During the peak of the ‘90s jam scene, venues like the Wetlands hosted young bands of all shapes and sizes. The Ominous Seapods were one such outfit. Hailing from Upstate New York, they played their own brand of improvisational rock, catching eyes and ears with songs like “The Guide to Roadside Ecology” and “Bong Hits and Porn.” After the band broke up in 2001, co-founder and guitarist Dana Monteith moved to Australia in search of wide open spaces. However, when his former bandmates gave him a call, he was always willing to jump on a plane and get the Ominous Seapods back together.
This weekend in celebration of bassist Tom Pirozzi’s birthday, Monteith and the rest of the original lineup will play two shows in their former hometown of Albany, NY (on Friday, January 11 and Saturday, January 12 at Cohoes Music Hall) and a third show at Brooklyn Bowl (on Sunday, January 13). Ahead of these highly anticipated reunion concerts, Monteith discussed the band’s history, what to expect this weekend and the benefits of his new life down under.
You live in Australia now. What’s that like?
It’s pretty wicked. The sun is always shining there, pretty much. That’s one of the nicest things about it. It’s got a unique music culture, just very environmental. Music in Australia represents what it’s like living there, what the dirt looks like, the color of the sky.
It’s quite different than here in those regards. So yeah, it’s very interesting. I love it. I love the vastness of it.
I can’t imagine a place any more different than Upstate New York, which is where Ominous Seapods started.
Yeah [laughs] it’s pretty much the polar opposite. I bought a four-wheel drive when we moved there, and we’ll go out in the bush and there’s just nobody out there. We’ll go down on the beach and drive 25-30 kilometers along a beautiful beach that there’s other people in their four-wheel drives, people fishing and we’re right on the edge of the Indian Ocean looking out into this great vast space. I guess that’s the main thing that I see when I’m there. Yeah, it’s pretty wild. I invite everybody to come visit.
You guys are reuniting for three shows, what can fans expect from those performances?
It’s the original lineup, which is something cool. I don’t think we’ve done too many where it was just the original five members of the band. So we’re gonna dig deep into some of the older catalog, some of our favorites that we haven’t played in the other shows we’ve done over the past number of years. It’ll be like a whole new kind of take on it, channeling our experiences in life into that.
We had a rehearsal last night and it’s good to get back together. We haven’t hung out and played music together in nearly six years. And we’re all pretty excited to take the cruiser out on the road again and see what happens.
How were those rehearsals? Were you guys able to jump right back into things, or did you kind of have to work through some rust before you guys vibed again?
It was pretty natural when we just started playing. There’s always details that need to be ironed out. So going over key things, just talking about the vibe we were looking for. But it was pretty good. You could sense that there’s going to be some good energy happening and everybody’s really excited. I think what is amazing to us is that there’s still people interested in it and it still has a vibrancy to it and a life. And going back to the material now, we feel a lot of gratitude and excitement that people still like it.
We stood the test of time, I guess, and that’s kind of what these shows are saying. ‘Cause after six years, there’s still people who are really psyched and that’s a lot of fun to think about, that we’re gonna bring everybody together again and do this thing. It’s exciting in those regards. We’ll see how it goes. So yeah the rehearsal had some good energy. Tom, Brian and I went out to the local bar here in town and hung out. We know each other so well that we just step right into it like it was yesterday. You just hang out and you know how everybody plays and we were jamming. I know what Ted’s snare drum hits are and I know where Tom’s going, and Brian and Max. We have such a deep knowledge, musically, of each other. I think it was so special for us at the time that it’s still there, it still flows through.
I don’t know if you’re aware but a couple of years ago a bunch of Ominous Seapods fans got together and dug up all these old shows and posted them online. A lot of people haven’t even heard these shows since the original performance. How does it feel to have so many people committed to preserving the legacy of the band?
