Monster Truck is simply one of the best heavy rock acts to show up on either side of the American border in the last 10 years. Guitarist Jeremy Widerman talks about the lessons that came with joining Monster Truck.
Written and Photographed by David Booth
Lead Photo Courtesy of Monster Truck
Monster Truck is the perfect name for a band out of Hamilton Ontario. For those who have never been to Hamilton, it’s the black sheep of the GTA family. The black sooty sheep. A place where you chew the first breath of fresh air in the morning. It’s the girl with the “good personality”, without the good personality. Just ask anyone who lives in Toronto, they’ll tell you exactly that. Most Hamiltonians would probably just agree with them to shut them up rather than jaw about civic pride. Despite the lack of chest thumping , Hamilton is a city that’s very real. It holds its own, and doesn’t feel the need to be particularly trendy. Hamilton knows what it is, and is just fine doing what works. Listen to “Don’t Tell me How to Live” and you can almost imagine driving down King Street from the Delta to downtown. Much like the “Hammer” Monster Truck isn’t trying to be everyone else. They’re damn good at being the what they are, and that suits them fine.
ANDIVERO had the opportunity to speak with Guitarist Jeremy Widerman while they were finishing up their European tour, and discussed the band and their newest album, True Rockers.
DAVE BOOTH: How has Europe been? Do you find there’s a big difference between touring Europe and North America?
JEREMY WIDERMAN: Definitely. It’s the reason we have been coming back here so consistently, with the decline in Canadian rock radio and the lack of everything rock in America. We realized that about three years ago, which was about the time we started coming over here. It’s pretty easy when you’re put in a situation. Do an American tour, do a European tour, do a Canadian tour and you see the difference. We already had a pretty firmly established Canadian following when we started coming to Europe, and saw immediate fan growth there in comparison to the work we’d put in to America. Not only are we seeing fan growth in Europe, we’re seeing it quicker than fan growth in Canada, which is crazy, because growth in Canada was very fast and it was aided by Canadian rock radio. In Europe they don’t really have rock radio, it’s solely word of mouth, live shows and being consistent. We just knew right away this was going to be a place that was viable.
DB: Are people there just saying, “there’s supposed to be a good show tonight. We’re just going to go”?
JW: Yeah, there are a lot of places in Europe that are exactly like that, especially Spain. Spain is a good example of that. I remember the first time we went to Spain on a headline show we were very concerned, because we were like “what are we doing?” We’re going to these Spanish venues, we’ve never played Spain before, really. We played it once in a festival two years earlier and instead we were going to three cities headlining. People listen to Spotify, people watch the YouTube videos. There’s some following there, but 200 people came to each show, and I could tell that the majority of the crowd weren’t there to see Monster Truck. They were there to see a rock show. They heard there was a rock show that night, and I could see it in their faces when we went on stage that they were unconvinced right away, because we hadn’t played yet. They didn’t know who we were, they had probably come to this venue before under similar circumstances to see a rock band and been disappointed. So I’m looking at this crowd and I can tell that they’re judging us and I know what’s happened. These are not our fans. These are people who want to hear rock music, and we better be fucking good. And we did what we always do. We were fucking good. We played the same set we’d played on the tour to that point and convinced everybody in that room that we were the real deal and by the end of the show, there were 200 more fans. That’s such an amazing and refreshing way to be able to do business as a musician, that they’re actually going to come and give you the benefit of the doubt out of the gate. They don’t need a Facebook event page. They don’t need marketing and YouTube ads and a good write-up in the paper and a song on the radio. They just want to see rock and roll music. As long as you’re good, you’re going to be able to get them and you’re going to be able to come back. That’s the situation we’re in right now. We’re coming back.
DB: Canadian rock radio has a certain support system built in, but at the same time it seems like Canadian audiences tend to eat their own. I don’t know if people have the same excitement about a band when they hear it’s Canadian for some weird reason. It’s almost like you have to sell it harder.
