Don’t Look Back: Robot Monster on Their Newest Song “Out”
The New Haven based duo Robot Monster is casting rock under a new light. Partnering explosive riffs with keen, hard-hitting lyricism, the band is establishing their sound as a reckoning force in the younger generations of music. Composed of Will Brennan and Logan Sidle, the duo is hoping to “show people that rock is alive and rock can look and feel different.”
2022 has been a remarkable year for the two, featuring the release of their debut album and a myriad of singles. Released on October 20th, their most recent single “Out” sculpts the feelings of angst, providing a musical vessel to release rage. Their debut title album marks a monumental catalyst to their booming career, following an entirely unique sonic road that they hope to explore further in the upcoming year. Dissecting the features of the human condition in their work, the band harnesses an omnipresent feeling casted by the heaviness of their musicality. Speaking with Unpublished, the duo shared their inspirations, creative intentions, and thoughts on the future.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Can you give me a little background about Robot Monster? How did you two meet?
[LOGAN]: So Will and I always sort of knew each other growing up. Will was in bands with my brother because he's a little older than me and I was a younger kid watching Will play. Then I started playing with him more in other bands and doing gigs around New Haven and we basically really started collaborating together with Robot Monster in late 2020. We started posting clips together on social media and we had an idea, Will would just play guitar and I would play drums. We just started posting videos together on social media and immediately they started getting a lot of attention with Will playing rock riffs and me playing drums with him. That really was the genesis and start of Robot Monster. It started spontaneously and got us discovered by a lot of people in the music industry and a lot of great musicians. It kind of gradually went from Will and I just casually posting stuff being friends and musical collaborators to actually being like a legitimate band over the course of the last two years.
[WILL]: So as Logan said, I knew him sort of through his brother. I was in a band with his brother when I was in high school and he was still a really little kid at that time. So when I was a little older and Logan was too, he asked me to play with him. And I was like, "yeah, I'll play with this little kid." He was in high school at the time, and I was a little older. I was glad I did because we found that we had a lot of chemistry together so we started playing in bands together. So around mid to late 2020, we started posting videos together online for social media. To our surprise, they started doing really well. Like the first video we posted got around 300,000 views and so we just kept going and eventually started getting some traction. Some people like Skrillex commented on one of our videos, it was really cool to see that and Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit reached out to us. Then eventually, a producer by the name ofJacquire King who produced Tom Waits, Kings of Leon, Modest Mouse, got in touch with us and said, "Hey, I like what you guys are doing. I think it's really cool. I'd like to record you guys." So we had a FaceTime with him and he said, "If you guys could maybe put together some songs with sort of the style of what you're doing online, that'd be really cool and maybe we could work something out." So we started writing together and this is before we even had a band name. So together in collaboration with Jacquire, we sort of formed Robot Monster. So he liked the songs that we were writing and together we created Robot Monster and recorded our album in March of 2021.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How did you guys come up with the name? What was the inspiration behind that?
[WILL]: It's sort of multi-layered in that it speaks to the musical side of things as well as the lyrical side. So musically, it speaks to the fact that we're a duo. Robot Monster's sort of a dichotomy as well. It has to do with our lyrics, it sort of speaks to the human condition which is what we write a lot of our songs about. Robot Monster, we describe that as the human condition and people are either robots or monsters. Together, it's sort of a dichotomy, are you more robot or more monster. It also speaks to the musical elements. In our music, for example, a lot of the time I'll be playing a very robotic riff, very driving, repetitive riff and Logan will be more of a monster over that robotic riff. He'll riff a lot and he'll be more spontaneous and artistic with his drumming over my robotic, which isn't super common because it's usually the drummer holding down the time and the guitar player is usually the one improvising. But, it's sort of flipped in our case.
[LOGAN]: We also just like the name, we wanted a fun name that would stand out, that was fun, cool, eccentric. We just thought it was a good name as well.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How would you guys describe your sound to someone who hasn't listened to your music before?
[LOGAN]: I would say our sound is heavier. You know, it's definitely rock. But, I wouldn't say it's any particular genre or subgenre of rock, it takes from a lot of different types of rock and music as a whole. So a lot of our music, it's kind of riff driven, like riffy guitars with drums. But, it also has some more metal leaning edges to it. But, also even some pop sensibilities too. A lot of our songs really explore different areas of music, some more metal leading, others are more pop rock and I think there's a song on our new album for everybody.
[UNPUBLISHED]: As a duo, what does your creative process look like when working together?
[WILL]: Our songwriting process usually starts with a basic riff that we'll expand upon. And then once we have the song, then the vibe and mood that we're getting from the music will sort of influence the lyrical content. I'll usually come up with a riff, I'll bring it to Logan and together we'll decide, "okay, what section of the song is this going to be? Is this the chorus? Is this the verse or is this just an intro?" So, it usually always starts with a riff that we then expand upon.
[UNPUBLISHED]: You guys released your latest single "Out" this past October. Congratulations, what was the inspiration behind it?
[WILL]: It's sort of about a tipping point that people can reach when they've been through hell and a lot of manipulation and they just sort of reach that monster part. So we have robot songs, we have monster songs. This is definitely a monster song. It speaks to that side of human beings and that tipping point that we all can reach when we're through with it.
[LOGAN]: "Out" definitely speaks to when in any sort of context, it doesn't have to be specific to any situation, but just reaching the tipping point for when you're done with something and you're finally fed up with with a person or anything that's been toxic and put you through hell. It's about when it's time to leave, time to turn the lights off and just don't look back. That breaking point in anything, whether it's a person or a thing or a concept or just leaving the toxic stuff behind. And it's angry but at the same time it's also positive too. In a way it could be cathartic, a powerful thing in somebody's life.
