Dave Wyndorf sees nostalgia in a nonlinear way. The Monster Magnet frontman may have been talking about 25 years of Superjudge, 20 years of Powertrip, and a new record called Mindfucker, but the conversation moves like one of his riffs — heavy, fast, and looping through time until you’re not sure if he’s describing 1998 or right now.
“Superjudge was our first record on a major,” he says. “And it definitely wasn’t the record the major wanted. They expected something bigger, slicker — and I gave them something nasty. I was afraid of appearing to sell out too soon, so I made it sound like a demo.”
Released in 1993, Superjudge got lost somewhere between Seattle and New Jersey, an album too weird for the grunge boom but too grungy for classic rock radio. “I was a huge Soundgarden fan,” he admits. “They were pulling from Zeppelin and psych stuff, same as us. But c’mon, I was from Jersey. You’re not part of the Seattle scene when you’re from Jersey. You’re just wearing your own hat.”
Five years later, Monster Magnet blew up anyway. Powertrip (1998) — and its inevitable anthem “Space Lord” — turned Wyndorf’s cosmic paranoia into stadium rock swagger. “Honestly, I didn’t think anyone would ever get what Monster Magnet was about,” he says. “I was surprised anyone responded to it. The record was basically me saying to the label, ‘You think we’re unmarketable? Fine. I’ll make something even bigger. I’ll go to Vegas, wear shiny suits, and call it rock rock rock.’”
He laughs. “Then it worked. Totally freaked me out.”
Vegas wasn’t just a metaphor. Wyndorf literally went there to write Powertrip. “I said, ‘I’m going to Vegas to make a record about the American Dream.’ I was cynical as hell. Money first, content second. The whole thing was me making fun of advertising culture. But I got paid to go to Las Vegas, so the joke kind of came full circle.”
The joke kept paying. “Space Lord,” with its opening acoustic guitar and glossy, over-the-top video, became Monster Magnet’s breakthrough — and, oddly enough, MTV history. “It’s true,” Wyndorf says. “First video ever played on TRL. I told the label, ‘If you want it to get picked up, just copy a rap video. Make it shiny, add women, put us in suits.’ So they hired the guy making the biggest rap videos, and there we were — New Jersey dirtbags in shiny suits. It was hilarious. But it worked.”
Even his throwaways have a way of echoing back decades later. “Negasonic Teenage Warhead,” from the earlier Dopes to Infinity, ended up as the name of an X-Men character in Deadpool. “That was Grant Morrison — he just used it,” Wyndorf says. “Twenty years later, Marvel turns it into a blockbuster thing. I called them, like, ‘Hey, remember me?’ They acted like I didn’t exist. I wasn’t asking for money, just a little acknowledgment. Like, get Deadpool to say ‘Thanks, Monster Magnet!’ But no. I let it go. I’m still proud of it. It’s another weird pop-culture moment in a life full of them.”
By 2018, Mindfucker found him back in the saddle, writing with urgency. “Music doesn’t make bands money anymore,” he says bluntly. “Live shows are everything. So I wrote this record as a setlist. The first five songs were written in order, like a live show. I needed stuff that hit hard and didn’t drone.”
And like most of Wyndorf’s work, it’s angry — not at one side or another, but at everything. “We live in the information age, but it’s not what we thought it’d be,” he says. “You’d think the internet would make things wild and experimental. Instead, it’s the most homogenized time in music history. Everyone sounds the same, and everyone’s too stunned to notice. We’re drowning in information but not learning anything. We pick heroes and villains online, but nobody’s human anymore. There’s no room for gray.”
That idea led to one of Mindfucker's centerpiece tracks, “I’m God,” written the week of Trump’s inauguration. “I didn’t want to write about it, but how could I not?” he says. “It’s basically me wondering what God would think of us now. I figure he’d probably fire humanity. Like, ‘You guys had 3,000 years and blew it. I’m taking my act to another planet.’”
Wyndorf chuckles darkly. “I mean, it’s not far off. We’ve rolled the clock back 50, 60 years. People are behaving like we’re in the 19th century again. But hey, that’s the human condition. We never learn. That’s why rock and roll still matters. It’s the only place left where you can scream about it and have fun at the same time.”
Monster Magnet, still grinding through the cosmic dirt, hits Louisville’s Louder Than Life Festival on September 30 — Wyndorf’s kind of place, even if he has to share it with the ghosts of Hunter S. Thompson and Muhammad Ali. “That’s enough for me,” he says. “That’s Louisville, man. I’ll take it.”
Listen to the full interview above and check out the video below:
