Imagine a feature film based on the Montauk Project. In it, five musicians whose hometown sure isn't making it easy to earn a living finally catch their big break. It's high summer -- gig season -- and throngs of fans are packing a venue that looks just like the Stephen Talkhouse. The band utterly slays, just like it does in real life. But in our fantasy, the lead singer gets a call while he's working his day job from the music-festival booker who was in the crowd; this is the moment they've been waiting for.
That is the sort of moment the band has been trying to create in the more than 11 years since they first convened in a home studio in Montauk with the goal of writing and performing music that matters. There's no Montauk Project biopic -- yet, anyway -- but it's safe to say that the festival circuit is within its reach, and they're making all the right moves to get there.
The band has already played on big stages from the Montauk Lighthouse and Great South Bay here on Long Island to South by Southwest in Austin, Tex. They're constantly nourishing their fans with new material, like their release of "Bombshell" and their first music video in April and the two new tunes they dropped on Friday at the Talkhouse. And they absorb every drop of energy they possibly can while in the studio, like the three days they spent at Mission Sound in Brooklyn earlier this year with the producer Oliver Straus (Taking Back Sunday, Mumford and Sons, P!nk).
It's hard to describe what the Montauk Project does in just one or two sweeping phrases. "Eclectic indie sound" and "fun psychedelic vibe" both apply, but their sound has matured over the last decade into a refined style that offers a little something for every hard-rock fan's taste. Their stage presence speaks to how much they love making music.
"In 2022, the industry is in a spot that it was never in before," Josh LeClerc, the band's lead guitarist, said. "In 1992, not just anybody could make a record. Now, literally anyone can make a record or put out an album. What we're trying to get is that extra element that sets apart what we create from what anyone can create in their basement."
In 2014, Jasper Conroy, the band's drummer, told The Star that the band's goal was "to make enough [money] to be able to just play music." The vision's a little broader now.
"We've gone through phases where we wrote some music, recorded it, wrote some music, recorded it, and some of those intervals between recording is several years," Mr. Conroy said two weeks ago. "I think all of us would agree we're trying to get into a rhythm of recording more frequently."
Gone are the days when it was enough for a band to release a 12-song album every three years.
"People don't have enough time to listen to more than two songs anymore," Mark Schiavoni, the band's lead singer, said. He brought up streaming services like Spotify and devices like iPhones and smart speakers; these things mean their music has to be that much better. "You have this thing in your hand with pretty much every possible known song. What's to stop the impulse of saying, 'Next? Next?' . . . In the 1960s you put on a record and listened to the whole thing. That reality is gone for most people, especially if you're just discovering" a new artist's music.
But this all takes resources. The British rocker Amanda Palmer and groups like the Pixies, TLC, De La Soul, and Toad the Wet Sprocket have had a lot of success at crowdfunding their records. The Montauk Project has not even tried it. Instead, they put the proceeds from gigs and merchandise sales right back into the band; they bought their own tour van this way.
"We enjoy making music so much that it feels weird to ask someone to possibly donate to that," Mr. Schiavoni said.
That mind-set makes sense, given that every band member has music in his blood. Mr. Schiavoni and Leander Drake, the bass player, have been playing instruments since the age of 5. Mr. LeClerc's bandmates call him a "child prodigy." Mike DiDonna, the keyboard player, studied music at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and has scored music for film and television commercials. Mr. Conroy is the son of a flutist father and vocal coach/pianist mother, and trained as a jazz drummer in college and with Hal McKusick and Jimmy Cobb.
Mr. DiDonna's one-year anniversary with the band just recently passed; his first big show with the Montauk Project was last summer's opening spot for the Marshall Tucker Band at the Montauk Lighthouse. Prior to his joining, there was no keyboardist; new parts had to be written for the existing songs. It's been an enjoyable ride, he said.
"It was a rush for me to learn all of their tunes. I was playing catchup for the first couple of months," Mr. DiDonna said, "but now we figured out how to gel together and worked on some new sounds that we all collaborate on as one cohesive unit. . . . It changes the sound, sort of without even really trying to -- there's a little more space, there's a little bit of a new direction."
In between making music and playing shows over the last 11 years, life has happened. The band has a few new faces. Some of the members -- Mr. Conroy and Mr. DiDonna -- are fathers now. Rehearsal time is that much more precious. There's the daily grind of day jobs, particularly in the summer. And then there's the fact that some venues won't give prime performance slots to acts that aren't cover bands playing Top 40 songs or classic-rock hits; the Montauk Project's approach to covers is "few and far between."
"That's the biggest way we stay true to ourselves," Mr. Drake said. "I think there is a way to grab people's attention without being a cover band."
The Montauk Project's next gig is Friday at 5 p.m. at the opening of the Montauk Skate Park on Essex Street, and on Sept. 3 the band will be at Best Pizza and Dive Bar on Napeague.
"Not to sound like a hippie, but I really do think the point of live music is to really bring people together," Mr. Drake said. "When you are there, it is really uplifting and awesome. Even though we don't sound like a band that has that as a mission, that is definitely what happens in a show."
