This hasn’t been the easiest year for guitarist and visual artist Juan Montoya. While that opening statement could be applicable to many in this strange, upside-down, COVID-rattled age, Montoya—veteran of numerous bands, including Torche, Moon Destroys, MonstrO, and Cavity—hasn’t just had a global pandemic to contend with.
Before I’ve had time to start recording Montoya is telling a harrowing story about a very serious recent health scare—namely, a tumor in his pituitary gland.
Montoya: I went to an eye institute, and they told me I had that (the tumor), and right away, they took me to a hospital. They just wanted to make sure I didn’t have cancer, to make sure that I wasn’t dripping brain fluid into my mouth, through my nose. Luckily, that wasn’t the case. I just waited, like, a week or two, and I got the operation; I removed the tumor.
I was having all these issues, and I didn’t know what was causing them. It made the last couple of years hell for me. (After the operation) I had to be very gentle with myself. I couldn’t even carry more than a milk carton. I just chilled, watched movies, played guitar, and now I feel a million times better. It’s like I visualize all the depression and stuff, which I see as a dark cloud, and I could visualize it just moving away from me. Everything else is now green and beautiful.
You’ve kind of answered, in a pretty big way, what’s been happening in the last couple of years. How about on the music-making side?
I just did some recording with David Arquette. He’s now Bozo the Clown. He bought the rights to it, and he’s doing an album with a bunch of different people. There’s a track that a friend of mine messaged me about that he was working on and Brann (Dailor) from Mastodon is playing the drums on it. I went in there and did some crazy guitar. The track I’m on has kind of a Mr. Bungle vibe. It’s gonna be mixed pretty soon; then let’s see how it sounds. I think it’s pretty funny to be on a track with David Arquette. I don’t really know that much about the project. I just know about the song, but I think he’s supposed to have other guests. It should be cool.
It’s supposed to be an album to uplift the spirits of kids because of what they went through during the pandemic. We understand it to a certain degree, but imagine having to tell a kid that he can’t see his grandma, or he can’t really be around all his friends. That’s just tough. We all felt a level of isolation. Imagine having to be a kid who sees everything in wonder and not be able to be full on with his imagination and affection. It’s heartbreaking.
How did you get into playing the guitar, and what have been some of your biggest influences?
I think the first big influence was my mom. She sang when she was younger and would always sing at parties. Then she invited this uncle of mine—He became my uncle when he ended up marrying my mom’s sister—and he was the first person that had a really nice guitar, a Gibson gold top. I was like, “Oh, man, that’s a guitar that Kiss plays.” I already had Kiss records by the time I was 7 years old, but seeing it physically in front of me opened me up to wanting to see other players.
I grew up in Miami, Florida, and it was always this melting pot. I would go see Paco de Lucia, who was probably the world’s best flamenco player from the ’70s and ’80s. I met other people that were into bands like Sonic Youth. Miami didn’t really have big heavy metal shows where only metalheads play. The ravers and the metalheads all hung out because every single group was so small. So that’s what started it off, listening to a lot of Brazilian music. Then when I heard Dead Can Dance. Their sound is from somewhere else, which was cool.
I was always open to different types of sounds. Like when I heard “Shock The Monkey” from Peter Gabriel. In the ‘80s, you heard Prince, and he was different, but then “Shock The Monkey” came out, and it was such an odd song that it turned me on to everybody’s odd songs. Even Ozzy had that weird song “Goodbye to Romance.” It’s just a crazy-cool ballad.
I would always try to find all the deep cuts from different bands to find odd songs. Kiss also had odd songs. Everybody knows them from “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” and “Rock ’n’ roll All Night,” but they have songs like from The Elder, and they have one song called “Under The Rose” that just sounds so weird. It’s like a movie soundtrack. You wouldn’t expect that from Kiss.
I go through YouTube and try to find the weird songs that no one really remembers from certain groups. It gives me so much joy because it’s like you find something that no one’s really listening to or talking about, and you wonder what was going on. What were they thinking, to do a song like this? That’s what keeps my juices going, just finding something that’s so odd.
I remember in another interview you talked about Aphex Twin. What attracted you to his music?
When I first heard Aphex Twin, I thought, “Man, this music sounds like he’s in a dream.” I read that he was doing lucid dreaming, where he would be able to control his dreams and create this music in them. I’ve tried to do that before. It’s pretty cool. You’re like, “Oh man, I’m able to control this; let me find my guitar or a keyboard or something. Then you come up with this melody, and all you can do is hope that you wake up and kind of remember it.
I was really into him at a certain point. He didn’t have that machismo; he was just kind of low key, but he was doing amazing stuff. When he did the Richard D James album, he would do his own instruments, and there were classical elements in it. It has a specialness, like the little strings melodies that he does, with all the space in between. That’s what’s magical about him, it lets your imagination grasp the notes.
It’s like what Dead Can Dance has. You listen to the note, and you get to savor it like food. You see it, you taste it, and then you’re enjoying it until the next note comes. That’s what I think is special about slow music. Sonic Youth had that too. All the stuff from like Sister and Evol. Those early ’80’s records.
