MARGARITA MONET OF EDGE OF PARADISE RETURNS
During this week's episode of the Mars Attacks Podcast, Margarita Monet of Edge Of Paradise returns to the show.
Among the topics discussed include the band's upcoming release
The Unknown. Working with Howard Benson, Mike Plotnikoff, and Neil Sanderson on the album. The process behind making videos for the new album. Having the pandemic strike as they were promoting
Universe. And much more.
This episode of the Mars Attacks Podcast is the audio version of the August 20th, 2021 episode of the Signals From Mars live stream.
Join us live, ask questions, partake Fridays 6 PM EST / 3 PM PST / 11 PM UK / 12 AM Saturday CET
You can listen to, watch or read the interview with Margarita Monet of Edge Of Paradise below
Transcript Of This Week's Episode Of Mars Attacks Podcast With Margarita Monet Of Edge Of Paradise.Victor M. Ruiz: We welcome Margarita Monet to the show. How are you?
Margarita Monet: Hi, I’m doing good. Thanks for having me.
Victor M. Ruiz: It’s awesome to have you on it’s funny because I was looking through my notes and I realized that I haven’t spoken to you since December of 2011. So, it’s almost been 10 years.
Margarita Monet: Oh, wow. That’s a long time.
Victor M. Ruiz: Yeah, it was when you guys were. I think it was right before Mask came out. So, a lot has definitely changed in the band. Has it? Not since Mask?
Margarita Monet: Feels like a lifetime.
Victor M. Ruiz: Absolutely. It’s funny because I still go back. And listened to a lot of the songs off of that album. And I mean songs from throughout your career it seems like you’re I don’t want to say you’re blushing, but with me saying, going back to that, obviously the band is sonically and from the composition standpoint has in 10 years has done quite a lot.
Margarita Monet: Oh, yeah, we actually took Mask off our Spotify just because, yeah. And then people still, they tried to get that album and we’re like, nah, just listen to the new stuff. It’s just because, well, we sound so much different now and.
Victor M. Ruiz: Right?
Margarita Monet: I didn’t write any of the songs. I started writing songs with our next album with Dave our first song we wrote together, and that was our album and Immortal Waltz.
So, Mask was written with David’s Robin McAuley, but I think it just gave me a chance to discover myself as a singer, I would say because I never, yeah.
Victor M. Ruiz: Oh, wow. I didn’t, I didn’t know that. So, was he looking to record that album with Robin McAuley originally?
Margarita Monet: Well, he had a band with Robin called Bleed and they actually did record a lot of those songs and they released, but some of them, they never released because it was Robin in the band with Greg Bissonette on drums and Tony Franklin on bass.
Victor M. Ruiz: wow.
Margarita Monet: It’s some shows together, but they all, like Robin went on tour with Survivor.
It was back then when Survivor split with the guitar player in Survivor Greg Bissonette starting with Ringo Starr. So, everybody was doing their own thing. And Dave, like, we both wanted to do something and commit everything to the bed and take it, you know, all the way basically. So that’s what we, that’s why we started the band.
But it took us a few years to really like discover what we want it to sound like and you know, like any band. So.
Victor M. Ruiz: absolutely. And even you’re bringing that up and you’re talking about are Immortal Waltz, but I got to tell you this album here, if I can get it on screen Universe, to me was really a huge leap forward for the band.
Margarita Monet: Oh,
Victor M. Ruiz: I mean, yeah. It, it really, to me was really you guys coming into your own. And really, as you’re saying, kind of finding your way kind of finding how all the pieces finally fit, how difficult was it for you guys to finally get to the point of Universe and realize.
What you wanted to do there?
Margarita Monet: Yeah. I don’t know if it was difficult per se. It was just kind of a natural evolution. And I think we really found ourselves as songwriters because like with our EP Alive, it started heading into that direction. And then we kind of just followed the music because we liked what was developing like we never forced anything ever.
I like whenever I thought to ourselves let’s sound like that, because I feel like that never works once you force something, it’s very hard to make it work. So, I just feel grateful that we weren’t able to find that path and just we also. We’re lucky to start working with Mike Plotnikoff and Jacob Hansen.
