If you don’t know about the booming music scene in New Brunswick or Asbury Park, you should educate yourself. One of the bands making a splash are rockers Monterey. With their newest release, the trio is taking a different route and exploring a more emotional side (check out our review here). I sat down with bassist Chris Beninato and lead vocalist and guitarist Carter Henry about their time on tour, playing as Nirvana on Halloween, and their new EP “Sailors,” which drops on November 18th. Check out our interview below!
Smash Cut: First of all, thanks for taking the time to talk with me.
Chris: Of course.
Carter: Thanks for having us.
SC: So you guys just got off of a tour from this summer, which started off at the Stone Pony, which was probably awesome for you guys as a New Jersey Band.
Carter: Yeah, that was really cool. We opened up for Pepper and the Dirty Heads. It was pretty wild cause him and I, especially back in the day were big reggae fans and we used to always head to concerts. So, it was wild to be on a tour with them.
SC: How was touring?
Carter: Fun! A lot of fun. It’s been a lot of fun.
Chris: An adventure everyday. Long nights, but it was fun. We definitely got to meet a lot of bands. As you know is the plan of touring, you know trying to network as much as possible.
Carter: It was cool seeing how music worked in other parts of the country. We never really toured extensively before, mostly just Jersey shows, then New York and Philly. But it was cool going out to Ohio and seeing what type of music they play out there and what they’re into. It was comforting knowing that everyone is real into it no matter where you go.
Chris: There are so many passionate people involved. Between the promoters and who booked us there. The bartenders, everyone.
SC: You’re coming out of a really awesome community in New Brunswick too.
Chris: Yeah, which is great! And we’re also getting involved in Asbury. The scenes are bumping.
SC: Yeah, and you recorded your EP at Lakehouse Studios.
Chris: Yeah, magnificent studio. You have to see it to believe sort of thing.
Carter: If you ever get a chance when you’re down in Asbury to check it out. It’s right on Lake Ave. They got a music store down below and a music video company upstairs. It’s a really nice place.
Chris: And recording there was great. I never felt so comfortable in a recording studio in my life. It was great. A great energy. The people we worked with like Tim Panella helped us a lot for the three days we were there.
Carter: They just got us really quick. Right off the bat. I think in the past, the people we worked with tended to be older and this guy we worked with was I think 25. I think he just understood music and younger music a little better.
SC: I mean, Asbury has this rich history of music. If you go to any stage, there’s some legend’s sweat on that stage and Lakehouse is cool new addition to the community.
Chris: Yeah, I see a lot of bands turning to Lakehouse. Between The Wonder Bar, Asbury Lanes, The Stone Pony, which is great. The scene is awesome. It’s a really intimate type of venue.
Carter: There’s a great atmosphere there.
SC: And you’re also playing a house show tonight.
Chris: Yeah, we do a lot in New Brunswick basements and stuff like that. And they’re a lot of fun. And the venues they make in these basements are crazy.
SC: Do you change anything up between playing a venue like The Stone Pony and playing a basement show?
Carter: It’s mostly what covers we play or you know how we’ll play a song. We’ll be a little rowdier in a basement.
Chris: We just play louder cause it just feels more acceptable in that sense.
Carter: You know, throw in a punk song to cover.
Chris: Yeah, we love doing covers in sets.
SC: Speaking of covers, you guys performed as Nirvana on Halloween.
Chris: [Laughs] Yeah! That was a lot of fun.
Carter: One of the more fun shows we ever done.
SC: Whose decision was that? Were you guys just thinking “hey, let’s play as Nirvana.”
Carter: Well, we recently became just a three-piece. We’re finding that fourth person. We have a guy we’re working with right now, but no one ready to go for that show. So, instead of just playing as a three piece doing our music, let’s just play as Nirvana. And it was cool learning all the songs. We learned eight songs in a week doing two a night.
Chris: Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Carter: Sometimes they just blended together in my head learning the lyrics and stuff, but it was so cool playing the songs like that. Like, everyone knew the words and stuff. Playing originals, people they dig it and they move to it, but we’re not on the level of Nirvana, so they don’t know our songs like that.
Chris: I feel like we weren’t sloppy enough in a way with that Nirvana sound [Laughs]. It was awesome with people in our faces screaming the words.
Carter: It was rowdy.
Chris: Save Face rocked it too.
SC: Your new EP is dropping November 18th and listening to “The King’s Head” and then “Sailors” is a jump.
Carter: It’s a total jump.
Chris: It’s a big jump. It’s kind of what we always wanted, it was just past producers would have more of their influence on it. Like I said, we just clicked with the guy. He knew what we were going for and what our EP sounds like now is pretty much what we sound like live. We used the same amp, same guitars.
Carter: We worked with great people in the studios before, but it didn’t really quite click totally. We didn’t get exactly what we wanted.
Chris: It was a compromise. We definitely kind of compromised in the past to a degree, but I think the direction it’s heading in is going to continue.
SC: It’s also a more of emotional route.
