July 15, 2025 • 25 mins
#163. Scott "Monty" Munro of Canadian post-punk band Preoccupations talks with Ron about the band's democratic DIY spirit, their Black Sabbath cover band, and their near-name change to Santa Claus Orchestra.Sponsored by DistroKid. Get 30% off your membership at distrokid.com/vip/independentmindedSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're the one that should be worried.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
You're a freak.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're reading for Big Trouble.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Dear distro Kid, you know it's been a whole year
now being together. So instead of a fancy ad with
upbeat music, cartoon voices and sound effects, I thought I'd
take a moment to peel back the curtain and show
you the real Mead, show you the real me. O me,
o me. I've never met anyone like you before. Usually
(00:34):
when I meet someone new, I feel awkward and shy,
but with you, it's different. I can talk to you.
You know what I'm thinking without my having to explain
it to you in fancy terms. Distro Kid, I love you.
I love you. Thank you distro kid for being the
title sponsor of Independent Minded for the past year. And
(00:58):
if you love the idea of thirty percent off your membership,
go to DistroKid dot com slash vip slash independent Minded.
If you're an indie music maker like me, distro kid
is the place to go for the easiest and sexiest
ways to handle your digital distro. I love It's a
(01:35):
hot summer Friday in Nashville and I'm deep in the
weeds at the edit bay. The AC's pumping Brando, the
puppies snoozing on the couch. I should probably grind a
wait till dark, crack a beer, and put on the ballgame.
But there's a whole world out there, and I'm waiting
for the sirens call hello, it's them.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah, I'll be right there.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
No one's ever called me mister spontaneous, but I've just
gotten the green light to hang with the band. I've
long admired at a place I've never been in the
Blue Room. This is Jack White's place, right next door
to Third Man Records. Getting to see a show here
naturally sweetens the pot. I've got my powder blue shorts on,
(02:32):
my blue backpack, my blue wristband. I hope it's blue
in there. Chris, the tour manager, meets me out front,
and it's definitely blue in here. When the band am
I interviewing again, they're probably thumb wrestling over it right now.
This is part of the Juice Walking into the Great
Unknown one hundred and sixty something episodes, and it's still
(02:54):
flowing lifeline to civilization and escape from my cave time
away from the screen, So what if it was last minute?
I'm inside Jack White's Club. I'm heading backstage to talk
to some cats I admire. I'm gonna see live music
when it's over. I might even have a whiskey a lie.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
It's alive.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
So who will it be, Matt Danny? I'm ready for
all of them, Mike the Drummer.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
My birth name is Scott Monroe, but everyone's called me
Monty since I was about eighteen, to the point that, like,
my sister actually married a guy named Scott, and so
my family all calls me Monty too. She's not married
to Scott anymore, but she but my family still calls
me Monty.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Okay, so your name is Scott, what call you Monty?
And I should call you Monty not Scott because your
sister married Scott. But she's not married to Scott anymore.
But even though she isn't, You're still not Scott. You're Monty.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Got it? Is that the only reason in Calgary, especially
in the music scene, I find everybody just calls each
other by their last names, mostly like hockey name style
and then but.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Your last name is Monroe.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, I know, kind of like went from there somehow.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Witness the Beauty of Gorilla podcasting. You never know what
you're gonna get or who, and not just the person
or persons, but also these people in this moment. Maybe
there were problems during soundcheck. Maybe the last show was
a blast, Maybe the drive from Illinois was a drag.
Whatever the circumstances, I've never been let down. Sure, maybe
(04:29):
Black Joe Lewis made me wait for an hour while
he went to go eat oysters, but even that was
worth the wait. Scott Monty Monroe is no exception. He's
a gentleman. He gives me all the time I want
and all the answers I need. He's funny and relaxed,
a candid Canadian settling in. I break the ice by
pointing out my preoccupation's T shirt, gifted by an NPR
(04:52):
coworker back in twenty nineteen, Sergio Romano was able to
see you guys in DC on a night that I
guess I was unable to go, and he bought me
this shirt that I'm wearing today.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
And interesting, I have to say that this is.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Probably I've done one hundred and sixty of these. This
is probably the first time I've ever worn a band
shirt while interviewing someone in said band. So okay, congratulations.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, well thanks, yeah, the or it's a it's a pleasure.