I feel like he really saw where we were heading and steered us into that direction. And then I started discovering like more of the cinematic because I could play keyboards and all the songs. So, I really started to discover all the stuff I like to do with a keyboard. Like all the industrial sounds, all the cinematic sounds and we just kind of went with it.
So.
Victor M. Ruiz: Yeah, that’s kind of neat that you mentioned that because it’s funny when I get press releases about you guys, and they try to describe the band. It really, at least in my opinion, I think Edge Of Paradise sounds like Edge Of Paradise where it doesn’t, you know, people want to say it’s symphonic metal or it’s industrial, or it’s this, I think that you guys have pieces of different things, but I think that you guys do a good job of kind of taking all the ingredients of the recipe and making it Edge Of Paradise.
Margarita Monet: I thank you that’s a really huge compliment to us because from the beginning, that’s what we’ve always strived to do. We wanted to create something unique enough that people, when they hear first part of our songs, they can recognize that it’s us. So yeah. Thank you for saying that. And I hope, you know, we’ll, we’ll keep evolving.
I really like the theme we have going with the band, like this kind of futuristic sci-fi type of theme, and also like the new album. It’s very thought-provoking. So yeah, I just, you know, want to keep going into that direction, but thank you.
Victor M. Ruiz: Yeah. How, how do you feel that you guys have stepped up your game from Universe to The Unknown?
Margarita Monet: Well, actually it’s a huge leap forward for us again, to this album, just because, well, first of all, the songs are a lot more meaningful. I feel like they’re also more cinematic, like overall, I would describe them as like, if she liked movies like Inception or Inter-stellar or Star Wars or songs, like, I mean, you movie like that they’re a bit story driven.
Also. Each song is very versatile. Like the album is very versatile. Each song is very different, but overall, if you really feel like it’s one album and You know, also we have, we started working with Howard Benson who is you know, multiple Grammy winning producer. He also with Neil Sanderson from Three Days Grace, I feel like working with Neil just because Three Days Grace is so different from us.
Like I always do everything very elaborate, very like. Like, I like to really read into things and Three Days Grace, they have like this approach where everything is streamlined. And I think we found like the happy medium where it’s still us, but it’s, it’s very like, everything is in the song because it needs to be.
Like there’s nothing filler about it. So, I think overall with us evolving as musicians and with our production team growing we stepped up a whole new level.
Victor M. Ruiz: Gotcha. So how important do you feel was it was the input from the three of them. You’re saying that Neil kind of helped streamline things, but you know, again, it’s Howard, isn’t the first big name producer you guys have worked with. You worked with Michael Wagner in the past. You also worked with is it Chuck Jones, the name of the who?
The guy that produced Alive. Yeah. So, I mean, what do you feel that this kind of three-headed team helps do for you guys that maybe you hadn’t been able to do in the past?
Margarita Monet: Yeah. You know, it’s always like Dave and I were pretty much do a lot of it ourselves, but working with other people, even though like a lot of the songs, for example, we’d demo with them up at home. So, the songs are pretty much written. But for example, I’ll, I’ll kind of tell you the process we can. So, we’ll demo it up at home, then we’ll go to Mike Plotnikoff, Mike produced Universe.
Mike is a very he, he really inspires me. The process, because when I record with Mike, he really pushes me to think outside the box. So, on the spot, I really think of maybe some melodies that are set or maybe some new words that are better. So, we really evolved the song, solidify it. And then when Neil was, he knew was coming in from Canada.
During the sessions with Mike and he was kind of like, oh, this isn’t maybe necessarily, maybe this is too many words. Maybe take out some of this stuff. So, Neil was kind of that part of the process where he was taking things out. And then I went to Howard to record the final vocals to some of the singles.
And because we kind of met Howard more later in the game, like the album was released. But then we recorded a lot of the songs with Howard, and he really pushed me vocally because I think he saw a side of me. He saw like this edge I didn’t have before. And he really brought that out and I feel like that’s really made the songs a whole new level.
