Dominic Denholm- Monarch - Interview
Monarch (El Paraiso Records) is a psychedelic four piece based out of San Diego, California. Since 2014 Monarch has risen the ranks of the fertile San Diego psych rock scene, Playing alongside SD alumni Earthless, Astra, Sacri Monti. Carving out their distinct combination of crafty songwriting paired with a generous dose of sonic experimentation. Recording their self-titled EP and 2016 Debut release “Two Isles” with Brian Ellis of Astra the first taste of Monarch was out via El Paraiso records. Met with widespread praise, Monarch took to touring the west coast of America, all the while writing material for their 2019 Sophomore release “Beyond The Blue Sky''. Poised with plans for expansive 2020 tours of European festivals and the West coast following the album's release were unfortunately met by the world wide pandemic. Not one’s to waste time Monarch went right back to writing for their 3rd record. This time teaming up with legendary Shags Chamberlain to record their most considered effort yet Due Summer 2023 along with a Performance at Portugal’s Sonic Blast Fest.
Are you originally from Encinitas, CA? What was your childhood like? When did you first begin to fall in love with music? Were these things that were relevant growing up in your household? Do you have any siblings?
Yeah Encinitas. Early childhood was pretty chaotic, moved around and changed schools a few times so I was never really settled in one place. I was pretty shy and for sure qualified as a loner, spent a lot of time by myself skating, or walking around trying to stay out of my house haha. I began to get really into music when I was 10, started skating, watching skate videos and hearing all kinds of stuff in peoples parts. At this time I heard The Ramones for the first time via my brother and I remember from that point I was like this is my shit. I was pretty uncertain of who I was, then all of the sudden I found identity through them. Music didn’t have a particularly strong role in my household. When things were tough at home I used it as refuge away from the craziness. Mom liked Mom stuff like Fleetwood Mac, Enya. I have an older brother and sister. My sister was a naturally gifted singer and would always play Aqua, Spice girls while my brother had a bunch of rock stuff. My sister sang at school and my brother had a band at one point, I got my first real guitar at 11 and without knowing it I think they influenced me to give it a go.
What would you and your friends do for fun growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences in your more formative years? When did you realize you wanted to spend your life pursuing music? When and where did you see your very first concert?
We’d go skate, surf, whatever we could to entertain ourselves. A lot of development was going on in our area growing up, so I remember going to construction sites on the weekends and breaking stuff, flipping porto-potties. At 12 years old a few friends and I started a band. Influences were Led Zeppelin, The Ramones, Metallica, Guns n’ Roses, The Who. 7th grade I went up to Huntington Beach with my mom and her boyfriend to watch his son play drums with Ray Barbee at surf movie premiere. He had group with vibraphonist, I had no idea what the hell that was haha... The music was above my musical palette, but it left a big impression on me. When I was 13. Started my first band with Brenden Dellar (Sacri Monti) and 2 other friends from school... The challenge/journey to make the sounds I was hearing my head began with that band.
When and where did you play your very first gig and what was that experience like for you? Did you participate in any groups, or projects prior to Monarch How did you guys initially meet and what led to first forming the band?
A: First gig was at the Encinitas community center. They had a night where bands could just sign up and just jump on stage and go for it. 12 years old, I was the front man. I remember singing my head off and head banging. Was so fun, total rush. Met other bands and was like these are my people! That band broke up as we finished middle school then in 9th grade I started a band where I played guitar and sang . More 80s hard rock flavored , later that year I was approached by the senior rock guys to front their band LOVE GUN. They heard through mutual friends I was really into Ratt, Motley Crue and a bunch of other early hair metal. We had one goal to win the battle of the bands..Was so fun and hilarious. Singing about having sex and doing cocaine. I had no fucking idea what I was talking about, got 2nd place. After high school music tastes had changed and we started doing a bunch of improvised jamming and that led to a band with Brenden (guitar, vox) me (bass) and Andrew ware (drummer) called COLOR. We eventually got bored with jamming and this band got together to write concrete, energy filled fucked up rock songs. Learned a lot about songwriting from that band. In 2013 I had been writing some songs and playing my friends Nate Burns (guitar) and Matt Weiss (bass) Andrew in another band. Co worker Thomas ( guitar, drums in Sacri-Monti) wanted to join and so we all got together and jammed what later turned into “Shady Maiden” our first song.
You guys released your EP back in 2014. What was the overall approach and vision for this album? Would you mind walking me through some of the songs that are featured on the album?