I don't know if thanks is the right word there.
Mostly that is don't. I literally don't remember this shirt.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
You said you didn't, so maybe it's a bootleg. He
bought it outside the venue for ten dollars.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Honestly, I hope so that would be amazing.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Monty and I talk about Preoccupations, DIY Spirit, their Black
Sabbath cover band, and why they consider changing their name
to Santa Claus Orchestra. Let's kick things off with focus
from the new Preoccupations album, ill At Ease, then more
Blue Backstage Madness with Monty right here on Independent Minded
(05:53):
Run Daldo Mazing Podcast, Run Daldos Podcast. The people make
God Music, plugging their projects, making the famous helpings amount
of my mature to talk about all.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
The ship that they do.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
There's about for panic.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
As long as we're all along frequency, we can of
Brady to look at me yourself, not Stiner, your present
messhun to cho fan and run too up there so
we can back of Runday from.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
The best.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Shame thousands.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Who are dished job.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
My name is Scott Monroe. Most of my friends call
me Monty for quite a few years now, since I
was around eighteen. I'm from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, but I
live in Montreal now for the last few years, and
I play guitar and keyboards and sing backup vocals and preoccupations,
as well as as producing and recording the records at
my studio in Montreal.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Even though scottman Roe grew up on a farm in
Calgary and I grew up in the concrete jungle of Brooklyn,
we both dipped into music making in our teens, mainly
influenced by one particular genre.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
I was a metalhead till I was like twenty three
or something, so I was like listening to like Sepultura
and like it was the nineties, so like Tool even
or like I loved all those kind of bands. Pantera.
I listened to lots of Pantera. Yeah, the Locust Actually,
the Locust, I feel like was the first band where
I was like, I remember like getting that Safety second
Body last Ep. I just found it at a record
(08:36):
store and it just had that like the image of
it on the cover. I was just like, what on
earth is this? And then like back in the early
two thousands, when you just like go to a record
store and like rifle through the CDs and just like
buy something based like spend like twenty bucks on something,
just based on what the cover art was. I know
it was. It was glorious. So I remember like buying Safety,
Second Body Last by the Locus, just like seeing that
(08:57):
weird drawing on the cover and just being like what
is this record and then putting it in and just
having my mind blowing back.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Six or seven years after Monty's Metal Fetish, he would
meet Preoccupation singer and bassist Matt Flagel.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
I'd worked as a session musician. That was what I
did for a job through my twenties. It was like
played on country records, mostly in Calgary, and like folk
records and stuff like that. So me and Matt in
the early days of the band were just like recording
demos in our basement. We both played in the band
of this guy Chad van Galen, who's this kind of
like Neil Young sounding kind of psychedelic guy on subpop,
(10:02):
and when we were on tour with him, we were like, oh,
when we get back to Canada, we should start a band.
We were in Germany. I remember.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
My own.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Son and for time, the son of Toil and Greg
came so so drummer Mike Wallace had played with and
(11:00):
Calgary indie rock band Women. Guitarist and keyboardist Danny Christiansen
was recruited via a Black Sabbath cover band that all
four cats had been moonlighting in.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Me and Danny playing guitar, Matt playing bass. And then
it was our friend Evan Peck who's a forest firefighter
in BC did Ozzy. Then there's been probably three different
Aussi's in the Black Sabbath cover band, this girl Marie
and our buddy Ryan Sadler, and there was another one
I can't remember. Yeah, although I feel like Evan's the
Aussy now if we do it again, he would be
our choice again.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Have you ever busted out sweetly for a Sabbath Bloody
Sabbath cover as Preoccupations?