I’ve noticed on your Instagram that you post various cool movie stills. You seem to do a lot of painting as well. What’s the crossover for you from music to art and to movies?
I think they go hand in hand, like picking up an album cover back when you were a kid. It’s difficult now because you see things online on your phon,e and it makes it difficult. You don’t see all the details. But back when I was a kid, I would just pull out a record and sit there for hours and stare at it. I’ve been doing art since I was a kid. I actually picked it up before I played the instrument. I was already drawing Gene Simmons, horses, the Lone Ranger. I grew up in South America. The horse is considered the best animal in the world there.
So where exactly were you?
I was born in Columbia. I came to the United States in ’79 when I was 7 years old. Back then, the Lone Ranger and Zorro were my heroes. I didn’t have Superman or Captain America. We were like cowboys. Everybody rode horses. Big black horses, like a Black Stallion or a silver or a beautiful white horse. It was an awesome, yin yang thing.
I’ve seen various photos of you with Kiss memorabilia. How did that obsession start?
I was in Caracas, Venezuela, one time visiting with my mom, and I saw a Kiss poster. This was when I was, like, 5 or something. After I came to live in the U.S., my mom had a friend, and he had a 16-year-old son. I walked by the room and saw all these records. I’m going through them, and I pull out all these Kiss records, and I’m like, “That’s that poster I saw when I was a kid.” He played them for me. Then he just gave them to me. At that time, I guess 16-year-olds were getting out of Kiss after that “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” disco era. That was the beginning of my record collection.
Do you still feel that connection to vinyl in the current digital age?
Yeah. Talking about the visual part of it, and the art part, you just stare at it, and you let the music create the ambience, and then you’re looking at this little world that people have created. Back then, they had fold-outs and all that stuff, like Kiss Alive II. You fold it out, and you see them on risers and the whole back of the things on fire. All the fireworks are going. I mean, that thing just mesmerized me as a kid. So, of course, I would sit there and try to draw it.
When you’re doing art and you’re listening to music, it’s like a form of meditation. It’s a very beautiful thing, like a form of therapy. You’re just sitting there, and little by little, you’re working on something that’s so fulfilling. It’s better than wasting time on a phone just scrolling through.
Have you ever combined drawing and painting with music?
When I was in Torche, I did the Meanderthal album cover with Aaron Turner from ISIS. When we were on tour in the tour van, I would always do caricatures of our singer, Steve Brooks. I felt that his head was kind of elongated, so I would draw him kind of like Alien—the xenomorph—with a super big head, and his goofy glasses and shit like that. It got to the point that he asked me, “Dude, you should do the next album cover.” I just sketched out some ideas. I let Aaron do the layout, everything like that. We ended up doing t-shirts from all the characters that I drew for that.
Then people just started asking me to do t-shirts for their bands. I did an album cover for Nate (Larson) from Shudder To Think—a really cool ’90’s band on Dischord. He had a band called LÁ-BAS, and I did their album art. It was cool to see my art on an album cover for sure. I did something for Skrillex also. He reached out, and he asked me to do a T-shirt. Then artists like Grace Potter, all these different people, have been reaching out to me. So that’s pretty cool.
When you’re designing something for a musician, how much freedom do you have creatively?
Some of the people are more hands-on, kind of like visionaries. They already have a certain idea, but some people like my style, and they just tell me to run with it and do whatever I want. I kind of prefer that because sometimes people have so many different ideas, and sometimes they don’t weave into each other too well, but when I do it myself, I’m able to flow with it.
I’m still working on it. I did art when I was young, and then I put it down because I wanted to learn the guitar inside out, and I neglected drawing and painting for a while. I would just doodle, but now I’m doing full-on paintings, all levels, stuff for people’s wedding invitations, promotional stuff, and then just personal stuff for people that just want something for their mate, for their love.
What’s the story behind your meeting with Gene Simmons? I saw a picture of the two of you together on Instagram.
He was promoting this box set called the Gene Simmons Ball. He was in town, and a friend of mine asked me to be part of it. I did this big Gene Simmons painting. I know he’s an art fan. He’s also a big horror movie guy. He knows everyone. He was also a comic book fan. We got to spend a little bit of time alone. I brought up artists like Mobius and Frank Frazetta. I’m a super big Frank Frazetta fan. If you’re into art and fantasy and just music, he was the man. I brought up to him that I read somewhere that he wanted to use Frank Frazetta to do an album cover for them, but I think Frank said he wasn’t a Kiss fan at the time. I think he was gonna charge him way too much to do it.
Gene Simmons is very business-savvy, isn’t he?
Yes, he is, but he was pretty cool. I know a lot of people have met him, and he’s kind of standoffish or busting people’s balls, but he was really nice. I got to spend a good portion of the day there—thanks to my buddy Bill Goldstein at Walt Grace Vintage who held the event—and I got to hang out with and watch Ace (Freeley, former Kiss guitarist) play. He played this 1959 Les Paul that’s worth, like, half a million dollars right in front of me. The 7-year-old me was like “Oh, this is fucking great.”