[UNPUBLISHED]: When listening to it, I noticed a lot of powerful imagery. Is there a certain line that is your favorite? Or one that you are really proud of?
[WILL]: I think I'm proud of the line "broken by design." That's one I was really proud of when I threw that in there. Also I'm pretty proud about "better dead than black and blue."
[LOGAN]: Yeah, I don't know if there's any in particular, it's not just about our lyrics that really try to convey a message. It's also through the riffs and the drumming. So I'm really proud of the recording of it and the way we didn't really hold back the instrumental part of the song, it kind of represents the rage of emotion that we were conveying through it. It's like an explosion of emotion and the human mind through music.
[UNPUBLISHED]: You guys released your debut title album this past August. How long were you guys working on this project for? Can you tell me about the creative steps working up to it?
[WILL]: So we started writing songs in the fall of 2020 and Jacquire basically said to us when we started working together, "I like what you guys are doing, if you guys could come up with like 15 to 20 songs by Christmas." And I think when he said that, it was probably early November of 2020. I was really nervous when he said that, like, "Oh my God, that's a lot of songs." you know. So by that time, I think we had around that number. By January, I think we had around 21 songs. Then we recorded the album in March of 2021 and released our first single March of 2022.
[LOGAN]: This whole thing is so new so leading up to the album we just spent the time defining who we are, what kind of music we make and just writing a ton of music. We recorded it in the early spring of 2021 and a year later, put it out. We spent a lot of time just figuring out who we are as a band? What do we want to say? What do we want to sound like? In some ways, we knew who we were. We knew we were a duo and that we played rock. But, we really had to figure out more specifically what are our songs going to be about? Originally in our videos, nobody was singing and Will took on the role as the lead singer.
[UNPUBLISHED]: You guys recently went on tour with The Bronx and Drug Church, how was it? Any special moments or memories?
[WILL]: The entire tour was great, it was our first tour ever. So I'm proud that we pulled it off and they were super cool guys, both those bands and they're so warm and welcoming to us. Which made it definitely an easier process for us.
[LOGAN]: It was just a really great experience, like it was our first full tour. The only other real time was for Stone Temple Pilots, which was a crazy first experience for our first shows ever. But with The Bronx, it was so great. We really got to experience what it's like being a touring musician and we got to drive just the two of us with our tour manager through the eastern half of the United States, like drive from Connecticut all the way down south and go through all these states we've never been to. The shows were really fun and opening for a band like The Bronx or Drug Church, they're definitely a different style than us. They're a lot heavier than us, but at the same time it was really cool to watch their show and how much energy that they both brought to the stage and how crazy and powerful their sets were. It really inspired us and I think we grew a lot from it.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Is there a favorite song that you guys like to perform live?
[WILL]: I'd say "Don't Be Smart." Especially, I think it fit their crowd the best, sort of their demographic, since we were opening for them. We tried to fit our set list to fit their audience and I think "Don't Be Smart" definitely did a good job of that and I think the crowd reacted to that one.
[LOGAN]: It's probably our heaviest song and it's just really fun. It's just a really energetic song, we really get to show the heavier side of us. The crowd always seems to pick up on the energy of the song, which is cool. And "Don't Be Smart" is out. It's on the album.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What are you guys excited for in this upcoming year?
[WILL]: I'm very excited. We're playing Shiprocked festival, it is a festival on a cruise with some really cool artists. Some artists that we both grew up listening to. So it's going to be a big honor to play with these acts. So Shiprocked 2023.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Who are some artists that have inspired you? Or what are some things that inspire you?
[LOGAN]: I'm inspired by so much music. Even though we're a rock band, I personally draw inspiration from so many different genres of music, like, I really love softer music. I love artists like Ben Folds and James Taylor and a lot of softer stuff with deep lyrics. I also am really inspired by a lot of heavier stuff too. I love Slipknot, and Rage Against the Machine. Also a lot of more jazz type stuff, I love a lot of modern, new innovative jazz musicians that I just see on social media and stuff. Artists that really are exploring the realms of playing an instrument and pushing the boundaries for how crazy you could push playing the drums or guitar or something. There's a lot of really amazing jazz musicians out there nowadays that I just take a lot of inspiration from.
[WILL]: I definitely second all of that. Logan and I grew up playing jazz together too. So we definitely find a lot of musical inspirations all over. Obviously, there's a big heavy edge to our music. I grew up listening to Metallica and System Of A Down, a lot of heavy music. Also some fun stuff like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Also, in terms of the lyrical side of things and the conceptual side of our music, I definitely find just human beings so interesting in human nature, human psychology, history. It's all so interesting to me and you know, just the big questions of the universe. The mysteries of the universe that I find so just interesting that you find inspiration to write a song about.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Anything else you want readers to know about you?
[LOGAN]: I think we are excited to just be sharing our art and our music with the world and we have no plan on stopping anytime soon. We're going to release more music soon and play lots of shows in the future. We just really want to help be a part of the new modern rock music movement and sort of show a younger audience what rock music looks like today and help carve out a space in rock for younger audiences to sort of bring back an energy of freedom and expression that hasn't been around as much and in rock music lately. We just want to help be a part of that movement and show people that rock is alive and rock can look and feel different. It's not just the music. It's a state of mind about authenticity and being yourself and expression and fun, and an energy and just good vibes.
[WILL]: I just hope people regardless of where they are in the world, or what their status in the world is or what their culture is, that they can find something in our music because I think we definitely try to speak truth in a way that people can relate to.