Speaker 1 (11:37):
No, we did on a couple tours. We opened the
set with the intro to Wheels of Confusion.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
And so the flames of stoner metal would forge a
four piece then known as Viet Kung.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
It was the twenty tens too, when the like lo Fi,
like all those like captured tracks and like old English
spelling Bee and like those first Woodsist records, a lot
of like Brooklyn stuff. There was like lots of bands
where it was just like oh, they just like recorded
it live to boombox or like whatever, and it was
like kind of psychedelic music. And so I feel like
it was a good time where like me and my
good friend Chris Dad, who runs a great recording studio
(12:18):
in Calgary, just both had cassette four tracks and we're
just trying to make like psychedelic rock on them. And
then when me and Matt got together, that's kind of
what we were doing too.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
You know.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
It was like if you don't have the technology to
make it sound really good, then at least you could
like make it sound really interesting.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
No. Self sufficiency has been a consistent ingredient in the
band's formula from these early days forward, as has their
(13:19):
democratic commitment to tinkering.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Everything's pretty fragmented in the studio. Like me and Matt
will be in there and we'll like say program some
drum machine and we'll have like a couple of riffs,
you know, or maybe Danny'll have a riff and we'll
like just record the riff, you know. Just it's just
like one riff and maybe a drum machine beat, or
maybe maybe I like recorded a sound on my phone
that I'm like, oh, this is kind of a cool sound.
And then I've like got this one weird sample loop
(13:41):
from this sound mixed with a drum machine or whatever,
you know, and then we're just like messing around with
that for a while. We're always kind of like questing
for something that will become a song. But like I
feel like a lot of the times at the beginning,
there's not like a song necessarily. It's just like a
couple sounds and maybe like one part on.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Stage, Monty and Danny double up on guitar, and since
they both sing backup, being multifaceted provides an advantage when
it comes to recreating the album's noise rock vibes inside
the clubs.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I asked for a drum set my mom. She wanted
me to play the trombone. She said, if I played
trombone in the school band for a year, then they'd
buy me a drum set. I did.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
I played trombone in the school band, Oh you did.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
I actually got quite good at the trombone. I won
the Kowanas Music Festival one year and for best brass performance.
I actually I played trombone on Ya Kung record on
March of Progress. There's like that little break in the middle,
and that's me playing troumbone fads. And by the end
(14:50):
of the year of Troumbone in the band, I decided
that I actually wanted to play bass guitar, and so
my parents bought me a bass guitar. And then I
played bass in every band that i'd play until I
was almost thirty. When me and Matt started this band.
Then we were just like recording. We were just like
handing the guitar back and forth like which we still do. Basically,
it's like you get a couple takes at the part
(15:11):
and then somebody eventually is like, all right, give me
the guitar. I think I can play this.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
But that's very beatlesque.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
I mean, yes, it's like no worries about like who
eventually does it. It's more like some like friendly competition
about like someone's gonna do it.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Viet Cong self titled debut LP gets a lot of
buzz and critical acclaim, but in other corners there's noise
around the band's controversial name.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
We were on Jack Jaguar at that time, and Jack
Jaguar basically was like the new name that you pick
can't have been used ever for anything, Like we can't
find like a seven inch that came out in the
fifties that was under this name. We got a couple
(16:24):
of lists from our friend Chad van Galen, and then
we made a bunch of master lists. We probably had
about three hundred band names. I feel like at a
certain point we narrowed it down to our top five,
and out of the top five, Preoccupations was the only
one that met the criteria of having no references to
it anywhere?
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Do you remember any of the other candidates?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
The only one that I remember. Van Galen messaged us
about this all the time. He thought that we should
call the band Santa Claus Orchestra, and he kept messaging
me all the time. He's like, dude, Santa Claus Orchestra,
that's the best band name.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Job now dubbed Preoccupations, Sorry, Santy Claus. The quartet hit
the road relentlessly back then by Calgary, label Flemish I
and Jag Jaguar in the US.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Jag Jaguar was good. Honestly, I didn't mind working with them,
but it was just kind of like big. They're like
one of the bigger indie labels, So it was like,
I don't know, like just always seemed like there was
like so much around it. And so then when we
ran out of our contract with them, we were like,
we're gonna put up the next record ourselves.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Yeah, now you're talking.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Craft cam Wickfield breaking down the kill.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
After twenty twenty two's arrangements. Preoccupations are a band without
a home, then singer Matt meets cute at a wedding,
a chance encounter with a dude who works at Philly
based indie born Losers Records.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I think Bourne Loses is a really good size for
me personally. It's like two main guys and then they
have one other employee, so it's like big enough that
it's like three people's jobs, but it's not big enough
that they like own a building in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
The band's fifth album, ill At Ease, arrives a decade
after their first. Between the Vietcong hype and years of
relentless touring, Preoccupations has become notable enough to carry a
small club tour as a headliner. They've opened for bands
like Explosions in the sky Folds and Idols.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Idols were so nice, like they were like making us
smoothies during sound check and stuff like those guys are
super nice.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
It's an interesting perspective, craving to be that bigger fish
in the smaller pond, but perhaps at this stage in
the band's life, lowering the stakes can be healthier. The
guys can focus on other projects, like their personal lives,
while earning the right for creative control to be in
their hands.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Matt's always just like, you know, like even before we
made this record, Matt was just like, you guys want
to make another record. We're just like, yeah, sure, let's
make another record, you know. Or before the tour he
is like, you guys wanted to do this tour, Like, yeah,
let's do the tour.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Scott Monroe is the poster boy for the DIY music livelihood.
