Prolific Brooklyn-based psych-pop trio Monogold will release Babyfood, their sixth album since 2011 on September 29th thru Chill Mega Chill Records. To create the video for its first single, “Cinnamon,” the band recruited a group of young art students from The Good School, a mobile arts education school for young NYC students that specializes in stop-motion animation. Students at The Good School work out of schools all over Manhattan and Brooklyn, so Monogold went into a class to meet with a group of them and chatted about food, candy and dreams– the result is this absolutely adorable video that was as weird as the band had hoped. All of the kids who worked on the video were between six and seven years old and did all of the animation by hand, completely on their own.
No strangers to life on the road, Monogold seemed like the perfect group to give us the behind-the-scenes scoop on what touring is really like. Check out tips for keeping your sanity on tour, Monogold-style:
1. The absolute most important tip there is… know who you are going on tour with!! Make sure you can co-exist peacefully in an environment like tour. It’s great in our case because outside of the band we all are actually like best friends and all very similar. Most horror stories occur with opposite personalities clashing in close quarters. No fun.
2. Make sure your mode of transportation is road-worthy. Ya dont wanna get stuck in the middle of nothing but cornfields for 3 days in Alabama like we did. Rough, thank god for booze.
3. Get creative with food and booze. We always load up coolers with cold cuts and snacks and have an assortment of beers and little bottles of booze you can smuggle into any venue when your running low on funds.
4. Hide your drugs extremely well!!! Especially in the south.
5. Do not leave guitars in the van!!! EVER!!! If you can run away with my 200 pound amp, well then god bless ya, you deserve that shit.
6. Try not to bring the bullshit of home with you. Sometimes on really long drives theres nothing to do but think. Its good to try and use that time to get rid of alot of clutter in the brain not focus on it.
7. Don’t eat sushi from anywhere but an actual Japanese sushi restaurant!
8. Sometimes after arriving for a soundcheck there is a LOT of time to kill. You can get pretty bored aimless and restless. Try not to get to fudged up or anything, as boring as it may be. There was a time or two when I said “Hey when are we playing?” to the response of “Dude we already played.” Yikes..
9. Be willing to get grimy. Accept it. Love it .
10. I would say to try and know where you’re staying, but honestly half the time we never know.
11. Try and keep in mind, no matter how tedious and uncomfortable things may get, it’s actually amazing. Have a blast!
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