Interview: Getting to Know Monovoid

Brighton three-piece Monovoid will release their debut album, ‘Dissolving the Brain’, on Friday 27th November, with a new video for Ruinous Belief arriving on Friday 20th November. In this interview, we get to know then a little better.

1. Hello! Thank you for taking the time to chat to us. First things first, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started.

Hi Carl! We’re 3 guys based in Brighton, UK, who love music – particularly heavy music – and have been in bands together for about 20 years, give or take.

You’re speaking to Tom, I’m the guitarist and one of the two vocalists in Monovoid.

We also have Brian on bass & vocals, and Guillaume on drums.

As I mentioned we’ve known each other for a long time, and since around 2016 we were a 3 piece with a different name.

In 2023 we decided to call time on that project in favour of doing something new and leaving behind some of the mental baggage we’d built up over the years.

We wanted to refresh things, start something different, and we wanted to play heavier stuff again, as we were playing more like thrash/death metal when we first met around 20 years ago.

Monovoid was the name we chose. We recorded a bunch of music in 2024, put out the first song in March 2025 then began playing live shows a couple of weeks later.

2. Someone comes to you and asks you to sum up what kind of music you play – what do you tell them?

To be honest it happens a lot and we find it a bit of a tricky question!

We don’t really like labels that much, though of course it’s inevitable.

We’re a metal band. We play various subgenres of metal for the most part (prog/death/sludge/thrash), with a bit of other stuff mixed in. Some people say we sound doom, some people call us metalcore. I don’t think we’re either of those things but in the end, it’s whatever the listener thinks it sounds like. We’re trying to develop our own sound and not really bother with trying to label it as anything in particular. We play heavy music in the way that feels natural to us.

3. What’s currently keeping you busy? A new album/EP/single release? A new video? Playing live, or planning ahead?

Right now we’re working towards our debut album release. It’s called ‘Dissolving The Brain’ and it’ll be out on 27th November of this year. Along with that there’ll be a new music video for our last single ‘Ruinous Belief’ coming out on the 20th November which adds to the 2 other videos we already put out earlier this year.

We’re also playing gigs and doing a bit of writing and planning ahead as well, so there’s plenty of stuff keeping us busy. This is all in our free time since we all have our regular jobs and families as well. On a personal note for me, my partner and I recently had our first child so I’ve been getting used to juggling all these things while learning to be a parent at the same time. It’s a busy time for sure!

4. What is about this current period that is particularly exciting for you?

Aside from the parenting which is really exciting and awesome (but not really what I’m here to talk about, haha) on the band side we just did our 2nd London show last week (at the time of writing) where we got to open for the amazing Anciients from Canada. They’re over here touring the UK and we’ve been lucky enough to get onto 2 of their tour dates with them. That was really exciting as they’re a great band and super nice guys. It was also our first gig at The Black Heart in Camden, so that was pretty special for us and the crowd at the gig was really great. This week we’re opening for them in our hometown at the venue Dust which we’re really excited for as well.

The album release is exciting too, because we’ve had the music basically all finished since before the band even started playing shows 18 months ago, it’s the culmination of a lot of work and in some cases a lot of waiting. We’ve had to be patient with it for various reasons, and now it’s finally going to be out so that other people can hear it in full. We’re excited for that, and to be able to move on from it fully and focus only on getting more new songs ready and moving onto planning the next release.

5. Tell me about the work that has gone into making it a reality and what it means to you.

It’s a lot of work to get an album ready for release, and not just that but to release it in the modern age and do all the things that you’re supposed to do along with that. I’m talking about release plans, putting singles out with their own release plans, music videos, social media promotion etc. There’s a lot of time and effort that goes into all that stuff, stuff that people who don’t do it might not even think about – you’d think being in a band is just playing music and being onstage and that’s it – but unless you have a whole team of people doing some of this stuff for you then there’s a lot of other work needed to do things properly. I’m not even sure we’ve done it ‘properly’ but we’ve picked our route within our means and budget for this period of the band, and next time we’ll figure out what went well and what didn’t and aim to do it better again next time.

One thing that we have been doing more properly since starting this project (compared to the project we had before this) is gigs. We’ve done a ton of them. We weren’t so good at networking before and we weren’t getting a lot of regular shows, nor were we that good on the social media side of things. As Monovoid it’s not like we’ve blown up or anything, but we’ve had a steady increase in things, people hearing of us, show offers coming in etc, and I think our reputation is growing steadily. Mainly due to a lot of hard work and a lot of time spent on trying to grow our network and make things happen.

