Monster Magnet keen to shed metal tag

Monster Magnet frontman Dave Wyndorf has revealed that working on last year’s Milking The Stars has convinced the band to keep experimenting with their sound.

The album was an alternative take on their 2013 record Last Patrol. But rather than remixing the original tracks, the band reworked the entire recording in order to give it a psychedelic “weird 60s vibe.”

And Wyndorf says the idea behind the project was to distance himself from the group’s metal tag – something they’ll continue to do.

He tells Smells Like Infinite Sadness: “I keep trying to step away from Monster Magnet’s reputation that we’re a metal band – which is not the case and has never been. I guess me singing it and still playing loud music is still confusing people.

“So I’m like, ‘You know something? How about this? Are we still metal guys?’ So this is the way it’s going to be from now on with me. That experiment just proved to me that I’ll just do this stuff on a regular record from now on – even if I can’t reproduce it live.

Wyndorf and the band are now working on an alternative version of 2010’s Mastermind album – and he says they’ve turned the original tracks “inside out.”

He continues: “I did a re-imagining of Mastermind – that was part of the contract I did for the Last Patrol re-imagining with Milking The Stars. And they were like, ‘Well if you’re going to do one, why don’t you do another?’

“I haven’t mastered it yet but it’s all mixed. And it’s very strange: weird acoustic versions of songs that used to be super heavy, turning things inside out. Not just like an unplugged situation, but truly odd. I seem to be searching for odd as we go on – odd is interesting.”

Earlier this month, Wyndorf spoke to TeamRock about how comics have shaped and inspired his music. The band will take to the road across Europe in February with support from Bombus. They’ll stop off in the UK for three dates:

Feb 13: Nottingham Rock City

Feb 14: Glasgow Garage

Feb 15: London Electric Ballroom

Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in the summer of 2014 before moving to the e-commerce team in 2020. Scott maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald, covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott's favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, Marillion and Rush.