JW: I don’t know that we found that, and maybe that’s because we had really great support from the beginning. I know what you’re referring to though, because I’ve definitely felt like that in previous bands that I’ve been in, but in this band we’ve always felt good. The support has always felt genuine and it’s always been consistent. We’ve always been able to come back to the places we’ve played, and we’ve always had great support from fans that got on early and stayed with us for the long haul. It’s something that made me feel like we were on the right path, like we were right because I wasn’t having that kind of issue. We had a little bit of that with our newest record. We had a few songs on there that didn’t meet the classic metal sound that we had with the other albums, but it’s quickly forgotten and becomes a blip on the radar from something that has otherwise been very consistent and enthusiastic support from fans. It has more to do with the type of fans we attract. It’s full blown adults. Our fan base is rock fans from late 20s to 50s. You know? So you’re not running into people being fickle of changing their styles where they like a different band next week. They’ve decided what they like 10 years ago, and now they’re sticking with it. So that’s provided us a lot of support and longevity, and it’s something that took us a little time to realize as the situation we were in, because there were definitely efforts early in the band’s career to attract teenagers or marketing campaigns that were put out to the wrong magazines. The wrong demographic. We didn’t realize that what we were dealing with were adults.
DB: There are some bands that you can tell are just having a good time. Like when you hear a demo and everyone is laughing at the end of it because they’re having fun doing it. It seems like there is that spirit with this band. You can almost hear you guys smiling when you’re playing. I think that makes a big difference.
JW: I think it took me a few years to learn as a musician. When you’re having fun, and you’re obviously having fun, it becomes inclusive. It lets everyone have fun with you. It gives people permission to let go of the bullshit they’ve been fucking dealing with that week. It’s something we take seriously, and something we take not seriously at all. If we are going to set up and play a show, especially a headline show, we are going to be the thing that makes you forget about whatever is dragging you down and we do that pretty much on purpose. We really center the band around not being too serious. Around focusing on the good things in life. Music is massively important for people to relieve stress, and forget about their problems. Sometimes music helps you dwell on your problems very specifically to the point where you can get an understanding of it so you can let it go. It’s always been a medicine of sorts. We’re the fun rock band that’s here to make you forget about it for an hour or two.
DB: Do you think starting out as a fun side project was a big part of Monster Truck’s success?
JW: Yeah, totally. It’s very reflective of that. It was freedom. It was ultimate freedom realizing that you can turn something from being a side project to being your job, which was how we were able to let go of all the constraints that held us down before in other bands. All the concerns when you think you’re trying to be successful or trying to make money or trying to be on the radio and you all of a sudden decide – what I decided for me, at least personally, was that I didn’t fucking care anymore. I don’t care whether we’re on the radio. I don’t care whether we get a record label. I don’t even want to be part of that, because at the time, I had just come out of being in a band on a major label. I’d been run through the ringer, told that we’d be the next big thing, and decided when it all failed and collapsed that I didn’t want that surrounding the band I was in because I just wanted to have fun. That’s what we did with this band when we started it, and it’s what kind of forged the path we’d been on for the last 10 years. It’s the thing that really gave me freedom in my mind to believe that a pure thought like that can actually be successful, which gives me the tiniest bit of hope in the music industry to produce things that are pure. Sometimes, at my worst times I don’t believe that the music industry has anything pure and honest and amazing to offer because of how fucking… disgusting it is at its core most of the time. That was a massive weight off my shoulders. It was a kind of an epiphany moment. “This is all you got to do? Love your own band? Make music you know in your heart you love and people will pay to see it? Holy fuck. This is easier than I thought” after 15 years of failing.
DB: As a band, you guys stood out to me. There’s no sense of irony. No sense of the unbearable weight of being you. You’re just out there having fun. It’s just good. You guys play well together. What is it about the four of you coming together that creates that unique sound?
