UrbanWire catches up with Monochrome, a local band due to perform at YOG and for National Day, to talk about their journey as musicians.
How do you think Alia and Rel are coping with the band, and their jobs?
D: I think it’s not simple, but it’s quite straightforward. We schedule our jamming [sessions] like after their work. Sometimes not everybody can make it, so we’ll try to shift things around to fit everybody’s schedule. It’s a pretty tedious juggling process, but I think we’re managing pretty okay. Performances would usually be on the weekends, or evenings, so it’s not really a problem. Unless we really have to play an afternoon show, we’ll see if it’s really worth it to take leave or something. Like Ignite, RP’s event, Alia and Rel had to take leave because our soundcheck was in the afternoon and on a Friday, so yea.

How much do you guys earn from playing music?

D: Earn? It’s a negative number.
Everyone: (laughs)
D: Most of the time it’s actually a loss. you see, for every show you play, let’s say you get paid $500, and each person gets about a hundred, and for that performance itself you have to practice, and to practice, say about 3 jamming sessions, each session being 15 – 18 bucks, and after that because of the equipment, you have to take a taxi to and fro, have your meals, etc, you end up making about 20 bucks.

Monochrome is a band with many influences such as Paramore, Alterbridge, Muse, and even Dream Theater. That’s a very diverse sound you all have. How do you guys agree with each other how your new songs should sound like?

M: Well I guess we just took a step forward – each of us try to listen to the new styles of music we like and come up with something that’s close to our hearts as possible – it becomes really ‘Monochrome’ – our new songs. It was not exactly planned out. Rel is very Alter Bridge influenced, and I’ll lean more to the Paramore and Hoobastank sound. So you know, we ‘mix and match’ our riffs, combined with the lyrics.

The band went through many members before settling down with the current lineup. It’s never easy to find people who can play and, of these, people who’d stay. So what made you guys push on?

D: At the start we had 6 members, then after that we changed [and had] 6 members still, then we finally settled with 5. Mike and MX are actually the ‘second generation’ members, but they’ve been sticking with us as a band for a very very long time. Just that the first group of people that came before them wanted to play music, but they didn’t have enough passion to sustain. What I mean by passion is not the cliched term, but literally passion, because I think a lot of times many people they want to do music but it comes to a point of time when you’re pushing. Not that we have become successful, but I’d say we have improved a lot compared to the time when we were a 6-piece band. For example you can’t be choosy about the small gigs you get to do, as you need to keep pushing to create awareness for the band. So there were a lot of shows that we had to play over a period of time just so we can get the name of Monochrome out there, but those who left couldn’t push through, because of the fact that we were spending money on recordings. They would wonder if it is worth it to spend so much money, whether if there will be returns because when we play shows, we don’t get paid much. To them, it’s a lot on the money issue, which is a very common thing. It’s just that I think when it comes to making music, being in a band, money should always be a secondary thing because I don’t believe that people in Singapore can comfortably do music for a living. That is, if you aren’t a pub band, just being an indie (independent) band, because it is pretty hard, you know, when people are not receptive. We do it as a ‘professional hobby’.

Monochrome will be playing for the YOG games. What does it mean to you guys that you’ve been invited to play for such a big event?

D: Yea, I think it’s a privilege because YOG is something Singapore holds in importance. And it’s something you don’t get to do every day so it’s something that’s different, and as a band we can say that we’ve played for an international event.

Usually when local bands open the show for bigger international bands, they get booed on stage while playing. And after you guys opened the Paramore gig, some people criticized your band on the S.O.F.T forum. What do you guys have to say about their lack of support for local acts?

M: I guess you can’t just please everyone. There’s always gonna be haters, but we did gain a number of fans after that gig.
D: This is something I hold very closely, I think during that period of time we learnt a lot, even though we were very despondent about it and everything, but many of our good friends and people from the music scene did mention to us that we’re doing music, an art, and art is something you can’t expect everybody to like. Even Paramore has many people who dislike them. But back to the question, we feel that we grew a lot, because we learnt that we can’t please everybody but we still just do what we love to do – it’s not going to stop us because as much as some people don’t like us we still have people who like us very much, and would come down to our shows and support us. To not disappoint them, we should actually not give up because of that group of people who really stood by us, and saw us through that period of time as well. But having said that, we do understand why people would keep shouting for Paramore while we were playing because they are paying 100 over dollars to watch Paramore, not to watch us. So we see it as a privilege to have shared the stage with them. We understood that it was very controversial, because there were a lot of bands fighting for this position. There were at least 50 bands competing.

Alia and Darren are attached right? Is it awkward for the rest when they are having some couple moments together?