He knows that touring at this level won't make him rich,
nor will signing with the big indie. Being independent minded
isn't some sort of resignation. It's a strategy, an outlook,
and so Monty immerses himself in the Montreal scene to
make music is living, producing other bands, running a studio,
(20:17):
touring with friends, and acts, he digs, and yet it's
long hours and hard work, but hey, it beats working.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
We were all making our living off of it for
a few years, but it was like the years that
we were fully doing it, we were probably doing like
two hundreds a year, two hundred and fifty shows a year.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
It's not a complaint, merely a fact. Monty and I
wouldn't be here in Jack White's office if it weren't
for the band's resilience on the road and in the
studio for these past ten years.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Today, we got here really early, so we like loaded
in and then we went and had some dinner, and
then we or some lunch whatever it was at three o'clock,
like the witching hour of food. And then we came
back and we set up and did the sound check
and then now I'm doing this. Touring's hard. You need
to want to go on tour. If you don't want
to go on tour, then then you shouldn't do it,
you know, like they like even if you're like, maybe
(21:24):
I want to go on tour, then it's like maybe
like try a tour, you know, even coming from a
perspective where I've like done it and like had it
be my job. It's still pretty tough. Like we were
all single kind of around that time, so it was
like a little easier. But it's like I feel like
now it's like I have a partner, and like Matt's Mary,
Danny has a long term partner too, so it's like
(21:44):
kind of I feel like the older you get to
the more you're just like a just kind of want
to be at home.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
It's a full circle moment. It started with me pumping
myself up to get out of the house and interview
a guy who in some respects admits that he would
rather be home. And as my conversation with me comes
to a close, I feel validated, vindicated. I am not lone,
(22:09):
but just like Monty and his bandmates and preoccupations, social
and professional obligations fill the tank. I get to see
a show, make this episode. I participate in the ritual,
and I recognize that by keeping the stakes low, a
creative control remains in my hands. So why not seize
the day. Part of the reason that I'm here is
(22:31):
not just as being a fan of the band I said,
this up top is like live a little dude, like
go to the Blue Room on a Friday night jump
in the cab. See people have that experience. I think
it is good, it's important. Monty and I snap a photo,
We shake hands, and I return to the floor of
the Blue Room. I make a stop at the merch
table and buy a Preoccupation shirt, then to the bar
(22:53):
for a whiskey. I stand in front of house stage right,
just a few feet below Monty's setup. It's my first
time at the Blue Room, my first time seeing Preoccupations,
my first Friday night out alone in forever, and even
while the comforts of home will wait, I enjoy my
in the moment, independent minded experience, feeling the literal vibrations
(23:16):
of a packed blue house and basking in the camaraderie
of another craftsman. Find out more about Preoccupations at preochs
(23:39):
dot com. That's p r e occs dot com and
follow the band on social media at Preoccupations. Big thanks
to Monty for the time and the conversation. And got
to give a special thanks to Chris Radwanski at Born
Losers Records, And got to give a shout out to
the staff at the Blue Room for their hospitality. Happy
(24:02):
fiftieth birthday, Jack White, and you know I didn't forget
about you, loyal podcast listener. You know I'd be blue
without you. Baby. Thanks for spending this bit of your
time with me in the podcast Sin's twenty twelve. Who
will leave a kind review for Independent Minded on Apple
Podcasts and Spotify. Smash the five star buttons, share the links,
(24:24):
tell your friends if you have any, and find out
all the stuff at Baldfreak dot com. You can send
me your love note and new music anytime. Fill my
inbox at Ron at Baldfreak dot com and follow me
on all the thingies at Baldfreakmusic. Independent Mind. It is
a Baldfreak Music production and me, I'm still Ron Scales
(24:50):
put on n pure a Freak
You're the one that should be worried.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
You're a freak.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're reading for Big Trouble.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Dear distro Kid, you know it's been a whole year
now being together. So instead of a fancy ad with
upbeat music, cartoon voices and sound effects, I thought I'd
take a moment to peel back the curtain and show
you the real Mead, show you the real me. O me,
o me. I've never met anyone like you before. Usually
(00:34):
when I meet someone new, I feel awkward and shy,
but with you, it's different. I can talk to you.
