HANOI ROCKS Singer MICHAEL MONROE Talks About New Band - "It Sounds Like High Energy Rock N' Roll With Good Melodies - Really Cool Stuff!"

HANOI ROCKS Singer MICHAEL MONROE Talks About New Band - "It Sounds Like High Energy Rock N' Roll With Good Melodies - Really Cool Stuff!"



Legendary HANOI ROCKS frontman MICHAEL MONROE announced his new outfit in Hollywood last week, featuring bassist Sami Yaffa (Hanoi Rocks, NEW YORK DOLLS, JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS), guitarist Ginger (THE WILDHEARTS), Todd Youth (ACE FREHLY, DANZIG), drummer Jimmy Clark (DEBORAH HARRY, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, RICK DERRINGER, THE VAN ZANT BOTHERS, DEMOLITION 23).





BraveWords.com caught up with Monroe recently and posed the following questions:

BraveWords.com: So what kind of band is this? What are you guys going to sound like?

Monroe: "It sounds like high energy rock n’ roll with good melodies, really cool stuff! It's really coming together nice. The chemistry is perfect. It's really a strong band, I'm really happy with this. Great songwriters, everybody, and Todd Youth is a great songwriter, Ginger is a great songwriter and Sami too. We've been writing a lot of songs together, and we've got about an album’s worth of material already. It's really sounding good. Good rock 'n’ roll with good melodies and great attitude, and some punky stuff, and some more rock 'n’ roll kind of stuff, and two very different types of songs to make the album interesting. So we're still going to keep writing more songs, and we're in no hurry to get into the studio. We're probably going to go into the studio in spring here and put out a few songs for the summer, and the rest of the album in the fall."

BraveWords.com: And do you have a record deal for it?

Monroe: "Not yet. We are unsigned at the moment, and probably will be for a while. So we're in no hurry to rush into any of that either.

BraveWords.com: Have you noticed any of your influence on LA, here in 2010? Have you had any old rockers come up to you and say, ‘Hey, you guys were really important?’ Do you still see people dressing like you still there?

Monroe: "I haven't been out all that much here. I mean, I've just been rehearsing every day. So I haven't met many people here. So yeah, there are people like young kids who come up, that I've seen, but I went to Starbucks the other day, and somebody who works there, this girl said, ‘Hey, what's your name?’ And I said Michael Monroe. ‘Hey, I have your records and I was a big fan when I was a kid.’ It was like, ‘Oh, you know me for who I am? That's nice!’ And Todd Youth, was just telling me, there are a lot of people around who were too young to go to clubs back then, and now they're old enough, and they are really into the scene, the authentic rock 'n’ roll bands like the New York Dolls and IGGY AND THE STOOGES, Hanoi Rocks, that type of rock 'n’ roll, that there's a big audience for that now. And I'm starting to believe him (laughs). And I’m starting to think yeah, he might be right. So a lot of people tell me that people are ready for this kind of thing, so it's a good time for us to come out with this kind of band. It's really strong, and I feel really happy about it. And no matter what happens, I'm really ecstatic about this group of guys, because it's so much time working with them, and it’s great working together, no problems."




BraveWords.com: Have you moved to LA now?

Monroe: "No, not yet. I've lived here now... this is my third week now. I'm still based in Finland, in the city of Turku; it used to be the capitol, a couple of hours from Helsinki. So I'm based in Finland now, but yeah, I don't live in LA yet. But the band I have now, my new band, is sort of all over the place. Sami lives in New York, the guitar player Todd Youth lives in LA, and Ginger, the other guitar player from the Wildhearts, he lives in England, and Jimmy Clark, the drummer, who was in my Demolition 23 group in ‘94, he lives in Nashville. And so we ended up rehearsing in LA. I don't drive, I don't drive a car, I don't have a license, so in order to live in LA, you really have to drive or have a driver. But I wouldn't mind living in New York again, so there's a possibility that we might... and Ginger lived there too before, so we might end up living there, so right now I have no concrete plans."

BraveWords.com: And is Sami still part of the New York Dolls?

Monroe: "Yeah, the New York Dolls just aren't doing much this year. Kind of like having a bit of a break. It was just a perfect time for him to start playing with me. I went up and jammed with the New York Dolls, and they were playing in my hometown in Turku, in August, the end of last summer, and they asked me up on stage to play some sax on 'Personality Crisis', and to sing. So that's when we started talking with Sami, and we started to play together."





Catch the one and only Michael Monroe on tour this spring at the following dates:

March
11 San Francisco, CA Paradise Lounge
12 Hollywood, CA Viper Room
13 San Diego, CA Brick By Brick
14 Redondo Beach, CA The Brixton
15 Las Vegas, NV Wasted Space @ Hard Rock
TBD Austin, TX SXSW

More on Michael Monroe: michaelmonroe.com, myspace.com/michaelmonroeofficial.

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