Start Listening To: Monks
Shredding the indie playbook and crafting club-worthy bangers.
Welcome to Monks, an electrifying band emerging from Liverpool. Comprised of lead singer George Pomford, guitarist Nathan Johnson, drummer/beatmaker Kali Diston-Jones, and synthesist/keyboardist Liam Daly, Monks has been gaining attention for their exciting mix of electronic production infused with indie flair. From their roots in Liverpool's iconic music scene to their latest single ‘Welcome Home’ and upcoming EP Worldview, Monks invites us into their world of music, inspiration, and creative process. Join us as we delve deep into the minds of these talented musicians to uncover the stories behind their music, their influences, and their journey towards crafting their distinctive sound.
For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?
Monks consists of our lead singer George Pomford, guitarist Nathan Johnson, drummer/beatmaker Kali Diston-Jones, and synthesist/keyboardist Liam Daly. After a few small lineup changes, we properly formed in Liverpool during early 2018 and were quick to release music straight after this!
Can you tell us more about your new single ‘Welcome Home’?
Welcome Home is the first installment of our new Electronic influenced sound. We spent a good two years trying to pinpoint what type of music we wanted to make. These decisions were driven by how we could better what we have done before, considering not just the sound of the music, but how we work together as a group. Going forward, we wanted to make sure we utilized each band members’ strengths more effectively. Welcome Home is an interesting example of this, where each of us came up with tons and tons of different ideas for the song, starting off with beats and basslines first, to then building the message of the lyrics. As a band, we have too many ideas to try, and we’re all grateful to finally get to this point of completion with the song!
Monks have been hailed as part of Liverpool's burgeoning electronic music scene. How has the city influenced your sound and creative process?
As we began to explore more electronic music in our area, we’ve loved attending more electronic dance music events at amazing venues such as Meraki and 24 Kitchen Street. These places have allowed us to immerse ourselves into the electronic culture here. The city itself has an amazing nightlife, a lot of people love to dance here at all types of music events, and we wanted to capitalize on this within our own music. Other than that, there generally seems to be an increase of artists incorporating electronics in their music, which we are loving to see.
‘Welcome Home’ touches on themes of family and belonging. How do personal experiences influence the songwriting process for Monks?
The main message that was thought a lot about during the creation of this track was having a sense of belonging with others who make you feel at “home”. It is about the meaning of family and how this term can mean different things depending on a person’s circumstances, sometimes stripping away any narratives associated with this, and purely thinking about what individuals in your life bring out the best in you and are there for you unconditionally. Referring back to a previous point about getting the best out of each band member, certain ideas in the song’s arrangement also helped influence these themes in the lyrics: warm sounding electric piano chords in the verses and field recordings captured by Liam are small elements that helped us develop the soundscape into something that has a sense of warmth, being authentic and being relaxed with whoever makes you feel at “home”.
The upcoming EP, Worldview is said to blend genres like French house, indie, psych, and pop. What inspired this eclectic mix of influences?
This is not something we’ve actively sat down and set out to achieve, it is most definitely the product of each band member’s individual influences combined. All four of us, while sharing some common ground, enjoy a large variety of different styles, and these of course constantly change overtime. For example, at the minute, Nathan has a big interest in European Pop, George loves lots of Techno and Rap, Liam adores lots of Experimental music and never fails to take us on mad journeys, and Kali loves the production used in genres like Hyperpop and Deep House. However, these tastes all constantly change, and our influences alter on a song by song basis, which is definitely reflected in our new EP.
Could you walk us through your creative process when producing tracks for Worldview? How do you navigate the balance between guitar-based influences and electronic elements?
Touching again on previous points, our whole group dynamic has altered and shifted into what it is today. Every song we make happens differently, but what is consistent about us is each band members’ strengths and tastes. We know that all of our individual perspectives and skills somehow create a sound that makes us Monks. Some songs might start in one way, like Kali or Liam producing a beat on Logic Pro X or Ableton. Some songs might start with George or Nathan having a rough “skeleton” of a song that we then take into our home recording setups. Some songs might start from one tiny sample that we have found in our voice memos. The possibilities are endless, and that’s what excites us.
In terms of the songs on our new EP, tracks like Welcome Home started with Kali working on a verse drum beat and Liam coming up with the main bassline/chords. We had been working on our other single Aquarius for a while, and needed a “breather” from hearing it. At first, we began to throw ideas together as a bit of a laugh, seeing how quickly we could get a new song together, but then the verse drums and the bassline began to stick with us and the process transcended into the band discussing where we should take the song for months and months.
For another track called Salt of The Earth, we originally came up with the core ideas of this in a practice room, something that we don’t do as much anymore. Nathan, our guitarist, had some “boss” sounding guitar chords which we jammed out together with a live drum kit. We took rough recordings of this jam, and then transferred these ideas to our home recording setups, which is our preferred way of doing things currently. We ended up finishing the songwriting of the track in our friends’ rehearsal room, where most notably Liam added the chorus bassline into the song. We all got very excited when that happened.
