[Mona Wagner]

Hi Rick,

Yes, I do! It’s a stuffed baby tiger toy. And it’s creatively called “Tigerbaby” (= German for baby tiger) and similar to Lisa’s lamb I’ve had it since I was a baby.

It can’t do anything special nor is it particularly cute or anything but I love it to death 🙂

I just googled that hand puppet … holy moly, that looks terrifying, haha! It’s amazing that it has lasted so long.

Thanks and have a great week too,
Mona

[Mona Wagner]

I’m gonna be a bit cliché here and start off with the two most obvious ones … Ringo Starr and Keith Moon.

Ringo because he was the perfect song drummer, innovative, extremely musical and just as groovy as you can be. I think it goes without saying that he has been a huge influence on everything we do. His effortlessness and understanding of what makes a song groove have me in awe every time I put on a Beatles record.

And Keith … well … because it’s Keith bloody Moon. His playing was as crazy as he was, and I love that.

I would take a musical but slightly sloppy drummer over a technically perfect one with no soul any day. So my favourite musicians (and bands for that matter) always tend to be the ones that focus the most on conveying the feeling behind the music and the song rather than technical perfection or show-off.

I love Steve Gadd, Ginger Baker and of course Hal Blaine! When Hal was too busy in the studio he would always recommend Jim Gordon who I have only learned about and studied more carefully very recently. His drumming is incredible and exactly what I love in a musician!

He might have one of the most tragic and sad stories in music history. If it wasn’t for him developing schizophrenia and serious mental health problems that led to his imprisonment I’m sure he would be a household name amongst musicians these days. A bizarre story, I suggest reading up on him if you haven’t already.

Stay groovy (quite literally this time)

Mona

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Sergio!

Funny you should say that … we might possibly have a Pink Floyd cover coming out in the Club soon 😉 The song choice will stay a secret for now though!

We’ve been wanting to cover some Pink Floyd for years! In 2013 we were lucky enough to see Roger Water’s redo of “The Wall” in Vienna and it was unreal. Now we’re on the lookout for a David Gilmour live show in the UK  😉

Anyway, stay tuned and thanks for the question!

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Mike!

A pilot dad with twin daughters? Dad, is that you? Haha!

Our dad nearly became a pilot, too. He went to aerial engineering school but as it turned out he was more interested in building planes than flying them … and then changed plans and ended up building a recording studio instead. (It’s a long story, but we’re glad he did :-))

These days he is funneling his love for flying things into our video productions … hence the many drone shots 😉

Anyway, a super big welcome to the MLT Club, thanks for sharing a bit of your life with us and saying hi!

Definitely keep an eye out for live dates when you come visit the UK next time. It would be great to see you and the twins at a show one day.

Groovy greetings to your whole family!

🙂

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Faiz!

Thanks for stopping by and saying hi. YouTube has brought many of the MLT Club members here – welcome to the MLT family! 🙂

We are lucky to live in a time where we can use things like YT to connect with people all over the world … from Iceland to Guyana! Groovy greetings from Liverpool!

[Mona Wagner]

“Especially for someone like me who’s not the world’s best whistler.” – Same here 😉

Which is exactly why we decided to change up the ending a bit. It’s been a while since we came up with that arrangement but I don’t think it’s an ending we’ve ever heard somewhere else. It was just a way to get around the whistling part 😉

We did give our best whistle attempt in the outro of “Two Of Us” but even there you can hear us give up at the very end: youtube.com/watch?v=MRZTW2iMkD0 … Not our strongest point!

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Michael!

We have thought about doing more Simon & Garfunkel material many, many times. The list of potential cover songs for us just by them alone is about a mile long and we can almost guarantee that we’ll do more of them as time goes on.

“Scarborough Fair” would be a hauntingly beautiful one to try for sure and we appreciate the suggestion! It has just moved up a few notches in our mental song list 😉

That Central Park Concert is incredible from start to finish, thanks for sharing it here again.

All the best from rainy Liverpool!

Mona

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Jacki,

Papa Rudi built the studio in Austria from scratch in his mid 20’s. I just asked him to catch me up on the specifics of the insulation, so he helped me out with this reply 🙂

The recording studio consists of several rooms, each soundproofed with heavy concrete walls, multiple layers of heavy, thick angled glass windows and soundproof doors.

It was a room-in-room concept with glass wool as damping material behind a second wall made of dual layers of plasterboard, so that the plasterboard was the inside wall of the room and the concrete walls the outside.

The rooms were also lined with sound-absorbing acoustic foam on one side, movable panels on the ceiling with one reflecting and one absorbing side to change the room acoustics, and built-in recording booths separated by several layers of the angled glass so you could see each other without hearing each other. The outside windows were soundproofed too, so even with a heavy metal band recording, the neighbours wouldn’t hear a thing.

