Monkey's Pirate

If the pirate belongs to the monkey, then who does the monkey work for?

A 7 piece roots-pop band sticking their fingers in all the pies! From island hopping to urban poetry, bop-shoo-waps to sea shanties and some tribal Hoo-Mah-Yehs... Monkey's Pirate are splashing onto the Melbourne scene. Featuring scurvy crew from Elsewhere, 3 In a Tree, SS Pecker, Timbre Terrorists & Phantom Hitmen (including a few other rank units), their live shows are packed with punch and on-ya-feet, dance-with-your-mum fun.

It all began in the infamously hot summer of 2009, when Todd Jolley (3 In A Tree) and Sydney Preece (Phantom Hitmen) got together to lay some fresh beats on Jolley's old computer. The first to sprout were the kicked back, bouncing pop sounds of Solid Gold (the opening track off their album to come) and the other being the instrumental back drop of what is now the urban, hip-hop track Concrete Beast. The seeds were planted and the best was yet to come...

Shortly after, Jolley set out across the oceans to Spain where he was reunited with Lucy Collier. Here they traversed the Spanish North, singing songs to the other dusty foot travellers they met along the way. These adventures inspired the likes of the up-beat party track, Spanish Sunshine, the washed out folky tune, Used to Know and the swashbuckling Pirate Song, which blew in across the breeze in Galicia, during the last murderous 60km/20hr leg of el Camino de Santiago. Once they arrived at Finisterre on el Costa da Morte (the Coast of Death), Jolley had an idea for an album. It was time to fuse together both new tracks, created along the way and sparks from old tunes that had re-entered his mind-sphere. From here, Jolley and Lucy ventured further north to Scotland where the songs were refined and developed and the concept for Monkey's Pirate was born!

Back home to Oz and its time to get to work. Sharing a house in Prahran, Jolley laid down the basics for most of the tracks including guitars, mandolin, bass and programmed beats. When the sketch was complete he then headed to the humble home of Melbourne's own Baron Von Fat Sax. Here the creative collaborative skills of Syd, Nathaniel Poynter (SS Pecker), Ted Kazan (Commissioner Gordon) and Dale Gerner came into play. Their contributions included tenor, soprano and baritone sax, flute, clarinet, trumpet and accordion.

Now the ground work was done, Jolley ventured north to meet Lucy in her South East Queensland bush shack where the cut and paste process began. Sifting through layers and layers of different horn lines and clarinet fills, the songs were snipped and finally ready for vocals…not as easy as it sounds when you have an orchestra of cicadas surrounding you and a tin roof constantly being showered with gum nuts. But with a bit of McGuyver sound proofing, egg cartons a-plenty, carpet and carefully timed intervals between the cicada cacophony, Jolley and Lucy completed the vocals and there were 9 fully formed tracks ready to go.

Returning to the music-making Melbourne towards the end of 2010, Jolley began mixing and creating the album artwork with Todd Proctor (Oddzilla) and enlisted the mastering skills of Ivan Katchachoyan (Choi Productions) to bring the album to completion. But now the question posed… how do we perform live?

Simple…rally together a bunch of scurvy characters including original horn master Than, Dwayne Hawke (Timbre Terrorists) on bass, Todd on keys and mandolin, Andrew Rowe (Timbre Terrorist) on drums and Mark Angerame (Elsewhere) on lead guitar. Throw in Jolley and Lucy with some rhythm guitar and vocals, and Monkey's Pirate is ready for the stage. With a few shows under their belt and many more to come, MP deliver a raw, swamp-stomp energy that has seen their fan base steadily grow. The songs take a fresh form on stage through the extra influences of their recently formed crew and new tunes are constantly evolving.