It’s awesome, a great feeling to know that people still care. You move, you do other things in life. I work in an underground gold mine in Western Australia, very far away from what I used to do. I live out in the desert two weeks out of every three and work underground and have this totally different crazy life with all these other kind of people in the mining industry who are unique characters. Australian gold miner’s a very unique breed. I’ve told them about the band and they’ve heard it, so there’s this interesting tie-in now that I’m going back to these gigs. And I’m like, “Check it out you can view it online!” So I’ve turned a few people onto the Seapods there and it’s pretty special.
I have a lot of gratitude towards these people. It means a lot to them to preserve our work and in turn you feel lucky in life to have that, that what you create still lives on. I’m sure there’s a lot of gratitude for many, many bands, that people are still psyched. Really at the end of the day, when you create anything, visual or writing, or anything, the fact that it can survive over time is pretty special.
Were the fans the reason you kind of decided to do these 3 shows?
Tom is turning 50-years-old this week. And he was like, “I want to get the band back together” [laughs].
When he turned 40, that was one of our reunions that we did. It was a milestone date in his life and he felt like it would be a special thing to do. Tom was like, “I wanna do this. I want the five of us to get together for my birthday and do these shows.”
It’s very exciting, it’s exciting to be on the other side of the planet and hear that tickets are sold out, and people are psyched, there’s people coming from all over the country. It’ll bring everybody together. The main impetus is that it’s Tom’s birthday and just kind of went from there. Coming back from Australia, all those things.
It must also be a trip to get back on the road for a little bit. Back in the day, you guys were playing 200+ shows a year. What was that like, being out on the road for that long, and that lifestyle in the ‘90s? I feel like now, bands are on the road and they have their phone. But back in then you guys must’ve just been out on the road just living day-by-day.
That’s exactly what it was. We were just freaking winging it comparatively. It was the beginning of the internet, which was cool. We had this thing called Pod.net, which was at one point mentioned in Wired magazine as entry into the digital world. So that whole thing was just starting, still trading cassettes, it was a big thing. I think for the jam band scene, that was kind of like Wild West cowboy times, you know? We pretty much made it up; everybody made it up—the promoters, the bands, the venues. And New York was a hot spot for jam bands. The Northeast obviously was the epicenter. And even coming from Albany, there was Yolk, and Moon Boot Lover, and moe. And us and all these early ‘90s jam bands lived in this region. We had guys like Greg Bell promoting and playing Wetlands. That was the ultimate venue to play and we were honored to be regulars at the Wetlands in the ‘90s. The whole thing was pretty wild. Those were the times. We could do anything, really. It was cool, very cool. We basically lived out of a van for 10 years. It was a life-defining decade for everybody involved.
You mentioned moe. and I wanted to pick up on your band’s connection with those guys. I know Vinnie played with you guys in 2011. And you guys played moe.down once or twice. Have you guys kept in touch with them at all as they were going through that thing with Rob? Are you gonna be in town for Rob’s first big concert back in February?
I won’t be, unfortunately. I’m heading back to Australia after. I’ll be in New York for probably five days, just hanging out, and then I’m going back at the end of the month.
I saw it online that Rob had been sick and I think you sense your mortality ‘cause we were all in our twenties playing gigs together, partying and doing all the things you do when you’re in a band. You have no sense of mortality. Pretty shocking, I think, for everybody. We were good friends with those guys back in the day and you see that kind of stuff and it kind of blows you away when you really start to think about that. We’re all similar ages and going through similar things. We’ve all got lives, wives, kids, families and you sense that mortality. Hopefully, people catch these things and can knock them down, get back to their life. You sense your mortality when you see your peers and your friends go through these things. And it could be you the next day, really. You’ve gotta just look back on your life and think, ‘Have I done some of the things I’ve wanted to do?’ and I would say, for certainly in my life, I’ve done heaps of different cool things. I think with moe., I would assume they’ve been very lucky and they’ve been very successful. And those are the things you have to think about every day, about the road you’ve traveled and when you wake up in the morning are you happy with your life, where you are. You think about those things when you see your friends go through that type of thing.
