Fresh ActInterviews

Password Monkey – Fresh Act April 2019

Munich has more to offer than “Oktoberfest” and beer, there’s also one of the best German newcomer Rock bands. Password Monkey have won several awards and supported well-known bands. The Bavarians tell more in our Fresh Act interview:

Hello guys, thanks for your time. Could you please introduce yourselves, who are you, where are you from?  

Sure no problem. We are Fabian Lichtenstern (Vocals), Chris Furtner (Guitar), Chris Buchberger (Bass) and Veit Schlembach (Drums) and we come from Munich and its suburbs.

How would you describe your music?
We’d call it Classic Rock with modern elements. The basis is Classic Rock / Hard Rock, combined with elements of Alternative, Metal and Blues. We integrate a variety of other elements as we like but remain within our Rock music style frame.

How about the band name Password Monkey? Monkey is besides 1234 one of the most common passwords, is this what’s it about?
You did your home work! That’s right! It’s not a common name for a band and we can therefore be found easily.

You look so young, how did you become musicians? Did you have bands before this one?
Everyone of us had bands before in totally different genres: Indie, Alternative and Metal. Since 2015 we have been playing together in this line-up and combined all our influences into one package. You can hear the result on our 2017 debut album and soon on our new album 2020. And we are all still in our 20s – in terms of Classic Rock we are therefore really young.

I assume you cannot make a living as musicians yet, so what are you doing when you are not on stage and play music?
We have different jobs, Veit in Marketing for a cooling systems company, Chris F. is an entrepeneur in the field of TV / transmission tech, Fabian is a student and Chris B. works in the field of electro technology.

You founded the band in 2016, recorded the first album in 2017 and are busy with your second album now. How far is the project, do you have a release date? 
We are creating our second album right now. We just recorded and edited the pre-production and are recording the first songs now; it’s proceeding well and we are proud of our new songs and our studio team. We plan the release for March 2020 and hope to be finished by then to keep the schedule for 2020 and other external projects we are preparing.

You raised the money for the new album production via crowd funding, therefore I assume you don’t have a label and do everything yourselves. Do you think having a label is still necessary nowadays, is it worth the risk to “sell your soul” when you can to everything yourselves? 
We could raise a big part for the production via crowd funding which we totally appreciate – it’s great to have so many super great fans who want to hear our new material and support us. We don’t have a label now but hope to change that soon. This is the reason we have not finalized a release date, and we have to prepare other stuff we prefer to keep still a secret. We think that a label is important to develop as a band and to expand your fan base. Yet there’s a difference between labels that support a band and others that exploit bands. In the end of the day both sides needs to profit and be satisfied. We want to work with a label that fits and we want to offer something to the label with our new album. This is why we take our time and work on every detail to provide quality.

You played three shows with Inglorious in Germany, how was it? 
Supporting Inglorious was a great experience. We have played several shows outside Munich but this was different, all shows in a row and very well organized. Those cities and venues were great and we got great feedback. We think that we fit nicely to Inglorious and hope to play with those great guys again soon.

You won several awards at the 35th German Rock and Pop Awards in four catagories, winning 1st prize in 3 of those. What exactly did you win and how was it to be on top in three categories? 
The German Rock and Pop Award was a great experience and a reward for our hard work and our first album. It was a triple surprise and we met a lot of great people and had a great time.

Do you have plans for touring Europe? 
We will focus on our own headliner tour in Germany after the second album and also try to play at festivals. Maybe there will be other shows elsewhere in Europe. We do everything we can because in the end we want to be on stage. It would be great to have a combination of a support tour with one of our idols, a headliner tour in Germany and several festival shows, and those also abroad.

I heard you planned a tour in Russia but had to cancel. Why Russia, and will you re-schedule the tour? 

Well, Russia is surely a great nation and we’ve never been there. We received an offer by a Russian booking company but had to cancel the tour due to personal reasons. We still hope to re-schedule the tour soon as we wouldn’t want to miss out on having this experience.

You also play acoustic shows sometimes – which I really like. How did you get the idea, as there are many Rock bands who refuse to play acoustic, and would you record an acoustic album? 
The idea for the acoustic shows came up for the crowd funding, in order to offer something special to all donors. Every donor had the opportunity as we do not need a lot of equipment for an acoustic show and can play in a living room. Therefore we played at a grill party and in a restaurant for the donors. It was a lot of fun but we rather want to play full sets to show off our full power. Perhaps after a few releases we can imagine to record a Best of Acoustic album.

Many bands have big goals, want to be full-time musicians and fill a stadium, some even told me they want world domination. So what are your goals, quite the same or rather humble? ?
We set ourselves smaller goals but also a big one. First we want to find a label for our album and then deliver a great product to our fans. A connected goal is to play many live shows to expand our fan base. Our big goal is to play at a big festival in the upcoming years, like Rock im Park or something like that. This is our biggest dream, a huge venue or a big open air stage with thousands of people watching us.

What are your plans for this year? 
In this year we want to finish our album and we prepare the promo for the album, and this is a lot of work. Besides that we play a few shows and at some festivals, you can find the dates on our facebook page. And we hope to deliver some more news.

You are from Munich, which three places in the city every tourist needs to see? 
For concerts we recommend the Backstage club, there are great concerts and parties for every music taste. The Strom club is another great live and party venue. Other nice places are Englischer Garten and those many beer gardens we like to visit in summer.

Thank you for your time and good luck for the future. 
We have to thank you! Rock´n´Roll ?

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Sandy Mahrer

Fresh Act editor, reports, reviews, photos - - - Favorite genres? - Hard Rock, Heavy Metal and Pop-Rock etc. Less Death, Black, Grind Core