You know what I'm thinking without my having to explain
it to you in fancy terms. Distro Kid, I love you.
I love you. Thank you distro kid for being the
title sponsor of Independent Minded for the past year. And
(00:58):
if you love the idea of thirty percent off your membership,
go to DistroKid dot com slash vip slash independent Minded.
If you're an indie music maker like me, distro kid
is the place to go for the easiest and sexiest
ways to handle your digital distro. I love It's a
(01:35):
hot summer Friday in Nashville and I'm deep in the
weeds at the edit bay. The AC's pumping Brando, the
puppies snoozing on the couch. I should probably grind a
wait till dark, crack a beer, and put on the ballgame.
But there's a whole world out there, and I'm waiting
for the sirens call hello, it's them.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah, I'll be right there.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
No one's ever called me mister spontaneous, but I've just
gotten the green light to hang with the band. I've
long admired at a place I've never been in the
Blue Room. This is Jack White's place, right next door
to Third Man Records. Getting to see a show here
naturally sweetens the pot. I've got my powder blue shorts on,
(02:32):
my blue backpack, my blue wristband. I hope it's blue
in there. Chris, the tour manager, meets me out front,
and it's definitely blue in here. When the band am
I interviewing again, they're probably thumb wrestling over it right now.
This is part of the Juice Walking into the Great
Unknown one hundred and sixty something episodes, and it's still
(02:54):
flowing lifeline to civilization and escape from my cave time
away from the screen, So what if it was last minute?
I'm inside Jack White's Club. I'm heading backstage to talk
to some cats I admire. I'm gonna see live music
when it's over. I might even have a whiskey a lie.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
It's alive.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
So who will it be, Matt Danny? I'm ready for
all of them, Mike the Drummer.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
My birth name is Scott Monroe, but everyone's called me
Monty since I was about eighteen, to the point that, like,
my sister actually married a guy named Scott, and so
my family all calls me Monty too. She's not married
to Scott anymore, but she but my family still calls
me Monty.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Okay, so your name is Scott, what call you Monty?
And I should call you Monty not Scott because your
sister married Scott. But she's not married to Scott anymore.
But even though she isn't, You're still not Scott. You're Monty.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Got it? Is that the only reason in Calgary, especially
in the music scene, I find everybody just calls each
other by their last names, mostly like hockey name style
and then but.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Your last name is Monroe.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, I know, kind of like went from there somehow.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Witness the Beauty of Gorilla podcasting. You never know what
you're gonna get or who, and not just the person
or persons, but also these people in this moment. Maybe
there were problems during soundcheck. Maybe the last show was
a blast, Maybe the drive from Illinois was a drag.
Whatever the circumstances, I've never been let down. Sure, maybe
(04:29):
Black Joe Lewis made me wait for an hour while
he went to go eat oysters, but even that was
worth the wait. Scott Monty Monroe is no exception. He's
a gentleman. He gives me all the time I want
and all the answers I need. He's funny and relaxed,
a candid Canadian settling in. I break the ice by
pointing out my preoccupation's T shirt, gifted by an NPR
(04:52):
coworker back in twenty nineteen, Sergio Romano was able to
see you guys in DC on a night that I
guess I was unable to go, and he bought me
this shirt that I'm wearing today.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
And interesting, I have to say that this is.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Probably I've done one hundred and sixty of these. This
is probably the first time I've ever worn a band
shirt while interviewing someone in said band. So okay, congratulations.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, well thanks, yeah, the or it's a it's a pleasure.
I don't know if thanks is the right word there.
