Monster Truck is Jon Harvey (vocals & bass), Jeremy Widerman (guitar & vocals), Brandon Bliss (organ & vocals) and Steve Kiely (drums & vocals). Together, they form one of Canada’s most promising rock outfits.
It’s not often talked about, but Canada has one enviable rock and roll canon. From Neil Young and The Guess Who, to Rush and Arcade Fire, the country has consistently produced boundary-pushing rock outfits and Monster Truck are no different.
The Juno-Award winning outfit recently unveiled their eagerly anticipated sophomore album, Sittin’ Heavy, which is a quintessential road record, providing a summary of all the tales and tumults of the band’s busy gig schedule.
We recently caught up with the band to find out what gear the experienced road warriors prefer to rock crowds with and it proved a surprising and illuminating back-and-forth. Apparently, your dad’s tool kit can come in handy when you’re a rock band.
Back To Basics
If I had to travel in a small vehicle, I would probably just bring a stereo and two speakers and play our CD for people and drink 36 beers and dance naked to it.
The Rig
My rig is two Traynor 4×12 cabinets with a Marshall JMP and my custom Morris Grinder head. It’s always been pretty similar though, always just a rocking vintage head into CElestion V30’s
It translates to the studio wonderfully! It’s why I’ve always kind of gone this route because it’s always worked so well in the studio. It almost starts there.
Back To Basics
My understanding of gear back in the day was shit! I played a solid state Peavey and I totally didn’t understand the power of an all-tube head and it took way longer than it should have to make the switch.
It Comes From Your Hands
It’s all important but yes, I do think there’s an overemphasis on gear with younger players. Sometimes I don’t think younger or less experienced players know how much of the tone comes from your hands and that’s why it’s important to hone your style as opposed to attempting to emulate other people’s.
Getting Weird
The weirdest piece of gear I ever received from a company? Probably the Jaegermeister tap that Jager gave us, in a road case! I’m still drunk!
The weirdest I ever paid money for, though, I would have to say my $200 patch cable I used for recording the album. Not too sure what I was smoking there.
Putting Your Foot Down
I don’t really have any obscure pedals or stomp boxes. I like to keep it very simple: a Wah pedal, Overdrive, Phaser, Tremolo/Reverb, Tuner, and that’s it.
Solving Problems
The biggest problem solver in my gear bag is Loc-tite. For those who don’t know it’s like a glue used for locking down any threaded connections, screws, input jacks and connectors. Nothing worse than having gear fall apart on the road. I put that shit on everything!
Monster Truck’s latest album, ‘Sittin’ Heavy’, is out now via Dine Alone/Cooking Vinyl Australia.
