Welcome to a brand new feature where we sit down and talk to bands and artists about their latest albums to find out all about it. Today we speak to the band Monkey Intrusion about the new album Pussycats and Monkeymen.

Hello nice to meet you, tell us about yourself!

Hi folks we are Monkey Intrusion! Our line up is Enrico J. Goti on voice and guitars, Marco Bertoli on drums, Vincenzo Reina guitars and voice and Marco Plesnicar on bass. We come from Trieste, Italy, a port town at the very border with Slovenia.

Tell us about the new album!

Well, the album is titled “Pussycats and Monkeymen” and it’s an emotional and cinematic voyage where in part we follow the ups and downs of the fictional character Cicuta Weston. Let’s say that it’s more than a collection of songs… it’s something that comes out at its best when listened fully through.

Favourite track in new album and why?

Surely it’s “Bad Love”! It has an intriguing development through out, different rhythms and riffs, an overwhelming drums performance and the final vocal solo by our friend and special guest, Sara Cova, is absolutely something you have to hear!

Tell us a bit about the recording process, was it fun to do?

Indeed! It’s been an hard, hard work because it was the first time that we recorded an entire album but it certainly had many funny moments. We recorded at Jork Studios in Slovenia, so in this case the fact that we live on the border certainly helped, the location was just 15 minutes driving from our rehearsing place!

Jadran and Gabriel Ogrin, the owners, proved to be not only great sound engineers and producers, but we developed a lasting friendship that helped to have those hilarious moments that you need when you’re working so hard! Not to mention beer and whiskey…

What inspired the album name?

Well, we didn’t want to give the impression that we were too serious, so we imagined something like a circus presenter saying: ”And now, ladies and gentlemen, we give you pussycaaats and mooonkeymen!!” Then things developed a bit different but the idea remained.

Tell us the idea behind the album cover?

That’s a story… when we released “Life” as a single, we’ve been contacted by this great artist from Indonesia, Keluhart, that loved the song and wondered if we already had an artwork for the upcoming album. Since we hadn’t, we agreed to work with her.

Vincenzo supervised the operation having to exchange mails at the weirdest hours due to the different time zone. Now we are totally satisfied with the great artwork she conjured up!  

What one of your songs on the new album do you think will the most difficult to rehearse for a live audience?

Fortunately all our songs are written to be performed live, in fact the album is very little produced, also because the core is played “live”. Having said that “Ouverture” is always challenging to perform due to its complex structure.

Why should people listen to the album?

Because it’s intriguing, emotional, genuine. Many different genres blend in this voyage that we think it’s worth it the 73 minutes of your time!