Chris: Yeah definitely it’s gonna continue. I mean this guy writes great hooks and great lyrics and it’s gonna continue.
SC: Yeah, I mean the track “Sailors,” that end with the gang vocals.
Chris: Yeah, I mean unfortunately our drummer Matt isn’t here, he plays guitar, drums, he plays a little bit of everything. [Laughs]
Carter: [Laughs] He’s a jack of all trades. But he did a lot of great vocals on the EP. I know exactly the part you’re talking about when everyone comes in and sings it with us.
Chris: Yeah, we had a great time recording it. It happened so fast almost. It happened too fast, but it was great.
Carter: Recording that, it was just 4 or 5 of us in a room. Even the guy who was recording was in it, he had like an intern hit the record button cause we just needed more voices. We were like screaming and the microphones were on the other side of the room. It was wild.
Chris: Yeah, it was fun.
SC: You guys also got darker, do you pull from anything?
Carter: Yeah, we definitely pull from experiences and our own emotions. You know, we come up with the music part of it we’ll just kind of free form jam and then we’d say “oh, you know that sounds good.” Then, we’ll add a little structure to that and once in a while I just mumble some things singing, but our drummer texts me “about that new one you should write it about a guy on trial for something that he didn’t do” and I don’t know, it just sparked and I wrote it in like a day. Even though it’s about something, you know I’ve never been on a trial like that obviously, but you can’t help pulling feelings and emotions and experience and that’s gonna show even if you’re just making up a story.
Chris: I think a lot of songs will have its own meaning for each individual. So one song will sound like and mean something to one person and way different to someone else, but I totally think we captured something we wanted to.
Carver: Yeah, we definitely wanted it to be darker.
Chris: More angsty, more pissed off in a way, but at the same time still upbeat and fun.
Carver: Yeah, we still wanted to have that energy that we have at our shows.
SC: That’s awesome. You guys also recently performed at the CBGB festival.
Carter: That was really cool. There were a lot of great bands that played.
Chris: I think that was my favorite place that we played in New York.
SC: The Lit Lounge, right?
Carter: It’s like a basement. Almost like a cavern. It was cool.
Chris: Like some catacombs (Laughs).
Carter: And a lot of people turned out, which was cool. It was similar to the Court Tavern in New Brunswick. But the sound guy was great and it was a good set. We had our old manager play guitar for us that night. It was the first time he ever played for us. So yeah, really good time. Good experience.
SC: Are there any venues you definitely want to play in?
Carter: Definitely Starland. We want to play there within the next year. I mean, I can say more far reaching ones (Laughs). But we won’t jinx it. But yeah, definitely Starland to start out. Then, Bowery and the Electric Factory in Philly. I would love to play those.
Chris: Absolutely. Somewhere we are actually going to play where we haven’t played before is Asbury Lanes on December 11th. It’s our friend’s release show and he asked us to play in the line up.
Carter: Deal Casino is dropping their EP a couple weeks after us. Yeah, Asbury Lanes. It’s gonna be good show.
SC: And you guys started in 2011, did you guys meet then?
Chris: We’ve been friends for-
Carver: Yeah, technically I’ve been playing with this kid since we were fourteen, but just you know jamming. The four of us that started the band, we played together a little bit in 2009 and 10, but we would do like one show a year because one guy played baseball for Rider and it was just hard for him to get together much. We were all kind of just starting college, Matt was actually just getting done with high school, we were all kind of in different spots, so it didn’t really match up. I would always consider the start 11/11/11 at the Court Tavern. We played a show there.
Chris: That was at the reopening right?
Carver: No, we played a show and then the closed. Then a year later someone bought it and reopened it, which was a blessing for us.
Chris: And just to see that place transform. It was definitely run down when it was closing down, it still had this great energy but the ceiling tiles were falling down.
Carver: A really great guy over there if you ever go down there, Andy Diamond. He’s been a really great friend. He pretty much books all the bands there and he just helped us a lot along the way, getting us shows and guiding us.
SC: Are there any bands around you would like to play with?
Carver: I would love to play with, or I guess we technically already kind of played with River City Extention.
Chris: Yeah, we did do a festival with them, but their just awesome.
Carver: I would love to play a show with The Front Bottoms, they just get wild at their shows.
Chris: We played with them at a festival too I guess, but more at an actual show. There are just so many good bands. Even at the show today there will probably be two bands I never heard before who are awesome.
Carver: We love playing with our friends and Deal Casino is probably one of our favorite bands that are also our friends. I mean far reaching ones, I would love to play with Cage the Elephant and Kings of Leon someday. The Black Keys, all three of those. Maybe one show [Laughs].
SC: Well, you’ve got to aim high.
Carver: [Laughs] Well you know, shoot for the stars.
I’d like to thank Chris and Carter for being awesome and talking with me. Monterey is releasing their EP “Sailors” on November 12th. You can check out our review here. The EP is currently available for pre-order over on iTunes.
Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.