Tigers and Monkeys
Sea Ray
The Natural History
Ted Leo and The Pharmacists

Front Woman Shonali of Tigers and Monkeys

Tigers & Monkeys
Shonali Bhowmik (vocals and guitar)
Joachim Kearns (guitar)
Jason Lam (bass)
Jeff Sheinkopf (keyboard, drums)
Russell Dungan (keyboard, drums)
Antonia Santangelo (percussion bells)
Amy Miles and Britta Philips (backing vocals)

Where are you guys from?
We are from New York City.

You are from here? So where are you normally play here?
All over. Southpaw, Mercury, Bowery, Siné, etc.

How long have you been together?
It’s been about a year. Everybody in the band’s been in about 3 or 4 other bands too.

Like what other bands?
Three other guys are from Florida originally. And I was in Atlanta for 10 years in another band too. We all sort of came to New York at the same time, I got here like 2 years ago. So I knew of these guys before.

Did you meet those guys in Florida before you moved here?
I knew them because the music world is so small… (Yeah, indie bands… laugh…) so my Atlanta band’s drummer was from Florida, and some of these guys have played with him in Florida so… I love that!

Have you all played outdoors before?
Oh yeah, I did the Warp Tour when I was in Ultrababyfat (laugh). Yeah, we do that years ago. It was crazy! This is the best sounding outdoor stage I think. Usually outdoor shows could be disasters you know. This was really cool.

So you guys play a lot around here?
Right now we are touring with Ted Leo, I don’t know where he saw us, I just saw an e-mail, where he ordered a T-shirt on our website. The email was from Theodore Leo, and I responded is this Ted Leo? He said “yeah let’s do shows!” It’s a coincidence. Right now we are in the middle doing shows with him. We’re going to do a shows with The Natural History next week at the Southpaw. Our drummer is also in Sea Ray. We all got asked separately to do this show, isn’t that crazy? I love it! It’s like this convergence. It’s very cool.

Would you want to do more shows like this? Non-profit type of events?
Totally! Yeah, definitely.

What are your influences?
I have some really old school influences.

I’m feeling a little bit of Fleetwood Mac mixed with Throwing Muses…
That’s a good one! Good! I love both those bands. That’s great - Fleetwood Mac, Thowing Muses, Replacements, Pixes, bands that most people love. I just like REAL songs and old school indie rock but not trying to be super experimental in anyway. We do basic songs with some weird musical things like instruments dropping out, having a keyboard come out of nowhere -things like that. I’m trying to think of another band, oh, I love early Soul Asylum, the beginning not the end. (laugh…) And the Bee Gees!

What label are you guys on?
We may figure that out very soon. (laughing) We’re trying to figure out. I mean, in the end, my old band was on 3 or 4 different labels, so I’m just ready for like a small cool New York label. I’ve been playing long enough to hook up with great bands and open up for them, so I rather have some sort of control over this stuff and just play shows.