JW: I think one of the key things we do that is a little bit different is we found a really great way to fuse the new with the old. Our heart and soul is clearly rooted in 70s rock — Grand Funk Railroad, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, but we don’t just forget about Soundgarden and Nirvana and even the fast so-cal punk scene that I grew up on. Even Rage Against the Machine and the Black Keys. These are all very important influences that guide me on guitar and Steve on drums, and Jon — Jon is a huge metal guy. A lot of modern 80s thrash to EARLY 2000s metal, he’s on that tip. There’s a little bit of luck there. You can’t always find people with that many varied interests together to make a cohesive band, but because we’re all deeply rooted in classic 70s rock, and we’re adding on those extra little flavors as spices on top, I think that is a considerable advantage. We’ve gotten a little bit of luck. We’ve all got pretty good classic rock musical taste and we’ve all had our own pass through modern punk and modern metal that we’re able to sprinkle into the mix and make it unique. That might be pushing it because we’re a pretty basic up the middle riff-rock band but that is the difference in what I think we do.
DB: One of the things I was thinking about was the singer being the bassist. You see the world through the instrument that you’re playing, and how you play it. It seems to change the rhythm, the presentation of vocals change based on a person playing bass versus keyboards versus guitar.
JW: Yeah. That’s always part of it. There are a couple different unique instrumentation based things, whether it’s Marv singing lead vocals, whether it’s having the Leslie rock organ at all. A lot of rock bands will have the organ on a song, where we have it all the time. We have a drummer who meticulously goes through the backing vocals and makes sure everyone’s got good harmony singing backing vocals. I don’t know how many bands have drummers that are paying attention to what the guitar players backing vocals are, but he is. And then you’ve got me on guitar. I’m not really interested in playing guitar solos much. I’ll do them, but I’m really concentrating on song structure and arrangement and making sure I’m putting forth something that’s easily grabbed onto. A couple of really unique things are going on here with the band that, on their own they’d be unique, but combined together the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s what we’ve got. I’ve had longer to think about it than you have so I look at it in all these different ways but that’s how I’ve always seen it. I’ve always considered myself incredibly lucky to find these guys to play music with. It’s the thing I recognized immediately. The first practice or second practice I knew right away. This was majorly different than any band I’d been in.
DB: It doesn’t feel like work?
JW: Well, yeah. Most of the bands I’ve been in haven’t felt like work because you’re drinking beer and playing rock music, but with these three guys, it was something special. This group of four dudes is different than every other band I’ve been in before. People ask “You’ve been in a band for 10 years. What’s the thing you’re most proud of?” The thing I’m most proud of is the same four of us all together, friends, playing music together. That’s where it started and that’s where we’re at today almost 10 years later.
DB: Did it start out where you were friends and got together or were you looking for a certain thing?
JW: No. it really went from being a fucked up weird conversation in a house party on a Saturday night to our first band practice two days later on a Monday evening. It was really like “Hey. I want to start a band called Monster Truck to “Yeah, I’ll play bass”, to “Yeah, I’ll play drums” in a span of 10 minutes to “Hey, if we’re going to do this we should get an organ player.” And “Ok. I’ll call him Sunday morning”, to jamming on Monday writing our first song. There was really something kind of special about it. How it came together and how it felt on that first practice. On the second practice, it was like “Holy shit, we’ve got something seriously fucking awesome here. I was in a really dark place personally at that time, so I was extra happy. It was the thing that kind of saved me from what I was dealing with at the time, which was a horrible break up, but I knew we had something. Right now I’m in fucking Cardiff, England just finishing an arena show. I didn’t know that would be the case but I knew we had something.
DB: I think the harmony thing you mentioned before. I’m a huge beach boys guy. When I hear good harmonies, it just hits home.
JW: Me too.
DB: You’re a Beach Boys fan? That’s awesome. That’s what I grew up to. First thing I ever remember listening to was the b-side of a 45 with “You’re So Good to Me” on it. And it just turned me on to music.
JW: That happened to me. I was six and I think it was “Surfin’ USA”.
DB: There are some bands that do it well, but you don’t see many bands do it in the way you guys do. It hits hard. I find when you don’t hear it going in and out all the time, it just sounds natural.