In our studio here in England we have downgraded the soundproofing considerably. We rely on heavy curtains, wool carpets and the goodwill of our neighbours. So far it has worked out perfectly … except for some hiccups in the very beginning when we didn’t have air conditioning yet and had to keep the windows open for a few rehearsal sessions 😉

Since our studio here is not public anymore it’s not like the studio is constantly noisy. We aren’t recording heavy drum parts several times a week or have to do a day and a night shift like dad sometimes did in Austria when he was still recording and producing a lot of clients.

The Austrian studio was a luxury in the way that we could record at 3am if we wanted to, but with a little bit of planning ahead that’s easy to avoid 😉

I hope that answers everything!

Grooviest greetings to Canada!

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Brian!

Yup, that’s Lisa being the angel sister that she is and hugging me 🙂 I awww’ed for a good five minutes, when I first found that clip!

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Lance,

Thanks for joining the Club and for saying “hi”! We hope you’ll make yourself at home here 🙂

Ann and Nancy Wilson are great musicians and vocalists, so thanks for the comparison! Especially Ann has done quite a lot of 60’s covers herself in solo projects so maybe you’re right! 😉

We appreciate the kind words and send groovy greetings to Virginia!

Mona & Lisa

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Dale!

Thanks a lot, I’m happy you decided to explore some of the drum parts in our music!

As you mentioned, all of us very much share the “serving the song” mentality when it comes to drums. I’m not a fan of flashy drumming, especially in recorded music, but I love innovative approaches to patterns and fills.

I feel that with drums, more than any other instrument, it’s sometimes difficult to stray away from the “expected” without throwing off the listener, but those who get this balance right go down in history.

Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, Steve Gadd, … and of course Ringo! They all used the drums as a songwriting and song sculpting tool, not simply a timekeeping and beat device 🙂

I try to take the same approach before recording any drum or percussion parts, and we have our own way of getting there.

Many times Lisa, Dad and I would sit together with a guitar or two before tackling the drum recording and we’d go through the song while I “sang” the drum parts loosely. That gives us way more freedom to try patterns and rhythms and leaves creative doors open that might shut down if I tried to already play along to the song straight away.

By “singing” them I’m not necessarily restricted by my own skill level or practised beats. Once we agree on something I’m off to practise and record it 🙂

Obviously, with some covers for which we decide to take much more direct inspiration from the original this step isn’t necessary. But especially with our original music, we first sing everything in our heads before trying to replicate it on the drums.

Hope that answers your question!

Enjoy your week,
Mona

[Mona Wagner]

Mmmmh, we’ve never done something by The Dave Clark Five’s before … tempting … There is another “Because” with lots of harmonies that we’d like to give a go one day too 😉

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Mike!

Welcome and … Thank You! 🙂

We try our best to keep alive what we value most about music and put out there as much as possible. It’s great to see that it resonates with people who grew up during our favourite era of music, and it’s also exciting to see a new generation of kids who are falling in love with all the “old stuff”.

They are getting more every day, we see it in the reactions to our music as well as amongst our friends and their kids / younger siblings. It goes to show that good music will never die – don’t lose hope! 😉

All the best from Liverpool and thanks for being here,
Mona & Lisa

[Mona Wagner]

Hi Rick!

Your asking why we chose the instruments we did early on made me try to put myself back into my 9 year old shoes. Not as easy as I thought!

We never really had a discussion about me starting with drums and Lisa with bass (and soon after guitar) but looking back it fit in with our characters, especially at that age. Lisa had the patience and perseverance to get through the initially tricky stage of learning a string instrument earlier than me, while I was drawn to the loud, fun nature of bashing the drums and figuring out the “rhythmic puzzles”. It just made sense.

After only a couple of years we started taking each others’ classes too, so it all balanced out again. 🙂

As I’ve always been more of the rhythm guitarist of the two of us, it made sense for me to incorporate the blues harp while lisa focused more on soloing and lead playing.

As for Lisa and the Cello – I think she just liked the sound of it and wanted to try it out, so we had the option to include it in recordings. Knowing the basics of bowed instruments opens up a whole new world of possibilities for arrangements!

I hope you’re well! All the best for 2020!

[Mona Wagner]

Your mum was right! In Germany (and Austria, where we are from) it was – and still is – tradition to light up the tree with candles and sparklers for Christmas Eve. In these regions we only put up the tree on the 24th (or the night of the 23rd) though, so it’s as fresh as can be. And the candles usually only burn for the big moment when the whole family gathers around the tree, before opening the presents which we do on the evening of the 24th. They might sing some songs first too, while watching the tree shine and sparkle.

It’s important to not repeat the procedure after the tree got old and dry, or else your living room might go up in flames. People start using fake candles and fairy lights more and more which is much safer … but not quite the same 🙂