We had no approach haha. We had something different in comparison to the other San Diego bands at the time and we let the music do the talking. Had our 4 songs and our friend Brian Ellis was down to record us. We went into his studio set up some mics, ran through the songs. Don’t think we even did multiple takes. Endless beers were drank it was more of a party then a recording session. Brian played us back what we did and in our foggy state of mind were like fuck yeah! Pretty sure I cut the vocals that night as well. A month, or two passed after these sessions he eventually sends over the mixes. They were raw, noisy, all sorts of fucked up. Mistakes and all we ran with em. Our friend Sara did the art, Andrew whipped up some CD’s and boom.
Sedna’s Fervor - The opener, in retrospect its probably our attempt to combine what we heard in King Crimson along with Dust. Lyrics based around Sedna the goddess of the sea in Inuit mythology and how she like a Siren would lure lonely sailors to there death. Inspired by a girl I was hooking up with at the time haha
Hundreds, Thousands, Millions - An attempt from us to write a pretty song. So many bands around us were doing the heavy minor stuff and so we were like well… lets do… not that! Lyrics steeped in nature metaphors paired with major guitar harmonies, swing time. Kind of a mission statement at the time for the band to differentiate ourselves from our peers.
Assent - The fastest written song in Monarch history! Came together in 2 practices straight ahead rock song, cool harmonies.
Shady Maiden - First song we ever wrote. Originally would go on for 25 - 30 minutes, but got it down to 15 minutes. This recording always erks me because my guitar goes insanely out of tune during my solo. It’s a testament to how drunk we were when we listened back to not notice that hahah. When the cds were finally made I was listening in my car and so bummed. I hit up Brian and I was like“ What the the hell Brian! How did you not notice that!” He thought I was going full space cadet jazz and playing out on purpose haha. I decided to say fuck it. Didn’t think anyone would listen to it anyways.
In 2017 you guys released your full length debut “Two Isles” on El Paraiso Records. Tell me about writing and recording this record and how you wanted to approach this material compared to your previous work. How did the deal with those come about?
A fan (Neil Hawk) in Germany somehow got a copy of our EP cd posted it on Youtube then sent it over to El Parasio. They had put out some of Brian Ellis’s stuff and were keen on him working with us on a proper record. In early 2016 we set up at Andrews rehearsal/recording studio Ursa Polaris to get drums. Cut all the bass, guitars and whatever else at Matt’s studio where he was living. Went back to Ursa to do vocals. We took a much more focused/studio minded approach to re recording the songs from the EP along with two newly written tunes, “Dancers of the Sun” and “Two Isles”. All the music written as band, but then I’d go home and write the vocal melodies and lyrics. My head at this point became very geared towards what we could do in the studio and not just doing our bar band versions. Using wurlis, mellotrons, vocal harmonies, 12 string guitars. Things that we wanted to hear, but in our limited live context we couldn’t manifest properly. Also did our Sophomore release, “Beyond the Blue Sky” with El Paraiso, but thats another story for another time
What have you guys been up to most recently? Anything going on this spring/summer? Is there anything else you want readers to know?
We have been in the throws of recording our 3rd record. Covid squashed our 2019 tour plans in Europe and the States so we just went back into writing new songs. Brought in synth/keys man Sonny Yates, wrote about 16 new songs from then to 2021. Initially we decided to do the 3rd record ourselves because we didn’t want trust anyone with our new songs which we have a very specific vision for. We were up in LA hanging with friends in November of 2021 and met Shags Chamberlain. We became friends and played a show together. After the show he mentioned he was interested in leveling us up and jumping on board as a producer. He has done a bunch of epic shit and his resume consisted of projects which we all were fans of. He played with Ash Ra Temple, Drugdealer. We all agreed he’d come down from LA where he is based to start recording the first day June of 2022. The day we started tracking coincidently I had to move out of my place so I packed all my shit moved out of my house straight into doing takes haha very stressful moment in my life, but was so excited to dive into these songs and get lost in the process. It was the head change the universe knew I needed. From then till now this record has taken over my life haha. While recording I was still feeling blue balled from of tour plans that fell through in 2019 so I got on the horn and reached out to get some European dates together for august 2023. We are booked in London, Sonic Blast in Portugal followed by a handful of dates with our SD rock Alumni Earthless. A record on the horizon! Other than that I think I’ve rambled on enough.
