Purebred lords of under-thunder have always been like the kings of the Kudzu Ball in rock. They’re hard to find, hell to keep, difficult to explain, and it’s only ever the card-carrying captains of cadence who know the true carat of their worth and meaning to the music. If wine is the intellectual side of a meal, bass is the revenge therapy section of a song, and Dywane “MonoNeon” Thomas, Jr. has stood out like a faun in a GWAR getup within that guttural glitterati since he was all of a toddler, baptized into the smoke of the deep tones by his bass-playing father, who made a career out of holding down the low-pitched resonance for everybody from Pops Staples to Denise LaSalle to The Memphis Horns. Since then, MonoNeon, who slaps his surrealist miracles out of an upside down right-handed instrument with his nondominant left hand, has become one of the most individually prolific bass players in music history, worked with and learned from Prince, received big ups from fellow foundational fat-stringer Flea (who has freely referred to him as “the greatest fucking electric bass player”), and still found the juice to help oversee the design of a line of blazingly lambent basses bearing his name, complements of the Fender Artist Series.
As the tireless creator of a carnivalesque catalog of smoother-than-a-fresh-jar-of-Skippy sounds featuring delightfully DuChampian titles like Basquiat & Skittles, Fairy Dust Supreme Pepperoni, and Juggling Kangaroos, MonoNeon’s latest full-length, Quilted Stereo, sounds like a Crayola disco held in an enchanted dungeon where you’d imagine the swizzles in the rocktails to be chocolate-dipped pixy stix and the DJ in the bedazzled backroom is the old proverbial Rock Lobster in slanted shades, undercover and on loan from The B-52’s. When QRO caught a baritone beat with MonoNeon to celebrate his most recent rad rager of a record, we wanted to call him many awed things – Minister of Thump, VP of Vibrations, The Boommaster, Groove Champion, Lord Low-End Modulator – but ultimately we just call ourselves lucky we got to speak with him about what it means to bring all this famously soft-padded substructure of his to the stage to stand on its own for the first time in his life, and how to keep the grin in your groundfloor even when times take on the trying kind of turbulence.
QRO: They call me “Dryad of the Neon,” Mono, so I want you to feel comfortable right away knowing you are amongst born razzle-dazzle family here, sir, and welcome! I’ve always thought of you as the long-lost stardust-knitted Commodore from outer space. ‘Futuristic fluorescence’ is your genre, as I see it. How would you describe your music to someone who had never heard it?
MonoNeon: I appreciate that! It’s really just uninhibited, really free. Autonomy is what I’m all about.
QRO: That’s one of my favorite words in the English language and we need all of the autonomous thinkers in this homogenous age that we can get, so thank you for that! Speaking of great words, I want to hear all about Quilted Stereo. I love the name more than I can express because I think there is nothing better than tactile/audio hybridity, so why don’t we start with the title, the imagery, and the messaging of this album. Give us the granny’s-blanket goods!
MN: That idea just came from my love of quilts and the fact that I used to carry a security blanket around as a young child. Over the years that turned into this whole aesthetic of wearing quilts, and this whole album is like me bringing that quilted feeling through your stereo!
QRO: I love it because it mirrors your soft approach to serious things too. Your songs are focused on what I think all people should be paying more attention to, things like individuality and unity, but you pull their eyes to that stuff with a party hat on. “Jelly Roll” is a fine example and one that is so much fun I consider it to be the only serious challenger to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” as the dance track of the summer. That song is like Abba had a roller disco baby with Kool & The Gang. Where in the heck did that groove come from?
MN: That song was inspired by two of my heroes, Donald Fagen and Morris Day. I was thinking about those two artists when I was co-writing this with Davy Nathan and I just wanted to create a song that was danceable for everybody, young and old. It’s just a simple song about wanting to dance and skate around!
Autonomy is what I’m all about.
QRO: Perfection, and I’m glad you mentioned the vitality of the elders because your latest single is called “Full Circle” and features the legendary Mavis Staples and you’ve also got George Clinton from Parliament Funkadelic intro-ing this record and again on the song “Quilted!”. You’ve enjoyed collaborations in the past with Ne-Yo, Nas, and our dearly departeds, Prince and Mac Miller. Give me the best piece of advice you have picked up from any of these infrared diamonds.