JW: It was something we talked about really early on. We knew from the beginning we wanted it to be a huge part of the band. It was great that we had Steve there to help out with it, but it’s something we all talked about many times, that we wanted everybody to sing, because what’s better than seeing a 4-piece rock band all with their mouths wide open pounding out vocals?
DB: You’ve got a really strong voice. Were you fronting a band at one point?
JW: The original idea was both of us singing lead vocals, but Marv is just so much better than I am that I think we got maybe four or five songs in and we realized how much better Marv was than I was at singing, and we were just like, “Ok, enough of this experiment with Jeremy on lead vocals. Let’s just focus on Marv here”.
DB: I was going to ask if you saw yourself doing more lead in the future, but it sounds like it’s the other way, where you found the right fit for you guys.
JW: Yeah, we did. I’m happy to do it. I’ve got a higher voice so I’m happier to take the high harmonies. It’s a good thing.
DB: With the new album, what were you trying to accomplish? Is it what you expected it to be when you started, or did it take a life of its own? How does this factor into Monster Truck’s sound?
JW: We had two really main goals when making this record. One was to bring some of the fun back from Furiosity. Where it sounds like we were having fun on the record, which you alluded to earlier, which I think was a success. We also wanted to make sure the diversity of the album was a little more than in the past, where there’s a lot more style and vibes and instrumentation across the record, so you don’t get halfway into the record and feel like you’re hearing the same song twice, which I think maybe there was that feeling on a couple of our other records. I think we achieved both of those things. We ended up second guessing ourselves and went in and did a second session trying to add to the record, which I think ended up being a really great thing but had drawbacks in that it delayed the record quite a bit and killed the momentum we had, especially in Europe. But, at the end of the day, it’s another record under our belts and another lesson learned and another step forward in a lot of ways. We’re supporting it in Europe right now and it’s going excellent, and we’re already thinking about the next record.
DB: Is there a song on it that has been under the radar that’s a personal favorite? Any that stick out?
JW: My favorite ones so far are the ones that aren’t under the radar right now. Songs that we’re playing in the set that people are familiar with and have a presence online already, but there are a couple songs under the radar that aren’t as well known yet, songs that don’t get added into the set until you do a headline show. We haven’t really done a headline tour on this album yet. A slower more dynamic song is just not something we’re going to add into a 30 minute arena set when we’re playing for a group that want to hear songs off all three records, and we’ve got to play singles off the new record. We don’t have time to add in a 7-minute ballad off the new album. Something like “The Howlin'” or “Undone” are songs I’m looking forward to adding in to a set when we do a headline show.
DB: I think “The Howlin” is a great song. I think you’re dead on the money with that. I haven’t seen the band live yet. I got last minute tickets to that festival in Kitchener where Soundgarden and Jane’s Addiction were playing and you guys opened. I got there about 10 minutes after you guys closed up the set.
JW: That was a good show actually. Dave Navarro tweeted that day about the band after our set. It was a huge moment for us to see that, to have Dave Navarro tweet that Monster Truck was awesome, great guitar playing kind of vibe. I was just like “holy fuuuuck”.
DB: I can see you guys being a bands band. You do hear other bands say a lot of good things about you. I think that’s really cool.
JW: It’s a huge help too, huge help for your confidence. Huge help with actual tangible results. Getting more exposure, better tours, all that stuff. It was a real feather in our caps having that happening right out of the gate and it’s still happening today.
DB: How did Dee Snider end up on the song “True Rocker”?
JW: He’s been a fan of the band for a long time. He was in Toronto doing his broadway show and he went into a juice bar and heard the band coming through someones Bluetooth speaker. He said “Who the hell is that”? He hit us up on Twitter. Real big supporter for many years. We had this part on this record that we knew needed another voice and it needed to be someone other than someone in the band. We knew we had to ask him and we knew he’d say yes, and he’d do a great job, and all of those things happened.
DB: I don’t hear a lot of 80s in your influences. I was sort of surprised to hear him on there. It fits well. It just wasn’t the first genre that came to mind.
JW: He’s just a pretty open minded guy. He just supports all things rock and for whatever reason he’s had an affinity for us and it’s a great kind of relationship all around.