On the work going into making the album, we spent probably 1-2 years on writing a load of music, individually and collaboratively, of which some of it got ditched and some of it made it into the album. Some of it is still there waiting to be used potentially in the future. Once we had a collection of songs/ideas we thought were good enough we booked in the time to make the album and then worked harder on that set of songs to get them finished and ready for recording. That was probably 3-6 months of hard work on those before we got into the studio.

Going into the studio to record is probably my favourite part of being in a band. I love coming up with the initial ideas for songs, but it can be tough getting them to a finished state. Going in to record is the time when you’ve done that work (hopefully anyway, haha) and then you get to hear it all come together properly and then go home and listen to it all finished for the first time. I love that process. Gigs too, but the record is the main thing to me, so I like getting stuck into that part of the process.

6. Making music and being creative can be a very positive experience and can be very good for the mind. In what way has making music had a positive impact on your mental health?

Absolutely it can be. I find every time I get a new burst of creativity and write some new song ideas, I’m buzzing at the potential of what they can be, and it’s always really fun to start out with a new idea (usually more than trying to finish one off!).

To me writing is one of the things in life that is the most rewarding to me, and I tend to struggle if I go too long without doing it. Recently life has been getting in the way of spending much time on the actual ‘making music’ part, so I’m itching to get stuck into some new ideas very soon.

We did make a bit of progress as a group with one new song recently and we actually played a brand new song live at one of our recent shows. It wasn’t totally ready but we felt good about doing it. We’re all keen to freshen up our set after 18 months of playing the same songs in most shows.

7. It can also be incredibly challenging, more so in the modern times. What have been some challenging aspects of making music and how have you overcome them?

I kind of alluded to it earlier in one of my other answers I think, and it’s not so much about the creative part, but for being in a band in general in modern times. We all struggle a bit with the whole social media and constant self-marketing aspects of it. Obviously we could just opt out or not do it, but it’d make things a lot tougher. I find most of our networking and gigs come about through being pretty active on Instagram!

We do opt out from what we don’t want to do though. A lot of bands are really hammering the whole content creation factory approach using all the trends people do these days, posting constantly, and we just don’t want to do that. We post regularly, but not constantly.

If it doesn’t feel like something we’d naturally do, or something that we’re happy and proud to share, then we don’t want to do it. We also don’t want to spam people to the point of over saturation. In the end as a music follower, I don’t personally care if a band posts that much, I don’t really follow the bands I’m into that way. I care about their albums and their live shows. I’m sure there’s other audience members who feel the same.

We understand there’s the algorithm and there are ways to do this stuff to gain more traction, so it’s inevitable we have to be part of the system if we want people to take any notice, but similarly if it’s not fun and it’s taking time away from the actual stuff like you know, being a band that makes music, then there’s limit to that.

In terms of creating music though it is of course challenging too. If it was easy everyone would do it and be amazing at it. It can be tough trying to finish songs. So even when I get excited about a new idea, it might be tough to get it working well with the rest of the band or just to get it to a point where we think it’s really great. That can be tough, but at least you can just start another one and take a break if that song isn’t working, we don’t have a shortage in our backlog of ideas that’s for sure.

8. How do you handle the online aspects of being in a band? Having to put out content constantly, promoting across several different social media platforms, and having your success measured in likes and follows?

I’ve obviously touched on some of this as part of the previous questions, so you likely have an idea about some of our feelings on it at this stage.

But despite what I’ve said I think we’re handling it reasonably well, even if it could always be better. We’re certainly more active than we were pre-Monovoid and we started out with the mindset of needing to be more active with it from the get-go.

We’re not as active and consistent as some folks are, and we do have some disdain for the necessity of it, but we also accept it and do our best to put out #content with some regularity.

We find it much easier when we’re actually busy and there is stuff to post about. It’s when you’re trying too hard to come up with it that we have a harder time. There’s a lot of bands that seem to be barely active with actually being a band, yet they post all this stuff with them interviewing themselves, or putting out behind the scenes stuff, or whatever else, and they seem to want to present themselves as being something they’re not. It just feels forced and like they are giving the illusion of being busy. We would rather just be actually busy, getting out doing shows, and then the content comes along with that.

