Exclusive track premiere of ‘Sugar’ by CrashMonkeys, out October 14th, 2022. Debut EP, ‘Love & Kicks’, out November 18th.

Tuneful but glamorously shambolic rock n’ roll band CrashMonkeys came from a primal urge for a pre-pandemic normal, and a desire to reintroduce a lo-fi style of rock that defined primary singer and songwriter, and co-guitarist Stel Furet’s early years. “These are songs for drinking lots of coffee and driving fast to,” the Santa Cruz, California-based artist deadpans.

The trio’s debut EP, ‘Love & Kicks’, out November 18th, evokes the scuzzy, angsty and arty sounds of Pavement, Daniel Johnston and Beat Happening, and Sonic Youth, but injected with a bit of 1970s James Gang boogie-rock. The 5-song EP will be preceded by the single ‘Control,’ out August 12th.

The seething single, ‘Sugar’, teeters on the line between bluesy bluster and 1990s slacker-rock, but it also manages to sneak in some tricky-timed riffage without coming off overly technical.

‘Sugar’ was really created over a high hard driving riff that I came up with sometime in 2018. I played around with it often but nothing really came of it until the CrashMonkeys got together. When we first started working on it, it was difficult to get the timing down on some of the breaks because it’s a slightly unconventional count. Felt kind of like a sugar or caffeine high where you’re going down the tracks so fast that you can’t stop, but if you did, you’d probably want to jump back on the train because going 140mph is a hell of a lot of fun. The original lyrics were quite different and the drums that Travis came up with really lent themselves well to the final lyrics and melody.

I’d love to answer the “What’s it about?” question with some amazing novelistic tale, but in reality we just wanted something that we could drive hard and tight as a live band. Something that was danceable and upbeat, and pure rock. Something to match that feeling you get as the caffeine really kicks in. The idea that caffeine, sugar, and social media all have a similar draw just made sense and I think we accomplished our goal. I mean when you’re laying in bed at night either looking at your own stats or scrolling through endless posts from millions of people served up by the almighty algorithm that knows what you want to see more of before you do, it’s sometimes hard to stop and before you know it, it’s 2am. So the next morning you kick it out with some caffeine and crank up some CrashMonkeys for breakfast.” Stel Furet

Stel wrote all the songs on ‘Love & Kicks’ and played all the instruments except drums on the recordings. Going forward, the band will also feature guitarist Chuck Keller, an accomplished guitarist/bass player who attended Berklee College of Music and studied arranging and improvisation with iconic jazz composer/arranger Ray Brown. Stel and Chuck alternate bass and guitar duties, and the pair have complementary styles with Stel being a bluesy player and Chuck having a melodic shred background. The two have yet to decide on a drummer. Previously, Stel released his first solo album, ‘Human Nature Machine’.

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