In terms of balancing guitar based influences and electronic elements, we know that Monks wouldn’t sound like Monks without the guitar in it. Nathan has always brought a dreamy yet funky sound into our songs, which we love to bits. Over the last few years, we also have looked heavily into what role we want the guitar to have in our songs, thinking a lot about how it can be used as more of a texture opposed to just chords and riffs. We still want these new songs that we are making to sound like us, but showcase our new way of working together.
Can you elaborate on the overarching themes or messages conveyed through the EP?
The current climate we live in today, social media, mental health, people who mean the most to you. We feel that the majority of themes in our new EP all somehow interlink in a way. One thing we have always tried to achieve throughout our time as a band is having a sense of optimism in our music, despite sometimes pointing out the negatives in life. And what better way to do this than making Dance music!
How do you translate the energy of your live shows into your recorded music?
This is an interesting one. It is more the other way round for us: how we translate the energy from our recordings into our live show. Because of the way we work together and our sound, nowadays, we perform with a brand new setup that we haven’t used in the past. Our main reasons being how we incorporate electronic drums/samples from our recordings into a live setting, and where we want to place ourselves as a band for the foreseeable future: being a band who also operates in the DJ world when we want to. Our drummer Kali is on DJ decks live, which brings a new dynamic to our sound. We tend to think about how our live sets would sound using more of a “DJ brain”, looking into how we want to mix our songs together and what layers could work together in a DJ mix. Liam plays a bass synth and an analogue polyphonic synth live now which has made us think about how we want to design synth sounds for the live show. We often think about what type of sounds will blend nicely with our programmed beats and how alternative synth parts could contribute to the overall live sound. As said previously, Nathan’s guitar playing is sometimes thought about in a slightly different way, thinking about how it can sound more textural alongside catchy riffs and chords. Nathan has a really nice Boss Audio Slicing pedal which makes some crazy sounds to help with this. All of these aspects put together have heavily changed up the overall dynamic of our live show, and we still have tons of ideas yet to put into practice concerning how we want to develop our performances going forward.
How do you see Monks' sound evolving in the future? Are there any new musical territories you're eager to explore?
George: Bigger and bigger stages around the world. I see our live set being a key feature to what Monks have to offer.
Nathan: In the future, I would love it if we could find a way to blend more acoustic elements in with the tracks. I've been loving a lot of acoustic guitar playing recently, listening a lot to José González, after watching the documentary “A Tiger in Paradise”, and his guitar playing is amazing. I’d love to develop in his style of guitar playing, and incorporate this within an electronic sphere.
Kali: Production wise, I would love to explore how we could use more field recordings in our work and the ways in which we use samples. There are too many things to choose from!
Liam: I’d love for us to work with more dub sounds and reverbs like artists such as Massive Attack who have a big influence on our work.
Could you share any memorable moments or highlights from your recent showcase at Liverpool's Invisible Wind Factory?
This show was a very important one for us with it being our first live show of 2024. We wanted to make sure that we got things right as we performed with a new setup, new songs in a new part of the Invisible Wind Factory. It took a lot of discussions and hard work to get things to that point, but we were delighted with how it turned out in the end. In terms of memorable moments we had, performing in front of our close friends and introducing our new sound to the people in our hometown was very special to us. We wanted to show conviction in our musical decisions and we hope that the audience enjoyed what we were trying to do!
Monks emerged from Liverpool's iconic LIPA. How has your formal music education contributed to the band's growth and artistic vision?
We are very lucky to have a place like LIPA on our doorsteps. All of our education has been extremely useful to us as individuals and we are forever grateful for the times we had there. One of the biggest things that benefits us and so many other musicians who went there is the network you gain from it. Not to downplay our education, but it is crazy how strong the LIPA network is. We meet people all the time on our travels who also went there, and know so many great people who have done amazing things since being there. Lots of “small world” moments for us does keep life entertaining!
What do you love right now?
George: Dune Part Two, it’s all I can think about.
Nathan: Dirty Chai Lattes - George put me on to them. Once you go dirty, there is no going back!
Kali: Oat Milk in Tea
Liam: Early Nights
What do you hate right now?
George: Cold Weather.
Nathan: Lemsips - I’ve had a cold this week so I’ve had one too many.
Kali: World Wars.
Liam: What is there to hate?
Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s still important to you?
George: Vampire Weekend - Contra - My mum always used to play it in the car when we were on holiday when I was a kid. Brilliant record from start to finish. Diplomat Son is my favourite Vampire Weekend song.
Nathan: channel ORANGE - Frank Ocean - One of the first albums that opened me up to a new world of genres away from indie rock and a whole new world of production. Funnily enough, the track ‘Monks’ is where the band name originated from.
Kali: Radiohead - Kid A. Forever my favorite album for too many reasons.
Liam: The Velvet Underground & Nico. There’s not many albums that I return to often, but this one always calls out to me. It’s noisy and beautiful and just hits the spot sonically.