D: To me…
Mike: (interrupts) isn’t MX supposed to answer the question?
D: (stutters) …what okay
Everyone: (laughs)
MX: Actually I think they are quite a perfect couple, they know and understand the terms between music and personal life, so even if they have quarrels they will bring it out of the band, so our jamming sessions are usually perfectly purely for music. So probably sometimes when we go out for meals and movies they will have some PDA (public display of affection).
Everyone: (laughs)
MX: …but it doesn’t affect the band, it actually sort of ‘enhance’ the closeness of the band and I think that’s a good thing.
Mike: (mutters) What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
D: I think for Alia and myself, we always tell ourselves to be very professional in what we are doing – the band is the band and our personal lives are our personal lives, we shouldn’t mix these two together. There have been times where we squabble before we jam, but we still jam and we nail the songs that we need to do and go. If you let all these small little things come into the band that’s when you’re very immature, you’re very unprofessional and you will eventually just break up the band, which is what happens to a lot of bands. When we are off stage we’re a couple, but when we’re on stage we perform in a show, we must be professional, we have to deliver because there are people who are coming to watch you. I guess you have to know what you really want and know your priorities, if you break up sometimes in the band you also have to be very mature about it – of course it will be awkward but it’s not big time awkward – you just have to handle it like adults.

Monochrome is endorsed by Electro Voice Mics, Gibson, Maestro. How did you guys get such big endorsements?

D: I think the main focus of being endorsed is not just like ‘Oh, I want to be endorsed by this, I want to be endorsed by that’ – that’s where your focus is wrong and where eventually you are not going to hit it. You know, it’s like guitarists who start by wanting to shred but not knowing how to strum, drummers who learn how to double pedal before their single strokes even work. What we did was we approached a lot of people who like us, who like our music and what we stood for, and they actually wanted their brand to be associated with our band. So that’s where we discussed the terms and conditions and other details. Electro Voice is our biggest sponsor and endorsement brand – they covered all the gear for our Paramore gig, and other gigs, they spent almost $25,000 to $30,000 on the band – and they didn’t expect anything. For them, they wanted to partner us because they like what we are doing as a bunch of young adults. I guess most people are just really shy to go approach people, but being shy won’t get you far. For us, we have many things going on all the time, from recordings, performances, photoshoots to mtvs. The shows get bigger and the crowds get bigger and that’s why the brands want to be associated with us.

With the rise of new media, the band can easily gain support through internet platforms such as Youtube and Myspace. You guys are able to stay 100% independent. So why the search for labels?

M: As a band, we are trying really hard in Singapore and we’ve been trying for awhile. You also want to see yourself make it one day. But Youtube and Myspace are not exactly the best way of, you know, getting people to know you. The best way to us is still to get out there and play.
D: Actually I think Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, these are the ways we ‘create awareness’ – places that people can get to know bands, but it’s not gonna get them to be like ‘Hey, I want to buy their album’. As much as internet medium is taking off, I won’t say it is the best because you still need people to be crazy over you.
M: It’s better to be at a show with 50 people crazy over you than have 2,000 friends on Facebook who will not be there for you.
D: And besides all these friends, let’s just be very honest, how many people on your Facebook page are really fans? Plus myspace and all that, it’s still the same. It’s not a reliable medium. So the main thing is you actually need to play shows, you actually need to be known to be playing a lot of shows and people can listen to you play.

What do you guys have to say about playing for gigs where you have to sell tickets and pay organizers for the slot?

D: I think it’s absolute nonsense and bullshit because it should be up to the organizers to market the event. It’s not up to the bands to do it, not up to them to ask their friends to do it. The organizers will tell you that they want to ‘ensure that there is a crowd’, but it’s in fact just for them to make money. I think bands should be treated with a little more respect, not just a way to make money out of them. We have never played a show where we have to sell tickets. 2 years, 80 over shows altogether. We were not approached because I think I made it quite clear that we don’t like it. Bands are artistes, whether or not they are small time bands, big time bands, they are still artistes. Who knows? The small time bands may work really hard and 2 years from now become a big time band? I mean, I don’t think that when Bon Jovi started out with 5 million fans. Everybody started out somewhere.

If that’s the case, how did you guys start out without playing for such gigs?

When we first started out, I actually did a lot of networking. We had to just keep going to different organizations and ask them if they would like us to perform. And kept pushing. So there was this period where in 2 weeks we had 7 shows. Everything has a ripple effect. Once you push it, more and more people will get to know you – whether or not they support you is a different thing, but the awareness it there.

As a parting question, what’s your upcoming gig like?

MX: we have a few charity shows lining up, and besides those would be YOG and NDP, of which we would be collaborating with Woodlands GRC, on Aug 8.
Catch Monochrome at the National Day Celebration, Aug 8, at Woodlands Drive 17