Ste Reid is the lead singer,
songwriter and guitarist Liverpudlian band The Mono LPs, alongside Vicky Mutch,
Chris Barlow and Daniel Beech. We spoke to Ste as the group release their
latest single ‘L.O.V.E and H.A.T.E’.
“Love and hate are two
sides of the same coin and I think the emotions, when they are strongest, escalate
to the strangest of places, even to like war between two people, and that’s
what the song is about, strong emotions between people.
“My father has the news on
loop at his house when I go round, [showing] all the terrible things that
happen in the world, and I think that was one of the influences of the song,
seeing the world today and trying to make sense of it.”
Talking about the lyrics
of songs, Ste confirmed the subjects behind the words are important but that
they don’t necessarily have to be political. “They have to mean something. That’s
the problem we’ve got at the moment with the music industry. We’ve managed to
perfect a three-minute pop song that will become like an ear-worm but the
agenda behind the lyrics have become so superficial that it’s not furthering
music.
“When we write songs, it’s
got to say something, even if it’s just about your daily life. It’s got to
reflect what we feel. It can’t be just about going to a club and things like
that. It’s got to be like a critique on society.”
As shown in the music video
to their latest single, the Mono LPs mix a more modern sound with more
classical instruments. “When I first started I was just a singer-songwriter on
my own. I met Vicky in college and she was on a course like me, but she was
having trouble finding a place for her cello to fit, as a lot of the people
were just doing pop songs, and I thought I was Bob Dylan in the time, and felt
we could mix it together. [From there] it developed further, and there were
mutual influences, from David Bowie to ELO, those people who decided not to
stick to the norm.
“Every instrumental can
find its own place in music. To use each instrument in the way it was intended
is fantastic but to push it to a place that sounds more interesting will
hopefully further music to more interesting places.”
Talking about this balance
of music, what does Ste think of using real instruments over synthesized ones. “There’s nothing wrong with synthesized music
but you’ve got to be interesting in the way you use it. It can’t be a
replacement for live music. It’s got to be an addition and have a purpose in a
song. On the album we’ve got some programmed bits but it was for a purpose, not
just because we were being lazy.”
You can see the music
video for the new single on this page, but we asked Ste what it was like to
record that. “It was a very long day’s shoot! It’s amazing what goes into
making a video. In the video there’s a good and bad version of the band so it
had to be done by split screen and with effects, so we had to record everything
twice and get changed, so half the time we are in various stages of undress
trying to change over between the characters.
“It was fun but you never
know quite what it’s going to look like until it’s done!”
The music video was filmed
a multi-disciplinary venue in Liverpool called ‘Camp and Furnace’. “The room we
picked looks a little like an American sports hall. We incorporated the
geometric painting on the wall as the artwork for the single, tying things
together.”
With the interview
covering the art of music, I was keen to know if the band was named after a
love of vinyl, which Ste confirmed. “Vicky’s dad was a DJ in the seventies and
he’s got absolutely tonnes of vinyl, and it’s all over the house. When we were
trying to think of a name, we were flicking through the vinyls, and we came
across, I think, a Beatles album and on the top said ‘Mono LP recording’.
“I just thought, the Mono
LPs… An early incarnation of the band, before our drummer joined, was a little
more sixties-influenced in its purer sound but we’ve got a lot heavier recently
when the rhythm section joined us.”
L.O.V.E. and H.A.T.E. is
taken from the band’s upcoming album ‘State of Decay’ out on the 4th
November, a recording that has been a labour of love for the band. “It was
never intended to be an album to begin with. It was just us recording the next
single, then maybe we should record an EP as we had these four songs and couldn’t
decide which ones to release as a single.
“We moved studios and
producer and it just developed from there, as we had all these songs. [On it]
we have songs from when we started as a band until now and though the cello
line runs through them the melody lines and the subject matters change, and we
wondered how the songs will stand the test of time next to each other, and
whether they would decay next to each other.
“It was a slightly pretentious
thought on how these songs would sit next to each other, and if they were to
sound dated or cohesive. When we recorded in the studios we had the demos from
the EP and our first single Emilia, our producer managed to re-record stuff, and tie
in the rhythms, and it just became a really interesting project and we’re
really proud of it!”
The Mono LPs also perform
live and have recently performed at ‘We Shall Overcome’ at the Zanzibar club, a
charity gig to raise money for the homeless where they headlined. In performing
live, Ste told us the band like to embellish their studio recordings. “Live, we’re
a bit rougher and rawer, and more rock and roll. In the studio we like to add
in [elements] but in gig terms we’re a little more punk rocker, and I like to
be a little more raucous! We’re like a power trio with a cello! We try to make
it as big a sound as possible.
“It does sound the same as
the album I suppose but with a bit more venom live!”
The live gigs continue
with an album launch in Manchester coming up in November and a charity Christmas
show where they will dusting off a Christmas song they released last year, and
perhaps a cheeky Christmas cover. “The Slade one is the closest to our sound!
“When we pick covers we
tend to go for bizarre ones that you wouldn’t expect us to play. We do like a
lot of funk, like Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’ [which in our hands] becomes a
rocky, cello-led version, which believe it or not does work, you just have to
listen to it!
“We’ve done versions where
we change the chords of songs, so it becomes its own entity, but sometimes you
could ruin the entity of the song.”
Looking to the future, Ste
is looking forward to the album release. “We have become a lot more confident in
ourselves and the industry than what we were, so in the six months we’d like to
get back into the studio and get another album out.
“At the moment Vicky and
myself are writing some music for a production of ‘1984’ by George Orwell and
we might make this side project into an album as well. There are lots of
fingers in pies and we’ll see what comes of it!”
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