dan monick

Besides work in Living Legends, the Grouch is also finishing a new solo album and starting up his own Simple Man label. He speaks now from his veggie-oil powered truck on the way home to L.A. from the Bay Area.

Did your dad once set a piano on fire?
My dad’s done that a lot of times! He used to just light pianos on fire on stage. I think he’d throw alcohol on it and light it up. He was in Stu Blank and the Nasty Habits—he was Stu Blank, of course—and he was a real fiery piano player. I always wanted to light shit on fire. I guess I got to learn a wooden instrument.
What kind of legacy did you inherit from your father?
Sometimes I think I am my dad! It’s kind of a joke around my house—I tell my wife I am Stu Blank. We were both Bay Area artists who were pretty much independent—around a lot of the big guys but our stuff is not really known to the masses. I think we were both trying to break out of that. Your goal as a musician is to have as many people hear you as you can. We both did have a core cult following, and we were both grateful for that. But you feel like you’re almost on some super-large shit as far as getting heard, and then it doesn’t go quite as planned—that’s the independent musician’s struggle.
Why were people throwing things at you the first time you ever rapped on stage?
That was this one time at the Black Repertory Theater in Berkeley. When I started, there wasn’t like a lot of white rappers—especially in Oakland. I remember going to hip-hop shows in the early ‘90s and being the only white guy at the show. Before I even started rapping for that show, stuff was being thrown at me—papers and pennies—and Mystik Journeymen had to come out and co-sign for me. And then as the music went on, the crowd was giving it up—it was like, ‘Oh, we didn’t know! We never saw a white dude rap as tight as that.’ I was kind of like a circus act at the time! I was thinking, ‘Is this what I’m in for? How much more of this is there gonna be?’ But that was the lowest point. It just went up from there.
Were you the first hip-hop artist to sell CDRs?
I wanna honestly say I’m the first hip-hop artist to sell CDRs—but I’m sure people would be like, ‘No way!’ But I remember waiting for CD burners to become consumer products—I’d check every single day, like, ‘Are they out yet?’ And I do wanna say—I believe I’m the first hip-hop artist driving a car on vegetable oil.
Does it smell like a burrito?
It smells like whatever I’m putting in. I set it up with vegan restaurants that I frequent—I’m big on eating good food and I know people who own restaurants just from eating at them. I got a truck the other day—a Ford F350 crew cab big bad-ass boss-hog kind of truck. But it runs on veggie oil. Kind of an oxymoron. My wife calls it ‘the sensitive thug.’ I did it at Lovecraft in Silverlake—they can convert any diesel—and I asked if any hip-hop artists had come in, and they said no. So I’m claiming that, too. My wife tells me I should be more humble about it—that it’s just good for the environment and I shouldn’t try and get props for it. But I’m a hip-hop artist. That’s kind of ingrained in me.
Living Legends seems like you built your audience one person at a time—the hand-to-hand hustle.
Definitely—hand-drawn art, xeroxed at Kinko’s, dubbed on dual-cassette decks, and hand them out on the corner. Nowadays I see people like that and I can’t even stand them—it’s embarrassing to think I was one of those guys! They’re shady characters!
How did you learn how to be an independent hip-hop artist?
None of it was laid out—there wasn’t even a blueprint as far as what kind of equipment to go out and buy. All this info was barely out there. There weren’t a lot of producer magazines that would ask Dr. Dre, ‘What are you using?’ Even down to the creation of the music—it was like drawing our own blueprint. And then how should we sell it? There wasn’t a huge number of independent artists flooding hip-hop stores. When we went in, they were creating a new section.
What did they call it?
Back then it was just ‘hip-hop.’ Then as it was growing and they realized it was gonna be different, they called it ‘indie hip-hop’ or ‘local’ or ‘underground.’ And then as it got larger, they realized they couldn’t keep it separate, so it went back to ‘hip-hop.’
You outlasted a whole section in the record store.