Plus we put a lot more harmonies. Like the songs got a lot more production with Howard and that also really elevated. The choruses, especially like, I think you can really hear that on Digital Paradise, even though it’s subtle. But when I hear both versions, it’s like a massive difference. So yeah, we’re, we’re grateful we have all these people know kind of part of it too.
Victor M. Ruiz: Cool. You’re obviously a very creative person. You’ve always uploaded things. Videos of you playing the piano, doing covers. You know, you guys are offering all types of really cool things that people can buy as part of bundles for The Unknown. Universe came out in August of 2019, about two years ago, and a few months later, the pandemic hit.
So things kind of halted for you guys. The Unknown, was it born out of the need for you guys to do something during that time where the song’s already there, or, I mean, with you guys being so creative, did you just need to write these songs?
Margarita Monet: Yeah. It’s a bit of, bit of everything of that because we’ve were supposed to tour a lot 2020. But we knew after we came back from tour in Europe we had, we knew that we had a few months off and we’re always writing. So, what was have that needs to keep making music? So, we were like, well, things are kind of weird right now, you know, but I’m gonna not worried, like who knew a pandemic would, would last this long.
But we just called up Mike and we were like, you know, we have this one song that we’d like to get in the studio and maybe do a single before the tour, you know, something like that. And he was like, okay. Yeah, that’s good. That’s great. So that’s how we started. And then the, you know, one song led to the other song and then we were, like what’s going on?
Like I was driving on the freeway in LA and it was deserted like whoever sees the empty freeway, in Los Angeles.
At home, like that’s when I wrote the title track The Unknown and then Dave came, and he was like that’s a different song. Cause I think The Unknown is probably one of the, like, we never wrote a song.
like that before. So, I think the pandemic just like this apocalyptic atmosphere kind of influenced the process, but I think it’s the first time that we never, we didn’t really have anything. To do like wouldn’t have a tour to prepare for, because like things just got canceled. We were holding out hope til the last minute, but as we knew that everything canceled, we just focused on the music entirely and that did keep us sane throughout the but yeah, we just kind of fully immersed ourselves in this album.
Victor M. Ruiz: Cool. Could you envision that with how things continue to go you can’t get out there and play that you guys would continue to write as time goes on.
Margarita Monet: Yeah. Yeah. We always try to write in, in between, but like we went to his bummed that we didn’t really get to tour on Universe. I think this album was the silver lining for us because we did, I feel like these are definitely our best songs so far. Like The Unknown to me, that song was so important. I feel like it’s one of those songs you write once in a lifetime, just, just personally how much it means to me.
And then you know, starting to work with these new people. And cause we’re also signed, they have a label now, so we kind of signed by Judge And Jury. So, we have like Frontiers on our team in Judge And Jury. So, a lot of good things happen to the band. And this is what I kind of you know, I want to say with the album as well, because the album is very, it talks a lot about futurists.
topics and just it’s, sci-fi in a way. But like that part of the song is inside the silence of my mind. I find strength in the unknown. So, if we, you know, kind of look in the positive way into something, we don’t know what’s going to happen in a fighting kind of hope. And so that’s.
Victor M. Ruiz: Cool. Yeah, you, you mentioned that the songs are very futuristic. The videos are very futuristic as well. And one thing that you’ve always pushed as well is you guys have had a certain image with all the videos. I mean, the videos aren’t you guys just standing there, just kind of mining the songs you guys are.
Actually, they look like little cinematic pieces as well. How involved are you guys in creating these videos? Do you guys come up with a storyboard and then look for somebody to. Help you guys develop it or do people come to you to, with ideas for the songs?
Margarita Monet: A lot of it goes like this. I’m like, hey, Dave, I want to make this video. And it’s going to look like this. And he’s like, how are we going to do that? Oh, okay. I’ll just call up Scott. Hey Scott. Like I have these crazy ideas can make it happen. It’s like, okay. Like, okay, let’s do it. Then things like, oh my God, how are we going to make it happen?
And then I’m like, okay, it’s booked. And then like, we just have to figure out how to make it happen. But. Kind of like that. It’s just because I always want to create something that’s really grandiose. And obviously we don’t have huge budgets to do that, you know, as the band grows, I want to do bigger and bigger and bigger.
