By Martin Popoff
Is Dave Wyndorf Monster Magnet? Seems like that's still the case. Is Monster Magnet a band, a bunch of records, or both combined with the bank of abnormally interesting interviews Dave will conduct for any given album? In other words, is the Monster Magnet experience one of some music and some talk, virtually all the relevant bits coming from one guy? Man, you almost get that. I mean, just killing a little time downtown before this interview (OK, between in-persons with Rammstein and Fear Factory, then home to do Dave as a phoner), I ended up with three mags with huge Dave features, the man pontificating on a number of subjects from comics to photography to fame, sex, even the music.
Turns out that this swirl of stuff we stuff our heads with is what his new God Says No album is all about, a record that has gotten both good and bad reviews, an album that has been out for months in Europe but is only now seeing the light of day this side of the pond.
"Well, I'm not talking about The God, the big guys upstairs," offers Dave, easing into a conversational format he handles so well. "The God I see overall, right now in the United States is Hollywood, advertising culture. It runs people, it literally blankets almost everyone, whether they know it or not. It's almost like a subliminal inferiority complex, more than ever. I think back to the 1930's in the depths of the Great Depression when people just looked at movie stars as the be all and end all. And now, for some reason, probably because the machine runs so good, really, the mass populace has more respect for power and celebrity than they do for anything else, almost as if they were afraid of not being included. If they don't get the right kind of makeup and clothes they are going to be hopeless and lost forever. Now this is not new, it's been going on forever. But it seems to be at a peak where the media is so into it that they are actually throwing bones to the people to allow them to be on TV, with shows like Survivor, the Jerry Springer Show: 'Look, I'm a star!' Oh, really?! What are you going after here? Is it that important? It's not like you just came up with a cure for cancer or anything, for Christ sake. So that's what's going on personally from me, just having a little bit of an inferiority attack, going, 'You know, every time I think I'm cool, and I know I'm above all this stuff, this stuff really does have an effect. And if that happens to me, and I'm in a semi-happening rock 'n' roll band, I can just imagine what it does to a 18 year-old kid, especially women, you know?"
Monster Magnet - God Says Here Are Your Interviews For Today. Go. Page 2