I also wanted to talk to you about Ominous Seapods’ position in the jam scene in the 90s, because you guys were known not only for your ability to jam, but also for your ability to turn a good phrase and write good lyrics. From your perspective, do you feel like your lyrics set you guys apart in the scene?
I thought so. I thought we spent a lot of time trying to write an interesting story or trying to create an interesting picture. I think Max really good at storytelling. I like to write more abstract things. And I think there’s a good combination of it, too. We read a lot of books. I think we drew a lot on history, literature. I had a really good friend, Brady McTigue, who said, “Take your inspirations from things other than music. Look at visual art, read books and write about those things and those experiences that you take from other artistic or other creative endeavors that you see out there in the world.” I took that to heart when I started writing.
But I’ve always been interested in writing. It was something that I’d been practicing since I was 12-years-old. I think I just hear words in my head, basically. Voices in my head and started writing them down. And I think Max is the same. He’s a real good storyteller and he could create a story, an imagery, in a three or four-minute lyric section of the song.
We like people like Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead all the foremost lyricists in this scene. Robert Hunter: the king of all lyrics in the jam band world. His stories are deeply tied to history, to theology, to philosophy. The stories he tells are based on those things. They’re based on things that are part of the human experience. So we always try to write with those kind of concepts in mind. We never wanted the lyrics to be throwaway. I think what Hunter did was he drew on history. And growing up, that’s what I listened to, that’s what Max listened to, and he tried to emulate those thoughts.
You can’t go wrong with Robert Hunter. Kind of wrapping things up, I was wondering if you guys were still keeping tabs on the jam scene now? Are you listening to any younger bands, or are there any older bands in the scene that you still admire?
I think I’ve gone back to the Dead again. I live in Australia and not a lot of people know the Grateful Dead. I’ve gone back and listened to heaps and heaps of Dead in the last few years and I think it’s amazing to me that it’s still timeless. They’re almost more popular now than they were when I was going to see them. And the fact that 50 years on the lyrics are meaningful, the musicianship is undeniable—it’s amazing. There’s so much to learn from just a band that plays out on the very edge all the time. I think there’s a sound of air moving with them; speakers and drums pushing actual molecules of air. And to hear that in this day and age is awesome.
Actually, Australia has this really interesting psychedelic rock scene. Bands like Tame Impala from Western Australia are amazing psychedelic rock. And another band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard just playing super out there, jamband psychedelia. Those are two of my favorite bands right now that are Australian bands that are pushing the levels of psychedelic rock, like really pushed it to the edge. They’re probably two of my favorites. There’s a lot of great Australian rock right now.
Have you been keeping tabs on any of the Dead & Company stuff?
No, I haven’t seen any of it. I guess I heard a little bit, but not much. I guess having seen the Dead a bunch of times back in the day it’s just hard for me to move past it, I suppose. What I’ve heard was interesting and what I like about it was just a freaking rock band. I watched the Bob Weir movie, I thought that was an amazing story that kind of ties into what’s going on. He’s a guy that’s got this legacy. So why should he stop playing?
You mean The Other One, the documentary on Netflix?
Yeah. That movie was absolutely amazing. And I think what went on with that 50th-anniversary thing ties into what Bob Weir was talking about in that movie. It’s their lives and there’s no reason they shouldn’t get out there. And I think the Dead have always drawn disparate players to their scene. You go back to Bob Weir playing with Hanson. Hanson, this totally cheesy pop band. But they’re actually Deadheads—they’re playing with Bob Weir. I think John Mayer fits into the same category. He’s a talented, gifted musician and his heritage is based from the whole Dave Matthews, Red Light Management, thing us where he came out of. There’s a tie-in within that; he’s a guy who loves the Dead. If you were somebody his age, he’s probably in his mid-forties, early forties now, he probably grew up listening to the Dead. And it’s like he had the opportunity to become the guitar player, it’s probably a great honor.