I’ve been lucky because I’ve met a lot of really cool people throughout the years, and the important thing is you just keep it together and talk to them. Don’t talk to them about the things that everybody asked them about, talk about maybe cooking or something else.
You worked with Bevan Davies in MonsterO, who was also in Danzig’s band at one point. Did you ever meet Danzig back in the day?
We did a tour together. Bevan and I did MonstrO for a couple of years. We were on tour, and he got a call from Danzig. He goes “Hey, why don’t you have MonstrO come out and do the legacy tour?” I’m like, “hell yeah dude, I wanna tour with Danzig.” I had the expectations of what everybody thought meeting Gene Simmons was like when I met Danzig, but he opened up right away. He was really cool. We talked for a while.
Danzig’s a huge comic guy too, right?
Yeah. I think he did a comic with (Frank) Frazzeta’s character the Death Dealer, which is really cool. I also heard that he showed up to Frank Frazetta’s house with a duffel bag full of money and bought one of his paintings like it was the mafia. He’s looking at the duffel bag, and he drops his bag; his money comes out and he’s like, “I want that painting.”
You’ve been in a lot of bands, often simultaneously. How has it been managing your time over the years?
Back when I was younger, it was easier to handle that type of load, to be playing three bands at the same time. You don’t really have the responsibilities. You could get an apartment for $400 a month and just get by. You’re not eating the best, but you have your own apartment; you have people hanging out, and you can have practices there and everything like that. So it was easier.
I did (the band) Cavity at one time when I was in a band called Ed Matus’ Struggle, and then I was getting hired to do different recordings. It was a very active time. You could stay up all night. When you stay up late at night, it feels like everybody’s asleep. All that energy is floating around, and you’re absorbing it. You might catch something just before you go to sleep, and then you force yourself to wake up and think, “This is the moment I’ve been waiting for.” I think when you least expect it is when things happen.
On that kind of esoteric subject, you’ve got black magic in your Instagram handle. So do you have some kind of strong esoteric or magical interests?
Always. I mean, from being inspired by HR Giger—just the way he works—and then reading Anton Lavey’s stuff—which is a little bit more comical—just from watching movies about sorcery and all that stuff. I’m not super serious about it. I see it kind of comical, but I see it as also very romantic.
Coming a bit full circle, you were talking about your family earlier. How’s that fed into what you create?
I’m lucky to have a family that’s supportive. Growing up, my mom let me have long hair. Back then ,it was frowned upon by society, but my mom was supportive. She also knew I loved music and bought me my first guitar. Her and my grandmother chipped in. My mom knew that I was on a wavelength with music, and it kind of kept me grounded. Even when I hung out with troublemakers, I always found myself distant from getting in real big trouble. I would sit there for hours and play and that keeps you kind of safe.
I think she felt pressure from my stepdad who wasn’t open to me having long hair and me playing guitar in the middle of night, but later, once I started touring around the world, I think she thought, “Man, he’s actually doing something pretty cool with his life. He’s getting to experience the world. It takes a lot of money to be able to travel everywhere. Luckily, he’s doing it with music.”
How do you feel about balancing home life with touring in the future?
I would love to travel, and I would love to travel with my family. If they could come with me on tour, that would be cool. But, you know, it’s kind of difficult, the lifestyle itself. You’re from one place to the other. Some people get homesick after a week or two.
Most of the time, you’re in a van, and you feel like a sardine inside of a tin can. That’s the hard part about it. When I did Killer Be Killed, it was a little bit better. We went to Australia, did a festival, and we were able to take different flights, and we each had individual hotel rooms. You could do the gig, come back, go in the pool in the sauna and just kind of relax and veg out and walk around the city.
I would love to see Europe again. I love being in a part of a world that I’ve never been to before. When I went to San Sebastian, Spain, I remember walking around by myself. It felt romantic being in another part of the world that I’d never been in. It helps to see different societies and kind of break out of the norm. It kind of makes you appreciate what you have.
After everything you’ve been through with health and COVID, what are you hoping for in the coming months?
I just want to improve as a father, because right now my daughter’s the most important thing and the beautiful thing is that she’s becoming musical, too. I’ve always felt that like with the Sepultura brothers they have a great connection. Brothers in bands do amazing things, even though they get on each other’s tits all the time. Seeing my daughter develop—She’s only four years old—She and I play guitar, and she’s already coming up with melodies. She feels the changes. It’s like we’re telepathically working together.
I think that’s the most special thing going on in my life right now, the connection that I have with my daughter musically and artistically, too. Her and I sit together, and she can sit there and paint for 40 minutes. What other kid could sit there for 40 minutes and pay attention to something, unless you’re sitting with an iPad or something like that, you know?
And now that I’m getting back into playing, I’m just looking forward to seeing what new music comes out. I have a vision of what I want to do, but it’s always difficult to be able to physically pull it out. That’s going to be the challenge for next year.
Photo courtesy of Facebook