At the time our stuff didn’t compare to the sound quality of a major label. Our artwork was homemade—it wasn’t the same thing. Now you can be indie and rival the quality of big-budget artists.
What were the first Living Legends tours like?
We literally landed in Europe with like forty bucks in our pockets and no place to stay. Maybe a few numbers from hip-hop record stores. We were really shooting in the dark. We’d see like the Pharcyde doing a show in Amsterdam and show up and try and rap before them. A lot of times it worked and a lot of times it didn’t. We’d come out and be so hungry we’d be selling our shit at their shows, and probably a lot of people were like, ‘Who the hell are these guys?’
This sounds like Black Flag.
We got a lot of respect from punk groups we’d meet. They’d say the ethic was like what they were doing. Definitely D.I.Y. stuff.
When did you realize you had an album-a-year streak?
We just wanted to be prolific. We knew the stuff hadn’t reached its fullest potential, but we didn’t wanna treat it like demos—like, ‘Here’s my demo!’ and see what some guy thought. We made music all the time and so it made sense to throw it out as an album. And the amount of material I was making as a solo artist was adding up to be like one a year—then I kind of slowed down. I don’t know what it’s about. I’m not just making music—I’m handling business a third of the time, making music and doing shows, and then when you add in my family… at this point I got a young daughter and a wife and mortgage payments, and it’s just a big balancing act! It’s weird because I watched it in reverse—when we were making an album a year, hip-hop artists were not doing that. There weren’t like Nas albums every year or Jay-Z every year. But I think the shelf life of an album is much shorter now. People’s attention spans are shorter.
Is that good or bad?
It’s crazy! It’s positive in the sense it makes people grow up faster. I met a thirteen-year-old kid named Coop today who had the same amount of game I had when I was 18. He was handing me his beat CD, telling me, ‘You should get down on these tracks—this one I made for Too Short, and I’m probably gonna get him!’ I was asking Amp Live for beats and Amp was like, ‘I been using them all—I’ll make you something.’ And this kid was like, ‘Hold on, lemme go get my beats!’ Everything is quicker than it used to be—it’s a good thing as far as making people smarter about the world. For artists, it’s harder—you gotta be on your game.
You said you’re tired of hearing songs about the same thing—what did you mean?
It’s hard to say—I can’t say that something wouldn’t inspire someone else. I’ve heard enough rappers rapping about rap. And of course mainstream rap—rapping about rims and how much money you have—get over that! And of course songs that bash that stuff—I’ve made some of those songs, and I wish those would go away, too! There was a place and time for all those topics. As far as talking to other MCs, like Aceyalone and Hieroglyphics MCs and Def Jux and Atmosphere and all of my peers that I kind of rap with—at the time, you didn’t want to repeat a topic that anyone else did. If someone else made a ‘back in the day’ song, you didn’t wanna go make that song. But ‘back in the day’ has been made into at least a hundred songs. And if someone’s at the point in life where they wanna talk about what ‘back in the day’ was to them, they could do it and somebody could like it. That’s why I say ‘be creative’ as a blanket statement—someone will make a ‘back in the day’ song in a creative way, and maybe even I’ll like it.
What kind of songs last the longest?
To me, the best songs I ever made are the most personal songs. Every time I make a song about a family member, I always think, ‘No one’s gonna relate to this because I’m talking about my personal experience.’ But those songs touch people the most. The songs that are most real are the ones you can go back and listen to. Any time I make a song—because I’ve done it, and I’m not gonna lie—that I try to make fit in with the current state of what people listen to, those are always the worst to go back to. They might do good at the time, but for me, knowing what was true—those I can’t stand.

THE GROUCH PLAYS THURS., JUNE 28, WITH FREE MORAL AGENTS AT LOW END THEORY AT THE ECHOPLEX, 1154 GLENDALE BLVD., ECHO PARK. 9 PM / $5 / 18+. MYSPACE.COM/LOWENDTHEORYCLUB.