MN: Oh, so much. Particularly from George because I hang with him and his family just personally sometimes in Tallahassee. He’s really been welcoming and out of nowhere just embraced me. It’s an unspoken type of thing because I have been listening to him since I was a kid, looking at his album covers and just being so intrigued. So, you know, I’m not faking this stuff; I grew up listening to all that and I’m living my childhood dream with having George Clinton on this album. My dad used to play bass with Mavis so it’s a full-circle situation with this album. I’m usually just putting out music all willy-nilly, but I’ve been patient with putting this album out because I wanted to do it the right way.
QRO: I think you have achieved that, and it seems like Mavis agrees because I love her little outro: “this is a fun song!” She’s completely magical.
MN: She reminds me of my grandma! [laughs]
QRO: Me too, actually! [laughs]
MN: Her voice has always been like another one of those blankets for me. I always go back to her to feel better.
QRO: Mavis has one of those voices that cannot ever be out-sung and I love that you are putting her out there for some of these younger generations that may not have imbibed that crucial history yet. Talk to me about “Segreghetto” because there you go making mongrel mysticism of words again!
MN: That’s another one that came pretty casually just because I wanted to rap. I’m not a rapper, but Davy and I were just throwing words back and forth to each other. Me being from Memphis, I’m very influenced not only by all the blues but by all the Hip-Hop that came out of here like Three 6 Mafia, Project Pat, and all of that. I’m just trying to work hard and be heard!
I’m usually just putting out music all willy-nilly, but I’ve been patient with putting this album out because I wanted to do it the right way.
QRO: You’re doing both sublimely! Another trademark of yours is unselfconscious humor. You always take the work very seriously but never yourself seriously at all. What role does fun, silliness, and play have in music, do you reckon?
MN: I think a lot of mine just happens unintentionally because I’m not really a serious person, and I don’t like being in situations where I have to be serious. It’s not naturally who I am, but the older I get, I appreciate life more, and everything ain’t glitz and glamour. Especially with the new reality I’m dealing with in my grandma having dementia, seeing my Mom work to help take care of her, and all that. I’m still my goofy self but aware that life is getting harder, but I’m pushing through!
QRO: I deeply empathize with the situation you are in with your grandmother as we’ve had dementia touch our family in the past as well and I know what you’re going through with that is extremely difficult, but I do think that all of this is just part of the balance of life. No one gets a life that is all highs, and I look at my own lows as the counterweight to all of the surreal levels of good fortune I’ve danced through in life. Speaking of dancing, can I ask you about a song that is a bit older? “Flaming Ballet Shoes”. I contend that you wrote that one specifically for me, and with my great, abiding love of Jamiroquai in mind!
MN: You take that and run with it any way you want to! [laughs] I’m just in my own surrealist head with stuff like that. I’m so influenced by the Surrealist movement in art and the whole Dadaism thing. My stuff really comes from finding myself in those movements. I get inspired by a lot of things that are not musical in any way.
QRO: I’d love to know some more of those things.
MN: It’s especially Richard Pryor and old Black sitcoms like What’s Happening!! and Mama’s Family. That really influenced my style in a weird way, watching those shows with my grandma, and how she used to wear all these gowns and stuff. It’s kind of feminine, but I’m not ashamed of it because I was raised by women.
QRO: Did you watch 227? That was appointment TV for me and my Mamaw!
MN: Yep, yep, yep! And we don’t have TV like that anymore.
I’m so influenced by the Surrealist movement in art and the whole Dadaism thing. My stuff really comes from finding myself in those movements.
QRO: We surely don’t, but it’s edifying for me knowing those shows are part of your incredibly unique visual language. What about those people and things in your low-note language. Fender has now released a signature MonoNeon Bass Collection, putting you right up there where you belong next to legends of the form like Geddy Lee, Steve Harris, Duff McKagan, Mike Dirnt, and the fabulous Flea, whom I know is a big fan of yours. I love all these players, but who are your favorite bass players and why?
MN: My first bass hero is definitely my dad, Dywane Thomas. He gave me my first guitar when I was four years old. I’m right-handed and so is my dad, but for some reason I flipped it over left-handed. I didn’t pay attention to all the people who tried to correct me, and I’ve been playing that way ever since!
QRO: I envy and marvel at your ability to code-switch on your own brain like that, using both sides of it so effortlessly, and I’m sure your dad is extremely proud of you. Let’s talk about some lines you should be proud of. “Stereo” contains the prettily pensive line “No one gets to stay, and I know I’m gonna fade away; you’ll find me in the middle of your stereo,” seemingly tells the story of an outsider who finds both himself and immortality, and suggests others can find him forever there too, inside the music. That’s one of the best allegories for what I think songs are for that I’ve heard in ages. Are you a closet introvert?
