Interview Excerpt: Stephen Aiello of Monty Are I

This is an excerpt from my 03/29/09 interview with Stephen Aiello, lead singer and guitarist from the Rhode Island-based band Monty Are I.

Me: When you guys were starting out as a local band what kind of resources were available for local bands in the area?

Stephen: Well, first and foremost, the biggest thing definitely that was different was, I think, the club scene was different, the music venue scene I should say. I think that there were more clubs, or at least the clubs we were able to play at had more clout at the time. They don't exist anymore, or maybe there were just a couple in particular. I mean, the Met Cafe was the biggest one. And that was like the biggest thing, because what was so rad about it – it was small, probably like 300 capacity, it was right in the heart of Providence, and the great thing was national acts would roll through there all the time. But you also had, you could also put on local shows there, which was rad. And I think that, aside from the Living Room, that's gone too now – that was another great outlet for bands. The thing was is that you could be a kid in high school, but just legit enough to play in a club. Those clubs offered that, which I thought was always so good, you know what I mean, because you could move up in those ranks using those clubs. That was one huge thing was always the Met Cafe, and the Living Room, and of course the old Lupo's, which is now of course the new Lupo's.

I would say the other thing too, which I guess is just the way the state is, is that it's small. And that was always a benefit for us. I guess I would call that a resource, only because word of mouth spread so much faster in a place like this than anywhere else, and it always helped us. I mean, we never looked at being from Rhode Island as a disadvantage, and I think that being so tightly knit with everybody else in terms of word of mouth, high schools, all that kind of stuff really helped us out.

Me: Any other local resources, maybe along the lines of artist promotion that were available for local bands when you guys were starting out?

Stephen: Well, I can't really speak on that, I mean honestly there was never really much for us out there. The thing that is different now that's pretty rad is the internet, in terms of promoting your band. It's changed the game a lot. When we were sort of coming up, we had the internet, kind of. But I think it's different when you're starting out and coming up being in high school when the internet was huge in terms of Myspace and promoting bands, compared to when you're in college. Because in college, we were sort of... we went to college for a couple years, and we were all sort of disjointed and in a bunch of different places, so we never had that organizational sort of internet. Myspace wasn't as big, promoting your band on the internet wasn't as big. These past couple of years, it's really been a huge thing. When we first started, that didn't exist at all. Not that that's a bad thing, it's just things were done differently back then. Which was always, like, literally us going to every single high school in Rhode Island and putting fliers on people's cars, all the senior's cars, about when we were playing the next weekend. That's how we did it, and I guess the “resource” of Rhode Island being small was great because we could travel to all those places and we could hit up like every school, which was awesome. We just had to work more sort of on foot – not complaining about that, it wasn't a bad thing, it was just a different way of doing it.

Full Interview