Although the members of indie rock band Monsters Are Waiting are from Echo Park, the district of Los Angeles that was the original center of the film industry, and play most of their shows in and around Hollywood, the quartet is not “Hollywood” in any sense of the word.
The do-it-yourself band has spent two weeks in November touring 9,000 miles of the United States in a tour bus powered by vegetable oil (stolen from Dumpsters of random businesses) all so they have a chance to prove to the crowds of over 1,000 people each night that they have what it takes.
The Grove of Anaheim concert venue has two beautiful Broadway-style dressing rooms. Unfortunately, She Wants Revenge and Pretty Girls Make Graves are occupying those rooms tonight, so Monsters Are Waiting and I had to cozy up in their utility closet dressing room for the interview.
Guitarist Andrew Clark sifted through a plastic ice chest filled with beverages. Pushing past a bottle of Grey Goose vodka and a few bottles of Heineken, Clark fished out two non-alcoholic beers and passed one off to front woman Annalee Fery. The two exchanged smirks and clinked their bottles together before taking a sip.
In L.A., the city of a thousand bands, Monsters Are Waiting came together through friendship. Clark had been friends with drummer Eric Gardner and guitarist Jonathan Siebels for a while. Siebels was one-third of popular pop-punk trio Eve 6, and when that ended in the summer of 2004 the three started playing music together. Fery was a later addition.
The foursome camped out in a room with a microphone and just started playing music. If they liked anything that came out, they tried to make a song out of it. Soon enough, they had seven songs and were ready to release an EP.
They pressed 1,000 copies themselves, and sold them at shows and on the band’s Web site. The songs were good, and the local music scene started to show some support. Amoeba Records, a popular record store on Sunset Boulevard, started carrying the EP, and radio station Indie 103.1 FM started playing them on the radio.
“They were great,” Clark said. “[Amoeba] gave us endcap spots, gave us an ad in the LA Weekly and let us play there. [Indie 103] just started playing us from the start. We made this EP in our basement, and all of the sudden I had people calling me like ‘you’re on the radio!’ It was pretty awesome.
The EP sold out fast, and when the band went to repress it the band got a call from indie label Retone Records wanting a licensing deal on a full-length album. The band added three new songs to the seven EP tracks and released the package as “Fascination” last July.
Monsters Are Waiting started playing lots of L.A. area shows, but wasn’t a fan of the typical club scene.
“We did a couple of shows like regular Sunset Hollywood-type rock club shows, and we were like [forget] that. Let’s play parties,” Clark said. “We’ve played a rooftop party, art gallery shows. We played in a hair salon in Santa Monica. We even played the Prospector steak house in Long Beach. We were like, ‘This is our first steak house.’ The steak house people were fun.”
Trying to cut costs, the band converted its tour bus to run on vegetable oil.
“There is a 100-gallon tank in the back of our bus,” Fery said. “We scoop out the oil and put it into our tank and it gets filtered and goes through our engine. We basically went from L.A. to New York and back and did the whole tour for $200 in gas.”
When the band takes the stage, it proves it belongs on a national tour with the big bands. Playing a half-hour set of “Fascination” favorites, Fery’s haunting vocals are powerful and not whiney like other bands with female vocals. When the boys chime in with guitars and drums, the four produce an ominous sound that’s almost impossible to classify.
“We’ve already had a little bit of that carrot dangled with the major,” Clark said. “But I think we’re all pretty resolved. Up to this point we have done everything ourselves. Starting with recording that EP and it coming out, it’s all grown really naturally. We’ve done everything ourselves. We are not on a label now, and we kind of want to keep doing it for a while if we can.”
Monsters Are Waiting will be at Safari Sam’s in Hollywood tomorrow night. The band is working on a five-song EP, which should be out in late spring/early summer.