Mostly that is don't. I literally don't remember this shirt.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
You said you didn't, so maybe it's a bootleg. He
bought it outside the venue for ten dollars.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Honestly, I hope so that would be amazing.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Monty and I talk about Preoccupations, DIY Spirit, their Black
Sabbath cover band, and why they consider changing their name
to Santa Claus Orchestra. Let's kick things off with focus
from the new Preoccupations album, ill At Ease, then more
Blue Backstage Madness with Monty right here on Independent Minded
(05:53):
Run Daldo Mazing Podcast, Run Daldos Podcast. The people make
God Music, plugging their projects, making the famous helpings amount
of my mature to talk about all.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
The ship that they do.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
There's about for panic.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
As long as we're all along frequency, we can of
Brady to look at me yourself, not Stiner, your present
messhun to cho fan and run too up there so
we can back of Runday from.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
The best.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Shame thousands.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Who are dished job.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
My name is Scott Monroe. Most of my friends call
me Monty for quite a few years now, since I
was around eighteen. I'm from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, but I
live in Montreal now for the last few years, and
I play guitar and keyboards and sing backup vocals and preoccupations,
as well as as producing and recording the records at
my studio in Montreal.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Even though scottman Roe grew up on a farm in
Calgary and I grew up in the concrete jungle of Brooklyn,
we both dipped into music making in our teens, mainly
influenced by one particular genre.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
I was a metalhead till I was like twenty three
or something, so I was like listening to like Sepultura
and like it was the nineties, so like Tool even
or like I loved all those kind of bands. Pantera.
I listened to lots of Pantera. Yeah, the Locust Actually,
the Locust, I feel like was the first band where
I was like, I remember like getting that Safety second
Body last Ep. I just found it at a record
(08:36):
store and it just had that like the image of
it on the cover. I was just like, what on
earth is this? And then like back in the early
two thousands, when you just like go to a record
store and like rifle through the CDs and just like
buy something based like spend like twenty bucks on something,
just based on what the cover art was. I know
it was. It was glorious. So I remember like buying Safety,
Second Body Last by the Locus, just like seeing that
(08:57):
weird drawing on the cover and just being like what
is this record and then putting it in and just
having my mind blowing back.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Six or seven years after Monty's Metal Fetish, he would
meet Preoccupation singer and bassist Matt Flagel.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
I'd worked as a session musician. That was what I
did for a job through my twenties. It was like
played on country records, mostly in Calgary, and like folk
records and stuff like that. So me and Matt in
the early days of the band were just like recording
demos in our basement. We both played in the band
of this guy Chad van Galen, who's this kind of
like Neil Young sounding kind of psychedelic guy on subpop,
(10:02):
and when we were on tour with him, we were like, oh,
when we get back to Canada, we should start a band.
We were in Germany. I remember.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
My own.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Son and for time, the son of Toil and Greg
came so so drummer Mike Wallace had played with and
(11:00):
Calgary indie rock band Women. Guitarist and keyboardist Danny Christiansen
was recruited via a Black Sabbath cover band that all
four cats had been moonlighting in.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Me and Danny playing guitar, Matt playing bass. And then
it was our friend Evan Peck who's a forest firefighter
in BC did Ozzy. Then there's been probably three different
Aussi's in the Black Sabbath cover band, this girl Marie
and our buddy Ryan Sadler, and there was another one
I can't remember. Yeah, although I feel like Evan's the
Aussy now if we do it again, he would be
our choice again.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Have you ever busted out sweetly for a Sabbath Bloody
Sabbath cover as Preoccupations?
Speaker 1 (11:37):
No, we did on a couple tours. We opened the
set with the intro to Wheels of Confusion.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
And so the flames of stoner metal would forge a
four piece then known as Viet Kung.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
It was the twenty tens too, when the like lo Fi,
like all those like captured tracks and like old English
spelling Bee and like those first Woodsist records, a lot
of like Brooklyn stuff. There was like lots of bands
where it was just like oh, they just like recorded
it live to boombox or like whatever, and it was
like kind of psychedelic music. And so I feel like
it was a good time where like me and my
good friend Chris Dad, who runs a great recording studio
(12:18):
in Calgary, just both had cassette four tracks and we're
just trying to make like psychedelic rock on them. And
then when me and Matt got together, that's kind of
what we were doing too.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
You know.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
It was like if you don't have the technology to
make it sound really good, then at least you could
like make it sound really interesting.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
No. Self sufficiency has been a consistent ingredient in the
band's formula from these early days forward, as has their
(13:19):
democratic commitment to tinkering.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Everything's pretty fragmented in the studio. Like me and Matt
will be in there and we'll like say program some
drum machine and we'll have like a couple of riffs,
you know, or maybe Danny'll have a riff and we'll
like just record the riff, you know. Just it's just
like one riff and maybe a drum machine beat, or
maybe maybe I like recorded a sound on my phone
that I'm like, oh, this is kind of a cool sound.
