Q&A with Royal Monsters' O'Hagan

Bassist and vocalist John O’Hagan of Royal Monsters, a Phoenix-based punk/hardcore band, stopped by Fender headquarters in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Friday to pick up his brand new Squier^® by Fender^® Classic Vibe Jazz Bass^® in Olympic White.  And while we had him here, Fender News caught up with the artist for a quick Q&A.

John O'Hagan (front and center, arms crossed) and his band the Royal Monsters.   Photo by Dave Dell Oso

FN: What’s the reception been like to Royal Monsters debut self-titled EP? 

J.O.: It’s been awesome so far. Online sales, like any record right now, is not as good as everybody has hoped for, but we sell a lot of records every time we play. New Age, our record label has been just amazing. They are just super hard working and pushing our EP really hard. They are pretty happy with it, and we are really happy with them. It was really good for us, because it was our first release as a band. We’ve all played in bands before and in bands together before, but never as this lineup and it’s been really cool.

FN: You guys had a west coast tour in July and August to help promote the EP. How did that go?

J.O.: It was awesome. I’ve been in bands before where it’s drive to the city, go to the show, play the show, go home and go to sleep early so that we can start the drive early the next day to the next show, and really where we almost looked at it as a job. This band, it’s been very exciting, like, “Hey, what are we doing to do once we get to the city? Let’s go look at this beautiful lake or screw around in the forest.” It’s been a lot more fun and adventurous, which in turn makes us more creative, which in turn makes the music better and the writing experience a lot more fun and energetic. It’s been awesome. It was a really inspiring tour. We went through some of the most beautiful redwoods and instead of rushing to get to the show, we took the time to hang out on the beach for a little bit and go and run around in the forest and things like that. It was one of the best tours I’ve ever been.

FN: Yes, I read the blog you guys have on your website. It’s quite detailed!

J.O.: Yeah, Jeff Owens, our guitar player, writes an online sort of autobiographical comic every day. He draws a panel and talks about his day. He writes comic books—he used to work at a comic store so he’s really into the whole blogging thing. He’s awesome with that. I think he’s got two-and-a-half years of his comic blog with updates every single day, drawing a panel and scanning it in. He was working on that on tour, taking pictures and keeping a daily journal. On this last tour we also had a roadie with us who runs a metal/hardcore blog and he did a video diary, took pictures, and wrote a piece about most of the shows he was at with us.

FN: While you were touring was there a particular song that became a crowd favorite?

J.O.: I think the song “Save Yourself” is sort of the easiest to pick up on. It’s fairly repetitive vocally in the beginning so kids kind of picked up on that pretty quickly and knew the song from our MySpace page. We closed on the last tour with a new song, and it got really good reactions. It’s a really intense song—we took forever to write it, and just kept revamping it and revamping it. We wound up closing with it every night and kids were really into it.

FN: What’s the name of that one so we know to look for it?

J.O.: Right now the working title is “Presence Tense.” I don’t think that’s going to be the name of it on the record. The next record is a concept record and the lyrics are all done, the songs are mostly done and the song titles are totally up in the air.

John O'Hagan tests out his new Squier® by Fender® Classic Vibe Jazz Bass®.

FN: And what’s on the horizon for you guys? 

J.O.: The record is out. We are still pushing that, and will probably do a couple of days in early October when our guitar player gets back. He’s on tour right now with another band, as a guitar tech right now. He’s back in 10 days and then he leaves again for China, Malaysia, Japan, guitar teching for No Use for a Name on the Fat Wreck Chords label.  So when he’s back for good, probably the end of November, we’ll do a few southern California dates and then start finishing up the next record. We’ve got four songs written towards the EP right now, so we’ll probably start working on that.

FN: When do you plan to release that next EP?

J.O.: We don’t want to rush it. I think the sophomore release is such an important record for a band. I think we’ve grown just a ton musically. The first record is awesome. I’m really, really happy with it. It’s a lot more straightforward than the second record. We’ve worked so hard—it’s definitely the most musically talented band I’ve ever been a part of, mostly because I have very little to do with it musically. I write a little bit, but mostly they go, “Oh, that’s nice. We’ll use one of those chords,” and then kind of ignore me when it comes to that. They are so talented and the guys work so hard, and we listen to such a vast and different stylistically and just really diverse music to take influence from. I think it’s really cool. The new record is going to sound a lot like the old record, but completely different at the same time. That’s probably weird and everybody probably says that, but I think it’s going to be interesting and I’m really stoked to see how kids are going to react.

FN: So explain that, how will it be different?

J.O.:  It’s a lot less straightforward, a bit more of a dissonance sound and probably some tempos that people probably aren’t going to expect from us. Obviously, they only have five songs to base what to expect from us, but I think it should be really good. Vocally, I’m doing a lot more experimenting and changing it up from completely shrieking and screaming at the top of my lungs to pretending that I can be a little bit melodic, stuff like that.

FN: And as for your new bass, what drew you to this particular one? 

J.O. I really like the older style basses. I had them put a little pickup upgrade in it, and it’s this off-white bass with a tortoiseshell pickguard, and it’s really awesome. It plays really well. The neck on it, the glossy neck is one of the best Fender basses I’ve played and I’ve played a lot of Fender basses over the year.  Michael Schulz (Fender Artist Relations) told me about it and that it was a new product and I wanted to come and test it out. When I did, I immediately wanted it. I definitely needed to have it.

FN: So including this latest purchase, how many basses do you now own in your collection, and how often do you add a new one?

J.O.:  Oh man, I’ve got a lot of basses, probably 10 or 11. I’ve collected a lot over the years. When something piques my interest—I do a lot of vintage shopping— and every once in a while at an antique shop or a thrift store, I’ll come across a cool old bass or acoustic guitar and I usually snag it no matter what it is, but I’m super stoked if I can get an old Fender. I found a cool old, probably ‘70s or ‘80s, acoustic Fender at an antique mall once. But basically, I get a new one either whenever I come across something or my Fender rep tells me about a new product that intrigues me enough to come by and try it out.