I think we’ve been doing pretty well with posting stuff that we are happy to post about. So promoting our upcoming shows, showing off pics and clips taken at those shows, and putting out stuff about our releases and videos.

We have definitely had some downtime periods where we’re taking a little break from things, and when that’s the case, we don’t post so much. I think that’s natural, and honestly if you stress about needing to do it 24/7 it’s just not fun anymore. I enjoy doing it all and posting stuff that we’re happy to show off, and if there’s nothing for a month then I’m not going to force it.

Perhaps that will count against us sometimes, but honestly, so be it. We’ll do it our way and if that means someone measures us as unsuccessful… well we’re here to be a band making music and playing shows, we’re not full time influencers/content-creators.

9. How do you make this part of things enjoyable, and fulfilling, for yourself?

I suppose again I may have already answered this one. But as I said earlier I do find enjoyment from it when I like the stuff we’re putting out. That could be a show with a really cool poster and a good lineup that we’re excited to be on, or some footage or pics from a recent show, or it could be announcing our next single or album. You do get that hit of dopamine when you put out a post and see a good response to it, but it’s not as long lasting as the actual stuff we’re doing – playing the shows, recording the songs etc. That’s the part that is more fulfilling.

Another way I’ve found more enjoyment personally from it this year is that I’ve learned to do some basic video and image editing, so I’m less reliant on someone else to come up with these things for us. I do enjoy putting clips together and putting them out, so I’ve basically introduced more creativity into it, rather than it only being the act of posting something online.

10. Speaking directly to listeners – what would you ask they do to help support you?

Nothing really crazy here to be honest. Come to our shows or buy our music!

A big part of us doing what we’re doing is that we hope people will enjoy the music we make. We make it for ourselves primarily, but it gives you a really nice feeling when you know others have enjoyed it too. So really, if you like it and you’re able to come down, watching us live is the best way to show us that. We’re always happy to chat to folks who come and watch and enjoy it and we do get a kick out of hearing people’s positive feedback (and even negative can be helpful so long as it’s constructive!). It helps you to feel that you’re doing something worthwhile.

It’s also nice to have people comment online or send a message saying something nice, so we do appreciate that too. Sharing and spreading the word about us is also a really good way to help out and support us, as word of mouth is far better than algorithmic reach I think. I’m more likely to listen to a band that a trusted friend sends to me than something I see advertised on social media.

Also, it’s not the main thing we’re here for but really we do have so many expenses and things that we’d like to do more of or do better, and everything costs money, so it’s really appreciated when people can support us monetarily. Obviously streaming doesn’t pay artists very well, and so far we’ve not got the kind of numbers where that’s even remotely a thing for us. Bandcamp sales and merch sales at gigs are the only income we get that goes back into the band to help cover costs. So, buy our stuff (and for any underground artists you want to support).

11. Outside of music, what do you like to do to relax?

We’ve all been pretty avid gamers at one point or another, and that’s one of the main things I’m doing if I’m not doing music. I also go out for walks in the countryside pretty often, and that helps me to relax and clear my head after time spent working at a computer or on music.

Aside from that I’m a football nerd and I support my team and watch most of the games, though I wouldn’t say it’s always relaxing for me! But I listen to a lot of football podcasts on a daily basis.

Brian is a bookworm and he’s always got a book on the go. I think he read something like 100 books in one year recently. He’s also into a bunch of other hobbies like yoyo, painting miniatures and writing stories.
Guillaume reads manga and watches anime a lot, and he also enjoys gaming when he has the time.

We all spend time just chilling and we’re all into watching films, but all 3 of us (me more recently) have kids so it’s obviously harder to find the time to just relax with young children!

12. Where can people find you?

Monovoid is available in all the usual places. The best way to check us out is to go on our Linktree – https://linktr.ee/monovoiduk – where you’ll find all of our links and you can pick whichever platform you prefer.

We have music and videos on YouTube, music for sale on Bandcamp, and we’re on all streaming platforms. Instagram is the most active social media for us, though we are on Facebook too.

We don’t use TikTok so that’s probably the only main platform where you won’t find much.

We recently signed up to Elastic Stage so if you’re the kind of person who likes to collect physical media, we have one CD available to buy on there right now, and when the new album is out we are aiming to have CDs and vinyls available to order from there too.