The Sheffield Scenester

Sitting in one of the backrooms at The Boardwalk prior to their headlining gig that night, we at Scenester managed to grab a quick interview with The Monday Club. A group who have not only impressed us in their live performance but also amazed a lot of people with their video entry to the competition 2 Weeks 2 Make It, we wanted to find out the how, why and where, bluntly put, what makes this band tick…..

Scenester: The video for your song ‘Lay Down And Die’ missed the top prize at 2 Weeks 2 Make It by a mere 0.66 points, even so you must have been pleased with the final product?

TMC: Oh yeah, it’s given us so much exposure as well, we’ve recently done a live session on Radio Sheffield and they asked us about it then as well…so it’s like something else that has helped push us and promote us. We had no idea what it was going to turn out like when the director, Gavin Randall told us about his plan for it, but we were so pleased with it.

Scenester: Once that competition was over the video ended up in the Crystal Palace Film Festival where it won the prize for Best Music Video, how did that come about?

TMC: I think Gavin just looked around to see what competitions were available, and then he just submitted it himself. We think it’s the first professional video he’s ever made and so on the back of that he was going to enter it in various competitions. He first entered it in another festival…but lost out to Placebo, which was a bit crazy, it was like an indie/independent film award thing and there were a load of signed bands there on independent labels...but Placebo won it in the end! He just lets us know what’s happening and where he’s entering it.

Scenester: How much credit do you get for it?

TMC: Obviously it has his name all over it, but we are the band that’s in it, so people will always know who we are…but mostly it’s him and his company Melting Point Media.

Scenester: When he actually pitched the concept to you what did you think?

TMC: Actually the way it happened was we had to go into a meeting with an idea, so we came up with this crummy idea, almost like a script (this brought a good round of laughter from everyone). When we told him, he took one look and said “No, hmmm listen to this instead” (by now the entire band had all collapsed into hysterics). Obviously he went into the competition knowing what he was going to do, whatever band he got…this is what he was going to use this video for. Mind you I don’t think it would have worked for a folk song…but what helps with the final video is that he’s got loads of fast stuff moving about which fits in with the tempo we play at. We both got lucky really, by being paired with each other, now he’s getting good publicity and so are we, it’s a good thing for us when we’re trying to get gigs so…it’s working real well for the both of us!

Scenester: Obviously that has helped you enormously but what else has gone on this year for the band?

TMC: In it’s present line up we’ve only been going a year, before that we recorded an EP except with a different drummer, he was a mate from Uni, we found Mark and so in our current line up we’d been together for a couple of months before we had our first gig at The Grapes, then we went on to do The Boardwalk. Since then it’s took off, not in the grand scheme of things, but for us things are really happening. It just seems different now than it has when we’ve been in different bands before. Basically we have a manager/promoter called Gary Crownshaw, who does everything for us bar wipe our bottoms (another round of hysterics ensues). Basically he came to us and asked “Do you want me to help find gigs and stuff?” We thought yeah cos it always looks better having a third party approach someone saying “I’ve got this band, have you got any slots for them?” instead of any of us guys saying “I’m in an unsigned band!” That just looks unprofessional and he loves doing it, he’s got us so many gigs out of town as well, we’ve played Sunderland, played Manchester Academy on an unsigned night. They get you to shift so many tickets and then let you play; we managed to do that and ended up taking a coach load of people. He is the brains if you like, controlling us with strings (more giggles), like Big Brother (even more giggles)!

Scenester: So what have you got lined up in the future?

TMC: We’ve got a good spread of big gigs at the moment, two months apart, with a Soundclash at the O2 on October 16th and then playing The Plug on December 18th. We’re also doing Manchester Academy again in late November, but that is still to be confirmed. You can’t do too many big gigs otherwise people get bored and stop coming…so we try and do them every couple of months and fill in with bar gigs like playing West Street Live or The Grapes which we’ll be playing September 24th, we’re also playing in Blackburn.

Scenester: How do you manage to play beyond the South Yorkshire area?

TMC: Again it’s Gary, as far as we’re aware he literally looks venues up, phones them and says “This is the band I’m looking after, here’s their MySpace, here’s the video they’ve done. They’ve just been in The Sheffield Star, they won the Crystal Palace Film Festival”, basically he bigs us up as much as he can! He’s lined up them gigs and also one in Rotherham, thanks to him Manchester have asked us back. It is difficult to play out of town gigs, they’ll let you play but you gotta bring a coach load, you can see where they’re coming from really, if a band they’ve never heard of approaches them, they just figure you won’t bring anyone.

Scenester: Have you ever tried down London?

TMC: Gary tried but he got the knock back, we approached The Barfly but they said we could only play on a Thursday night and you’ve got to bring a hundred people! Now there’s no chance of bringing a coach load of people down on a Thursday night cos it’s more of a weekend thing a trip like that. The thing we got told about London though is that they love the Sheffield indie sound; you know something they can put their finger on, that Arctic Monkey sound, and say yeah they’re from Sheffield. Why people want that is beyond us, there’s only going to be one Arctic Monkeys but we’d rather do our own thing and that’s what we try and do really!

Here at The Sheffield Scenester, we do get to interview quite a few of Sheffield’s unsigned acts and to be honest this was one of the easiest and free flowing interviews we’ve had. They do come across as an incredibly tight group, this was more than evident from their stage show later on that evening, but even during the interview they answer as a collective unit. I don’t remember a single moment when one started a sentence without someone else finishing it. So with plenty of gigs in the pipeline, a spot on Iain Hodgson’s Raw Talent under their belt, and to top it all a good manager behind them they seem to be making a name for themselves up and down the country. We’d like to thank The Monday Club for taking the time to sit down and chat with us as well as wish them all the best for the future.