And then I've like got this one weird sample loop
(13:41):
from this sound mixed with a drum machine or whatever,
you know, and then we're just like messing around with
that for a while. We're always kind of like questing
for something that will become a song. But like I
feel like a lot of the times at the beginning,
there's not like a song necessarily. It's just like a
couple sounds and maybe like one part on.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Stage, Monty and Danny double up on guitar, and since
they both sing backup, being multifaceted provides an advantage when
it comes to recreating the album's noise rock vibes inside
the clubs.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I asked for a drum set my mom. She wanted
me to play the trombone. She said, if I played
trombone in the school band for a year, then they'd
buy me a drum set. I did.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
I played trombone in the school band, Oh you did.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
I actually got quite good at the trombone. I won
the Kowanas Music Festival one year and for best brass performance.
I actually I played trombone on Ya Kung record on
March of Progress. There's like that little break in the middle,
and that's me playing troumbone fads. And by the end
(14:50):
of the year of Troumbone in the band, I decided
that I actually wanted to play bass guitar, and so
my parents bought me a bass guitar. And then I
played bass in every band that i'd play until I
was almost thirty. When me and Matt started this band.
Then we were just like recording. We were just like
handing the guitar back and forth like which we still do. Basically,
it's like you get a couple takes at the part
(15:11):
and then somebody eventually is like, all right, give me
the guitar. I think I can play this.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
But that's very beatlesque.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
I mean, yes, it's like no worries about like who
eventually does it. It's more like some like friendly competition
about like someone's gonna do it.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Viet Cong self titled debut LP gets a lot of
buzz and critical acclaim, but in other corners there's noise
around the band's controversial name.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
We were on Jack Jaguar at that time, and Jack
Jaguar basically was like the new name that you pick
can't have been used ever for anything, Like we can't
find like a seven inch that came out in the
fifties that was under this name. We got a couple
(16:24):
of lists from our friend Chad van Galen, and then
we made a bunch of master lists. We probably had
about three hundred band names. I feel like at a
certain point we narrowed it down to our top five,
and out of the top five, Preoccupations was the only
one that met the criteria of having no references to
it anywhere?
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Do you remember any of the other candidates?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
The only one that I remember. Van Galen messaged us
about this all the time. He thought that we should
call the band Santa Claus Orchestra, and he kept messaging
me all the time. He's like, dude, Santa Claus Orchestra,
that's the best band name.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Job now dubbed Preoccupations, Sorry, Santy Claus. The quartet hit
the road relentlessly back then by Calgary, label Flemish I
and Jag Jaguar in the US.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Jag Jaguar was good. Honestly, I didn't mind working with them,
but it was just kind of like big. They're like
one of the bigger indie labels, So it was like,
I don't know, like just always seemed like there was
like so much around it. And so then when we
ran out of our contract with them, we were like,
we're gonna put up the next record ourselves.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Yeah, now you're talking.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Craft cam Wickfield breaking down the kill.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
After twenty twenty two's arrangements. Preoccupations are a band without
a home, then singer Matt meets cute at a wedding,
a chance encounter with a dude who works at Philly
based indie born Losers Records.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I think Bourne Loses is a really good size for
me personally. It's like two main guys and then they
have one other employee, so it's like big enough that
it's like three people's jobs, but it's not big enough
that they like own a building in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
The band's fifth album, ill At Ease, arrives a decade
after their first. Between the Vietcong hype and years of
relentless touring, Preoccupations has become notable enough to carry a
small club tour as a headliner. They've opened for bands
like Explosions in the sky Folds and Idols.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Idols were so nice, like they were like making us
smoothies during sound check and stuff like those guys are
super nice.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
It's an interesting perspective, craving to be that bigger fish
in the smaller pond, but perhaps at this stage in
the band's life, lowering the stakes can be healthier. The
guys can focus on other projects, like their personal lives,
while earning the right for creative control to be in
their hands.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Matt's always just like, you know, like even before we
made this record, Matt was just like, you guys want
to make another record. We're just like, yeah, sure, let's
make another record, you know. Or before the tour he
is like, you guys wanted to do this tour, Like, yeah,
let's do the tour.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Scott Monroe is the poster boy for the DIY music livelihood.
