Photo Credit: James Heaslip
Their record deal had come to an end, but Monster Truck had written and wrapped an entire album’s worth of new material. Then… the world shut down with the coronavirus pandemic and so the band sat on an album full of tracks they were immensely proud of.
Recent single Golden Woman was the band’s first new music since 2018 and now, the Canadian foot-stomping rock juggernaut have confirmed plans for their new album to emerge from hibernation later this year.
“It’s crazy that this is our first new music since 2018,” admitted keyboardist Brandon Bliss as he chatted to Bring The Noise UK, backstage at Download Festival. “We had finished the recording of the whole record before COVID even started. But at the time we didn’t have a label as we had finished our contract and we hadn’t decided upon re-signing, but we had the songs so we went in and made the record thinking we would find the right place or situation to release it. We just finished recording it and then COVID started right away.”
Despite having the songs in the can, Monster Truck resisted the urge to release them while at home, as Bliss reveals they looked at the music landscape and what they felt was happening to new music being released at the height of the pandemic.
“It was a bit of a bummer how it all happened, but we saw how other bands who were releasing records through COVID were kind of being missed,” he said. “The attention span was scattered and weird, so we decided not to release it. We decided in that first year of the pandemic we didn’t want it to get lost, so we chose not to release as we love this album and we are really proud of these songs. Let’s wait till we can go play shows and give it the proper justice it deserves.
“Now we just dropped the new single this week, which is our first time putting out new music since the end of 2018. We did some acoustic versions of Monster Truck songs which I produced, which I’ve not sure I’m allowed to talk about,” he laughed. “We hope one day you hear them as we love them and think you all will too.
“The last few years have been weird. We have tightened the bootstraps. We had to cut all monthly payments and tell people sorry, the band’s not going to pay you right now. The only expense we kept was our studio and jam space, but demos have been flowing. We did some drive-in shows and live streams, but that was just to keep the lights on and satisfy that urge of playing.”
Monster Truck are a band who always go down a storm on this side of the pond and especially so at Download, where they are deeply entrenched as festival favourites – a fact not lost on Bliss.
“Monster Truck has our signature sound, which is the sound that just happened when we started playing,” began Bliss. “We then played shows and people loved that. It just happened. The UK loves us probably because all our biggest influences all come from here. For me, we played with Deep Purple many times and that’s probably the coolest heavy rock keyboard band, and then Don has been such a good guy to me and I’ve learned so much from him.
“The last time were this side of the Atlantic we were playing shows in eastern Europe with those guys and we know them all so well, the crew and we feel part of the family, but then on the other we still get so many of those ‘pinch me’ moments watching don play the solo in Lazy or something.”
Monster Truck have announced a headline UK tour for September and October 2022 with very special guests Those Damn Crows, but it is the new album which has whipped their fans into a frenzy.
But what we expect from the as-yet-untitled album?
“It is dropping in the fall and will have the tried and true Monster Truck formula,” smiled Bliss. “For me there is a lot more piano and I added a little more layers and stuff, but it has not changed up that Marshall guitar tone and it’s still that voice. Maybe in the past we have tried moving in certain directions, but we do the classic Monster Truck thing the best and that’s what we feel comfortable doing, so it’s more of the same but better than some previous records I think. Which is why we wanted to hold off until we could give it a proper release.”
Written by: Eric Mackinnon
See Monster Truck live at one of the following dates:
September 2022
Thu 29th – DOVER – The Booking Hall
Fri 30th – WOLVERHAMPTON – Steel Mill
October 2022
Sun 2nd – OXFORD – O2 Academy
Wed 5th – MANCHESTER – O2 Ritz
Thu 6th – GLASGOW – Garage
Fri 7th – NEWCASTLE – Riverside
Mon 10th – CAMBRIDGE – Junction
Tue 11th – LONDON – Shepherds Bush Empire
Wed 12th – BRIGHTON – Concorde 2
Sat 15th – CARDIFF – Great Hall
Sun 16th – SHEFFIELD – Corporation
Mon 17th – NOTTINGHAM – Rock City
Tickets are on sale HERE.
You can also see Monster Truck at Planet Rockstock in December.
