Gobs Almighty!

“We want to provoke people to feel again. I think we live in a day and age where everybody is on cruise control. We’re trying to slow people down and make them fall in love with music again and fall in love with a band again,” announces Mona’s Nick Brown.

The buzz surrounding the Nashville four-piece and the plaudits heaped on singles ‘Trouble On The Way’ and ‘Listen To Your Love’ (slick indie rock fare of the Kings Of Leon hue) would seem to suggest they are well placed to succeed in their aim. Brown and his cohorts have just finished a rash of sold-out UK shows, are fixtures on the 2011 Hot Lists and have a stellar Later With... Jools Holland performance (the springboard for many a career) under their belts.
“For a bunch of boys from midwest America it was quite the experience, cameras flying around in your face and Robert Plant, Arcade Fire and Adele watching you,” comments Brown on their UK TV appearance.
Did they get the chance to shoot the breeze with the Led Zep ledge?
“Yes, he complimented us and sang our praises. He really liked the band and loved ‘Lines In The Sand’. Getting any compliment from a legend is pretty amazing.”
Like many US acts the band have made a conscious decision to concentrate on the European market from the outset. With Suede impressario Saul Galpern at the management helm, they are in the best of hands.
“That was kind of a fluke actually,” explains Nick. “ A friend suggested us on Facebook. I had no clue who Suede were. I had never heard of Nude Records and quite frankly didn’t care about it. He just seemed to get it. He had similar ambition to myself and the band and that was what sparked our interest. We always wanted to come to the UK and Europe first, we always felt the people were more open minded when it comes to the arts in general. It was great having the connections to do that.”
Brown’s first trip to Europe was memorable for all the wrong reasons. As a teenager he visited Belfast as part of a church music group (three quarters of Mona started their music careers this way). The trip turned out to be a little more eventful than anticipated.
“We were staying on the Shankill Road and we were warned not to wear certain colours and go to certain parts of town alone,” he says. “There was a car bombing the day we got there and then a retaliation shooting the next day. At a young age that was pretty intense.”
In autumn 2009 the band released ‘Listen To Your Love’ on their own Zion Noise label. Following its success and a heated bidding war they eventually signed on the dotted line with Island.
“We made it very clear before we signed that if they fuck with it we’ll cause a scene,” says Brown. “I’m not a leader of followers, I’m a leader of leaders. Everyone in this band is talented and has a clear vision and when we move forward we move forward as one unit. It’s a very big deal for us to have control and put things out on vinyl. Even though we’re signed to Island, stuff still comes out on Zion Noise because we want it to be our voice. We don’t want somebody else’s hands on it.”
“If this starts to go in directions that don’t represent us, we don’t care how good the momentum is or how much money is on the table. We will stop immediately and get things back on track. We have worked way too long and way too hard on this to let someone else make money off of it,” he asserts.
Has the media hype put Brown and co. under pressure?
“I personally thrive on pressure,” he states. “You put a gun to my head and I perform a million times better. But I don’t care about the hype. We’re hard on ourselves and we are motivated by ourselves. We know all this can get much bigger and there are Grammys to win and there are Brits to win. But there are also much lower lows. So you can’t be driven by any of that.”

Listen to new track ‘Trouble On The Way’ on hotpress.com now. Mona play Auntie Annie’s, Belfast (February 16) and Whelan’s, Dublin (17)