do for us? And we were like, well, let’s write the songs that we want to do, and not try to gain fans. I feel like now we’ve got it focused, like concentrated and distilled.

Has it always been easy to stay in a positive mindset that is almost required when it comes to making Monster Truck music?

I think that’s definitely always what we try to do. I mean, our whole vibe is we’re apolitical, we’re non-religious, we don’t believe that anyone should have to go look to their entertainment for their belief system. It’s ridiculous.

I think that the key to the whole thing for us has always been that we just want to have a good time. We’re out there trying to do the same thing that people are coming to the shows to do. We just want to have fun with it and a group full of people. So I think that honesty kind of shines through a lot and that’s pretty much what it is.

We want a party, we want people to feel uplifted and get out of their house and things. So it’s a very interesting way to approach a record because there’s no brakes. But it was good and it ended up working out, I think.

If you put your finger on exactly where your popularity comes from across the world, do you think it’s that attitude that that’s what really connects people to you?

It’s got to be part of it. I think that a lot of people identify with the idea of using music as an escape, and I feel like that should be the case. I don’t want to think about world politics that much. Maybe when I was 16, like those rage lyrics and things like that, but even then I didn’t know anything about the Mexican Revolution. Yeah, I’m listening to all these lyrics and it still didn’t translate, even though you’re singing along to these songs. But it was an interesting vibe and I never attached myself to the politics of any of those kind of bands because it’s just not what it was about for me. So I kind of take that into this. When we try to do something, I’m not trying to sway anybody or ask anybody to do anything. You just want to have a good time.

You’re fast approaching your 15th anniversary, if you can believe that. For you, what’s your favourite thing about doing Monster Truck these days?

I get to do it. In fact, I get to be creative for a career and I get to do what I was made to do, so it’s awesome. It’s great to think about, it’s great to actually be able to travel. We’re here in the UK, we’re doing a twelve day UK tour. No North American band usually does that and we’re not doing huge rooms, but even at that point, like, a North American band will come over here, do four shows and go. We come over here and do twelve. We feel blessed, the fact that people are coming to these shows and we can do that many in the UK, that’s amazing.

It’s spooky season. It’s October. What is a perfect Halloween night for Monster Truck?

Oh, I love Halloween. It’s like, my favourite. We started decorating September 1st! My partner, who’s actually here, we always we have a little problem with Halloween. I’m playing a show with my other band Vicious Beast. we’re playing a show on a front porch in this kind of farm town. We’re doing like a trick or treat show. Cool. We’ll just do that and have a bunch of fun. I’m dressing up like the Crimson Ghost from the Misfits this year. I love it, Halloween’s the best.