A Q&A with Monkey Intrusion

Italian prog adds punk and passion…

What’s the title of your latest release, and what does it mean to you?
It is ‘Bad Love’ from our debut album Pussycats and Monkeymen. An over 7 minutes hard rock-prog song that speaks about the remembrance and ghosts arising from a lost love. It is the most intense and powerful song of the album with many musical surprises and an amazing voice solo of Sara Cova our female singer.

What was the hardest part about putting this release together, and why?
The release comes from a live show we organised in a theatre of Trieste, our hometown, to promote the album. We organised the event ourselves and frankly speaking we underestimated the effort by far. But we learned a lot, it was a success, and we had a lot of fun. So, I would do it again.

Who produced the release – what did they bring to it? If you produced it yourselves what do enjoy most about producing your own material?
The song was produced at York Studios, one of the best in Slovenia, by Jadran Ogrin and Gabriel Ogrin. The video has been produced by us. We had three cameras and Marco Plesnicar, our bass player, is also a professional videomaker and video editor, so I personally enjoyed it a lot working with him and deciding together the different shots and frames and adapting them to the mood of the song.

What do you want the listener to take away from listening to your music?
The most important thing by far is to spark an emotion and be carried away for a couple of minutes from everyday life.

How does a track normally come together? Can you tell us something about the process?
Most of the time somebody brings melody, chords and a rough arrangement of the guitar part, and we work on it until all of us are satisfied, trying to be respectful of the mood of the original idea. The process can last also many weeks. The last part is normally dedicated to the lyrics. But sometimes we start from a song that has already music and lyrics and we arrange all the instrumental and vocal parts.

What band/artists have influenced you the most since you started this project, and why?
We have different musical backgrounds. Vincenzo Reina (voice and guitar) and Marco Plesnicar (bass) are strongly influenced by the music of the 70s and 80s, in particular Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, David Bowie and Peter Gabriel. Enrico Goti (voice and guitar) and Marco Bertoli (drums) grew up with grunge – Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Queens of the Stone Age, Stone Temple Pilots – and are obsessed by prog metal bands like Dream Theater and Angra. Sara Cova (voice) brings as well influences from South America.

What countries would you like to tour? Are there any standout venues you’d like to play in?
The world is the limit! All kidding aside, apart from obviously the whole of Europe, we would like to tour in South America – Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Bolivia – where we have a wonderful fan base. One venue? CBGB in New York. So many legendary artists have played there.

If you could pick one track for our readers to listen to in order to get a taste of your music, what would you pick, and why?
It is ‘Bad Love’, definitely the most varied track that sums up our different musical souls.

What ambitions do you have for the band/your career?
We want to continue to write and record wonderful songs and play them live to share emotions with as many people as possible. We are an independent band, we enjoy it, and it is the right dimension for us.

Finally, as you leave the stage, what are your parting words?
Take one hour of your precious time and listen to our album Pussycats and Monkeymen. We love you.

Find out more about Monkey Intrusion at linktr.ee/monkeyintrusion