DB: What’s coming up? I know you have a show planned in Barrie. I’m going up to see that show in a couple weeks. Is America next?
JW: We’ve got some dates coming up in 2019 but it’s just a fucking frightening place to be. We’ve made our priorities Europe. There are still places we haven’t been yet. Yeah. There’s just work to be done over here. We’ve done nothing but spin our tires out there to convince people to come out and see live music. And it hasn’t worked. It’s been nothing but successful out here in Europe, so it’s not on the top of our priority list at the moment.
DB: When I hear bands say things like “Yeah, I want to tour America, but you have to count on losing money touring the States, and you have to have a certain number of European tours under your belt to be able to tour America.” That’s kind of terrifying.
JW: I kind of wish people were taking a bigger stand against it. We’re a small band, you know? I wish I was seeing bigger acts, international acts, speaking up against it but they won’t because there’s so much money out there to make and we’ve got people constantly trying to get us over there because there’s so much money in America. I wish it was looked at where there was more than one thing that’s important, and putting pressure on them. That’s where it used to come from, you know? Artists used to actually stand up for what they believed in and what they thought was important.
DB: By that do you mean politics or the touring circuit?
JW: I can’t say much because not many people are listening to me, but I wish I saw bigger bands being like “We’re not going to tour America until you guys figure out what the fuck you’re doing over there.”
DB: I’m with you. For the last year, I’ve been dying to find a band that is plugged in that has made a protest album.
JW: Everyone is clamoring for it. I don’t think you can count on it. You’ve got one of the most important hip hop artists of all time sitting down with Donald Trump. Things are fuckin’ bad. It doesn’t get much worse than that.
DB: I was hoping for something big from Chuck D or Prophets of Rage. I was looking for something where people just go “yeah!” and just click in. Was hoping the Atlas Underground was going to be it.
JW: We need Rage Against the Machine coming back, but I wouldn’t count on that either. Something’s going to happen. I wish it was us but it’s not going to be us. We’re not influential enough to make a difference. As far as “we’re not going to go to America until you guys start treating people better or do something about gun control”. Nobody is listening to Monster Truck with that stuff, and I don’t blame them, because at the end of the day we’re just some stoner riff rock band from Canada. We don’t really have the right. It needs to be American artists standing up too, because anytime you hear someone else from outside the country you face the heat of “you’re not American, what the fuck do you know about America?” I honestly don’t have that much to say about it other than I personally don’t much like being over there and I’m not really interested in being there very often. I love it in Europe and I love it in Canada and I love it in the UK.
On December 21, Monster Truck put on show in Barrie at Mavericks. It was the first Canadian show after Monster Truck’s European tour, and featured an ambitious 19 song setlist in front of a full 700 person crowd. Monster Truck put on a high energy performance with tight four-part harmonies and great crowd interaction. Monster Truck is a fitting moniker for the band. It started out as someone’s spur of the moment idea while talking with friends, burst out of the garage larger than life, and is perfectly suited to deafen crowds and tear up stadiums. The band is all parts we’ve seen before, but there’s something in how they’re assembled that makes them stand out. From Furiosity, brimming with catchy tunes and raw potential, to Sittin’ Heavy with it’s anthemic tracks and a leap forward in Jon “Marv” Harvey’s lyrics, to their current offering, True Rockers, which shows more versatility and risk taking than previous offerings, as evidenced by their polarizing but catchy lead single, “Evolution”. This is a band that keeps growing with each project. “True Rockers” and “Denim Danger” maintain their signature sound, while songs like “The Howlin'” and “Devil Don’t Care” show some versatility without trying to be a different band. The surprise for me in this album was “Young City Hearts”. It may not be the track that turns into a mainstream rock radio staple that sticks in everyone’s head, but it shows their ability to write such a song without selling their soul in the process. Making that next step from playing large clubs and opening slots for large bands to headlining stadium tours is a tough climb most bands can’t pull off. That said, when you’re pitting a tough climb against a Monster Truck, bet on the Monster Truck.