MN: I’m not sure where this sort of loneliness comes from. I think it maybe started for me when my uncle passed in 2002. He was shot and killed in Memphis. After that is when I started getting quiet. I was probably too young to realize how it affected me, but I think I got quiet because I was seeing how it affected my family. I started really honing in on my bass then, practicing more, and just wanting to be great. I was really different before my uncle passed, really outspoken and talking to people. I’ve always kind of been to myself, but especially now doing my own shows and singing my songs, I’m trying to get out of my bashfulness. There’s nothing wrong with being shy, but I know there’s another stage for me to grow toward in order to really evolve.
I have to get whatever I’m feeling out, and even if I’m not feeling something specific, I have to do my music because this is my life.
QRO: I think it’s rare and good that you know that, and are getting after it. When you are onstage, would you say that is you at your most you, or is there the need for a persona of sorts to make it doable for your shyness?
MN: No, it is definitely the most me I can be, even though I’m still finding myself and getting used to hearing myself out of these big-ass PA speakers! [laughs]
QRO: Well, nobody would know you were figuring anything out but you; you look like nothing but a natural and a seasoned pro, but we are all our own worst critics. Do you believe your art is a compulsion or a choice?
MN: Oh, you said the word, it’s a compulsion all the way. I have to get whatever I’m feeling out, and even if I’m not feeling something specific, I have to do my music because this is my life. I’m very blessed to do what I’m doing. I don’t have a day job or kids, so it’s really because of the sacrifices of my mom and my grandma that I’m able to create things. I’m blessed and still just trying to find my way!
QRO: Even though you have such an impressive musical history behind you, you are really at the very beginning of the musical magic carpet ride I think is coming for you. Some people may not realize that you are every bit the young astral philosopher of life wisdom that you are the badass bass player and consummate funk machine. I’d like to conclude today by having you expound a minute on some of your own prescient quotes and give the readers a chance to learn from your magnetic mind. Here’s the first one: “At least give them a chance not to like it…. get heard!”
MN: Yeah! That was about a decade ago when I wrote my manifesto, which is completely inspired by the whole Dada Manifesto. That’s really my whole mantra. I don’t think about that quote often but I live by it. I have to get heard. People are not going to know until they hear you, so you might as well just let them hear who the hell you are. If they don’t like it, that’s cool, if they do, that’s cool too, but I just have to stay in the middle and keep moving.
QRO: Beautiful, and that parlays perfectly into the next quote: “There is no need to prove them wrong or right…. just play!”
MN: Oh yeah, I was writing that stuff in serious tunnel vision, just manifesting things, and that’s why I started posting videos on YouTube. I’m not really a social person; I don’t know how to network. Not to be arrogant or big-headed, but I wanted people to know me before I walked into a room. I wanted them to know how I play and how I sound.
QRO: And now they do, and you have seemingly completed to success the final quote I’ll ask you about, which happens to be my favorite: “Write your own vision and read it.” That should be on a billboard in every city.
MN: Oh, thank you. To be getting to this level at this stage, it’s really something for me. Even though I don’t look at my manifesto as much these days, I still put it at the end of my videos. I am living it now, so I think it’s time for a new manifesto to go with this next chapter. I don’t know what I’m going to put on it yet, but I’m just trying to live out my dreams.
QRO: Major respect to you for not taking the easy route because if you wanted to be cookie-cutter, you’d probably go faster as there’s a machine waiting to gobble you up so long as you bake with the preset recipe. I think if you look across the history of any true icon, be that Prince or George Clinton or whomever, they all did it the way you are doing it now.
MN: I was so blessed to have my time with Prince. It was very short, but there was a reason why I was there right before he passed. I still think about that all the time. I had just started working with him when he went away. Being around him put a fire and a push in me that I really needed because I was around somebody that was vibrating on such a different level. He was human, but he was special, and it meant the world to me that he embraced me the way he did.
QRO: He knew exactly what was good, like all the best always do, and I’m sure he saw his early self in you in multiple ways. Thanks for sharing that self and all your ultra-purple – approved-neon magic with us today!
MN: Thank you! I so appreciate you and look forward to meeting you.
Do your bottom end a heavyweight favor and go let MonoNeon funk your sitzfleisch ish all the way up somewhere in the wilds as he is currently touring the world with his whimsical sounds in wily saturations through the end of the year.
-photos courtesy of Logan Schaal