He knows that touring at this level won't make him rich,
nor will signing with the big indie. Being independent minded
isn't some sort of resignation. It's a strategy, an outlook,
and so Monty immerses himself in the Montreal scene to
make music is living, producing other bands, running a studio,
(20:17):
touring with friends, and acts, he digs, and yet it's
long hours and hard work, but hey, it beats working.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
We were all making our living off of it for
a few years, but it was like the years that
we were fully doing it, we were probably doing like
two hundreds a year, two hundred and fifty shows a year.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
It's not a complaint, merely a fact. Monty and I
wouldn't be here in Jack White's office if it weren't
for the band's resilience on the road and in the
studio for these past ten years.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Today, we got here really early, so we like loaded
in and then we went and had some dinner, and
then we or some lunch whatever it was at three o'clock,
like the witching hour of food. And then we came
back and we set up and did the sound check
and then now I'm doing this. Touring's hard. You need
to want to go on tour. If you don't want
to go on tour, then then you shouldn't do it,
you know, like they like even if you're like, maybe
(21:24):
I want to go on tour, then it's like maybe
like try a tour, you know, even coming from a
perspective where I've like done it and like had it
be my job. It's still pretty tough. Like we were
all single kind of around that time, so it was
like a little easier. But it's like I feel like
now it's like I have a partner, and like Matt's Mary,
Danny has a long term partner too, so it's like
(21:44):
kind of I feel like the older you get to
the more you're just like a just kind of want
to be at home.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
It's a full circle moment. It started with me pumping
myself up to get out of the house and interview
a guy who in some respects admits that he would
rather be home. And as my conversation with me comes
to a close, I feel validated, vindicated. I am not lone,
(22:09):
but just like Monty and his bandmates and preoccupations, social
and professional obligations fill the tank. I get to see
a show, make this episode. I participate in the ritual,
and I recognize that by keeping the stakes low, a
creative control remains in my hands. So why not seize
the day. Part of the reason that I'm here is
(22:31):
not just as being a fan of the band I said,
this up top is like live a little dude, like
go to the Blue Room on a Friday night jump
in the cab. See people have that experience. I think
it is good, it's important. Monty and I snap a photo,
We shake hands, and I return to the floor of
the Blue Room. I make a stop at the merch
table and buy a Preoccupation shirt, then to the bar
(22:53):
for a whiskey. I stand in front of house stage right,
just a few feet below Monty's setup. It's my first
time at the Blue Room, my first time seeing Preoccupations,
my first Friday night out alone in forever, and even
while the comforts of home will wait, I enjoy my
in the moment, independent minded experience, feeling the literal vibrations
(23:16):
of a packed blue house and basking in the camaraderie
of another craftsman. Find out more about Preoccupations at preochs
(23:39):
dot com. That's p r e occs dot com and
follow the band on social media at Preoccupations. Big thanks
to Monty for the time and the conversation. And got
to give a special thanks to Chris Radwanski at Born
Losers Records, And got to give a shout out to
the staff at the Blue Room for their hospitality. Happy
(24:02):
fiftieth birthday, Jack White, and you know I didn't forget
about you, loyal podcast listener. You know I'd be blue
without you. Baby. Thanks for spending this bit of your
time with me in the podcast Sin's twenty twelve. Who
will leave a kind review for Independent Minded on Apple
Podcasts and Spotify. Smash the five star buttons, share the links,
(24:24):
tell your friends if you have any, and find out
all the stuff at Baldfreak dot com. You can send
me your love note and new music anytime. Fill my
inbox at Ron at Baldfreak dot com and follow me
on all the thingies at Baldfreakmusic. Independent Mind. It is
a Baldfreak Music production and me, I'm still Ron Scales
(24:50):
put on n pure a Freak
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