So, we were able to kind of. Step it up with each video, but yeah, like I come up with some of these ideas some videos, for example, when, when we worked with Scott Hanson, who did The Unknown and Digital Paradise, I kind of talked to him about what I wanted the videos to be like some of the scenes. You know, the overall feel of the video.
And then he kind of helped me along the way to make it happen. And, you know, he brought his crew and we just kind of figure it out together. So, he was really great because he’s a filmmaker. So, he knows how to make things look the way I want them and work with what we have. And then like some videos.
For example, My Method Your Madness. I pretty much did a lot of with myself. Dane Mayan to film it. And then I edited it myself. Like the video that we have coming out, False Idols. That one’s really crazy because it looks like we’re in ancient Egypt. And then we’re also in the future. That one’s like going really crazy.
And that one, I worked with Robin August, who is also a filmmaker, and I just told him all the ideas that hadn’t booked, all the stuff, and then he just was there to help you make it happen. So, you know, a lot of the videos, I am very hands-on, but I also love collaborating with people and I’m totally fine with just letting someone, you know, do it, but so far we’ve been very involved in the process.
Victor M. Ruiz: Cool. What about your wardrobe? Because you’re wearing some outrageous stuff that obviously you can’t go into any store and just buy I’m assuming that is somebody is either putting this stuff together or you’re doing it or.
Margarita Monet: I do a lot of the stuff myself. I mean, internet is a beautiful thing. There’s so many really cool designers out there that like I’d love to collaborate with. So, I just like, if I see something online, you know, I messaged them and I’m like maybe if you help me customize it this way, so it fits the video better, or it’s something that already fits perfectly.
So, there’s a lot of really amazing people out there on the internet that maybe you don’t see you like in stores or whatever, but they make their own stuff. And you know, they sell it online. So, I love finding, you know, designers that do really unique things. And you know, I get that for the video or like I make some of my own stuff, like a lot of the props I made myself like in Digital Paradise, those was crazy sleeves.
Like the pair of pyramids and The Unknown video, I made that out of lesson. So, I make a lot of it myself. I mean, I liked doing that, but also sometimes when you have an idea and you don’t know where to get it, you have to make it. You just
Victor M. Ruiz: Right.
Margarita Monet: yeah.
Victor M. Ruiz: Part of the problem of being so creative is that you’ve got things in your head, but if, if you can’t have someone else kind of bring it to life, you got to do it yourself. And you know, the way things are now like you’re saying on the internet, there’s so many guides to I mean, this is kind of different, but you see people recreate through cosplay, like things that have been in books or things that have been comics or whatever.
So, there are supplies out there and there are plenty of tutorials out there to build a lot of this stuff. So, it’s just cool hearing that you’re able to make a lot of the stuff come to life.
Margarita Monet: Yeah. And, and it’s, it’s, it’s the fun part of things. The only problem is the time like.
Victor M. Ruiz: Right.
Margarita Monet: Like the new video. Yeah, and I had to upload it and just met the deadline because it comes out on Monday. So, it’s the time that I’m always chasing. But other than that, it’s super fun.
Victor M. Ruiz: Okay. And when did you say the next video was coming out?
Margarita Monet: Monday.
Victor M. Ruiz: Oh, okay. I’m sorry. It cut out there for a second. So, I wasn’t sure if that was the video you were discussing. Are there going to be any other videos for the album or is it just going to be these four for now?
Margarita Monet: No, it’s gonna be more. I wish, I mean, in the perfect world, I’d like to make a video for every song, just because every song is so cinematic in its own way. So, there’s definitely going to be more. And probably before the end of the year. Yeah. So, you know, the more we were able to do the more we’ll do.
Victor M. Ruiz: Cool. Given that again, you didn’t get to tour Universe properly. What could you envision your set lists to be? Do you already have a set list, worked out more or less of songs that you want to play?
https://www.marsattacksradio.com/2021/08/audio/mars-attacks-podcast-234-edge-of-paradise/
