Download 2022 (reviewed here) offered plenty of variety, from the coruscating grind of Napalm Death (interviewed here) to the perfectly pitched, good-time vibes of Monster Truck. The latter, who played on the sun-drenched main stage, know how to bring the riffs, but they also have a groove, and the crowd lapped it up. Later in the day, with the band composed after their high-octane set, we caught up with the band’s vocalist, Jon Harvey. Unstoppable on stage, unflappable off, he’s in a good mood, as well you might expect, his band having just added another few thousand fans to their ever-growing list, and he takes a moment to discuss the band, their growth and, of course, the awesome artwork for new single Golden Woman.
You’ve got a new single out, Golden Woman, the artwork is absolutely amazing – how did the band get involved in that side of things and who did it?
Thanks! It was Juan Machado, he’s a South American artist – I don’t know, he does a lot of stoner artwork and he did a lot of seventies style comic art, and that’s what I really wanted to focus on – that kind of Kirby-esque. You’ll see, once everything is revealed, but the whole thing is that nostalgia vibe. Being a kid. And all of the artwork, I want to look like it could have been on a wood-paneled wall in the basement – in That 70s Show, or something. He did an amazing job. Harking back to the Farah Fawcett poster that was on everybody’s wall in the 70s, in everyone’s dad’s garage. Yeah, he did a fantastic job, man, and I couldn’t be happier.
It’s great when a band goes above and beyond to create something that looks like that and ticks all those boxes, it’s really cool.
Yeah man, the whole thing is, artwork is super important for us and we’re very literal with everything, so there you go.
As a band you managed to tap into that rare multigenerational appeal, where you can go on tour with Nickelback or you can go on tour with Deep Purple, and you’ve got that vibe – what’s at the heart of that, do you think, is it the melodies within the music that grabs people first?
Maybe… I feel like we’re just lucky. We’re lucky that people like us and we’re lucky that these bands want to take us on tour, because I think we’re just easy. And, also, you know, it’s what we grew up with. We grew up with punk and we grew up with hardcore and we grew up with metal and we also grew up with Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Grand Funk Railroad, and it’s in the style – it’s all that just amalgamated. Happy influences, but not accidents.
Influences are important, but there’s also that underlying passion and you can feel that with Monster Truck, on stage today for example, with the sun beating down, it still feels like you’re fans first.
We have a very DIY ethos, and it comes from being young punks. We carry that over and it definitely translates, no matter what we do. It could be a good thing, it could be a bad thing, but we always hope it’s good [laughs].
Download’s obviously a very important place for you because you’ve played here four or five times and, as you said, you’ve not been back in the UK since the pandemic – how does it feel to be back.
Amazing – super happy to be here and very excited. We’re sad we’re only here for today, but it’s excellent. It’s nice to feel like life is back to normal.
It seems like a perfectly pitched festival for you guys, because there’s a lot of heavy metal, but there’s also some bluesier, classic rock and you guys slot right into the middle of that…
It feels comfortable, right?! I think that we just try to make it broader and broader every time. We do a new record and it’s like “let’s push a little bit more”. We’re lucky. We’re very, very lucky. We came at the right point and the right time for our music and let’s hope we get to do this again.
The lyrics for Golden Woman are quite personal, I think…
Yeah, it’s about my partner, Simara – she’s lovely and she’s here, actually, somewhere. She’s fantastic, and it just came over naturally, so…
You obviously take lyrics from a variety of areas, do you have any particular influences?
Not really. I think that the key to good lyrics is making them sound… they just have to be about one thing that’s it. Some people struggle with that! It’s hard, but you take one point of view and one thing. That’s really all it is. You don’t have to come from a special place, you just have to come from a place of honest communication in my opinion.
But that can be quite challenging, but lyrics have to be relatable. You talk about one point of view, but you have to place that so other people can get it – I think that can be quite hard.
I mean, yeah, and that’s why there are good song-writers and bad song-writers. I’m not saying I’m good, but that’s what I mean, it’s like that’s a struggle. The struggle is to communicate effectively, while still leaving it open for interpretation. I think that’s what we all struggle with!
When you pretty much detonated on the scene – certainly in the UK you arrived with Furiosity, having received a Juno award, did having success that early in the band’s career create a sense of pressure to keep upping the game each time?
Oh yeah, it’s all good now but before it was hard! The last record was a little bit more and on that record we tried to be influenced a little bit more by what would sell, and that’s stupid! So, the idea now is to do what feels good in your heart and I think that’s the mistake a lot of bands make, they try to sell things to people, but that’s not your job. Your job is to create, not to sell. Let someone else fucking sell it! [Laughs]
That’s true, you never really know what will work. You make a song, and fans love it; you follow it up with more of the same and they’re not necessarily going to follow, so you have to stay true to what you want to do…
I think that’s the only way, but since when did other people dictate what was cool? I thought the band said what was cool?! That’s what we need to get back to – all rock bands need to get back to that idea that we’re the ones that say what’s cool, these are the people creating new music; not a record executive, not a fucking bunch of teens! It’s literally the bands that are supposed to create the cool thing! It’s so weird to me to think that you’re writing something to try and please someone, when they want you to be yourself. But I feel like our band is final there, and we’re like “OK, this is who we are, fuck everybody!”
I’ve been interviewing various bands this weekend, and one of the interesting things is the way that various bands engage with things like social media – is it important to you. Is it important to you? Is it something that you do, or do you leave it to others to worry about?
We do, but it’s like man… who cares?! Social media is becoming less and less valuable because people are so inundated with it that they’re becoming bored with it. It’s a hard thing. You’re supposed to market on Instagram and all of a sudden, you’re supposed to market on TikTok… well, I don’t know how to do any of that shit! I’m old! And it’s funny. For us, we don’t care. We’re going to took out what’s honest. We’re going to put out tour dates. If we have a fun picture, we’re going to put that out. But we’re not trying to gain followers. We’re not content whores – we have no desire to be.
So, obviously, you put out Golden Woman, you’ve been here at Download, what’s next?
We go home! We chill for a bit, and then everything just becomes back into the swing of things. We’re back in September / October with Those Damn Crows – it’s going to be amazing and the tickets are already going. So, we’ll see how that goes and hopefully, it’s going to be a success, and hopefully we’re all in the right spot and the vibe is perfect.
