Christian McNeill and Jesse Dee of SEA MONSTERS

Sea Monsters is chock full of big Boston names, yet you may have never heard of them. They are a local supergroup that convenes every Sunday at Somerville’s Precinct Bar and creates improvisational musical fusion. Spearheaded by Christian McNeill and Jesse Dee, Sea Monsters provides a breath of fresh air for some of Boston’s best musicians who look to kick back, have fun, and build off of each other’s creativity. Sea Monsters has no distinct sound, but McNeill takes on the role of conductor, ensuring musician’s unique style can blend rather than clash.

Almost three successful years after beginning their residency, Sea Monster Sundays are holding strong and the band is recruiting bigger names to join them onstage. Most recently they have welcomed Sarah Borges, Jimmy Ryan, Rex and Jeremy from The Rex Complex, and Laurence Scudder. In the coming weeks, Sea Monsters will feature Dwight & Nicole and Reva Williams from Gretel.

In addition to their regular Sundays, Sea Monsters will be doing double duty this Saturday, headlining both Cambridge Riverfest at 5 as well as Harpoon Fest at 8 on the same day.

Sea Monsters really is one of Boston’s best-kept secrets and I was lucky to be able to chat with Christian McNeill to get the scoop on the band.

– Perry Eaton

So give me a little background on who plays what in Sea Monsters.

I play guitar and sing, Jesse Dee plays guitar and sings, Lyle Brewer plays lead guitar, Mike Miksis is on bass, Tom Arey plays drums. The Aruda brothers are our horn section, that would be John on tenor saxophone and Scott on trumpet. That’s pretty much Sea Monsters right there. The lineup changes, though. When you have a band that size and you play a residency, somebody by default has to run the band, so I kind of do that. Sometimes we bring in replacement musicians. We have Tim Gearan a lot on guitar and vocals. Dean Johnson, who is the drummer for Club D’Elf, comes in and plays with us quite a bit too. So there are a few peripheral members who are just kind of part-time Sea Monsters. We have a pretty wide range of musicians and they’re all great so we’re really lucky.

When and how did you guys form?

Well, I got the idea for Sea Monsters back in 2005, but I didn’t really do anything about it until 2007 when I had heard Jesse Dee perform and we talked afterwards. I sort of just told him that I would love to play with him and then another friend of ours had a show going at the Lizard Lounge and he asked Jesse and I to come and play with him. So that’s basically how it started. It took a few years to get going from the idea that I initially had and then it kind of started by accident through this mutual friend of ours.

So you and Jesse both had solo careers before Sea Monsters or did Sea Monsters help launch you solo careers?

Yep, we both had our own solo projects beforehand. Everybody’s focus is on their solo career. I mean, Sea Monsters is just the greatest fantasy side project you can imagine. We just do it purely for fun. It’s a real band, but it’s not like a real band in the sense that we can go on tour and stuff like that. It’s definitely a side-project and it’s something that we do because we love to play music and we love to have fun. It’s when you take the business out of music that it’s the most fun and this really is a great example of that.

Stylistically, you and Jesse are very different in your studio material, so what is the songwriting process like for Sea Monsters?

Anything goes really. We don’t rehearse. We’ve been playing this Sunday night residency at Precinct for about three years now, so the rehearsal is basically the Sunday night. So people are hearing stuff for the first time just as we’re hearing it for the first time. So we don’t really have a writing process per se, but we have our own individual writing processes and it’s a great way to try out new material. On stage sometimes Jesse and I will suggest something to the other band members, but very rarely do we tell anybody what to play. We might encourage someone not to play something rather than encourage them to play something else, you know, we let the band come up with their own parts and then we take it from there. 9 times out of 10 when you have a band like we have, everybody is so good that there is a great trust there and that’s what comes through.

Any chance Sea Monsters will look to make a studio release in the future?

Well, I think all of us would really love to, but right now, the timing just isn’t right. Maybe sometime in 2011 we would look into doing that. I personally would love to make a Sea Monsters record, I would make one next week. But right now I’m making a solo record. Jesse is touring right now and he just made a record last year. I think that the timing just has to be right.

So recently, your residency at Precinct has featured different local talents as special guest every week. How did you wind up getting such an awesome lineup of guests to sit in?

Personally, I’ve been involved in the Boston/Cambridge/Somerville music scene for 13 years and I know a hell of a lot of people. Along the way, we meet new people and I constantly go and hear live music. So, even when I’m not playing music myself, I make an effort to go out and hear who’s new on the scene and from there I can just make mental notes of who would make a great guest. We’re very lucky be a part of the family of musicians that Boston has.

When you have these special guests, is it kind of the same “anything goes” mentality when building a set list?

Yeah, we play a whole mix of stuff. Lots of times the artist will bring in material or even charts for the bass player and the horn section. Usually, we encourage people to keep it simple because the simpler the song, the more fun we’re going to have with it. Sometimes we’ll meet up earlier and go over some stuff, but that seems to happen less and less these days. But also sometimes guests come back more and more and we get to learn some of their material a little better. Usually we play a couple of songs without the guests and then we bring them up. We used to have the guest join us for the entire gig, which was terrifying. It was funny to see some of the veteran performer’s reactions when we told them they were going to be up there the whole time!

It seems like Sea Monsters keeps a relatively low profile. You don’t have a website or a MySpace, and it’s tough to find any recording on the Internet. Do you guys keep it that way on purpose?

Yeah, that’s on purpose. I mean, here’s the thing, we wanted this to happen real old-school, real organically, and all be word-of-mouth. There’s no websites, no manager, no booking agent, it’s just us— a few musicians who really love what we do and love getting together every Sunday. We have some amazing fans who love it as much as we do, and this is really the first little bit of press we’re gonna have. Maybe it is time to let a wider audience know what is going on. I kind of want people to know just so it can keep ticking along, but that said, we play at Precinct and that holds about 175 people maybe, so it can’t really get too big. It would be nice for people to be aware of what we’re doing, but it was definitely intentional that keep it small. Too many times, the business of things just clouds your enjoyment of what you love to do, and that can be said of most things. So the size and popularity of the residency is not really our biggest concern, we would rather just be able to have a good time and enjoy creating new music.

With you and Jesse and Tim all having successful solo careers, do you want to ever make it out of Boston or do you keep Sea Monsters purely a Boston thing?

Yeah, we’re stuck in Boston for now! Unless someone comes along with a lot of money and wants to take 7 people out on the road, in which case we would probably do it.

So what other plans are in store for you guys for the summer?

Well I’m working on a new album and I’ve never put out a full-length solo album, so I’m concentrating on that. Jesse is starting a new record as well at some point, he may have actually already started it. Tim Gearan plays at Atwoods every Friday night. People can definitely find us, but I would really encourage people to come on Sundays and check us out, and from there you can kind of get in touch and follow everybody solo as well. The best part about Sea Monsters is that it is kind of a safe haven for musicians. The business end of things with the solo careers is just so frustrating and so boring that to be able to have Sea Monsters, it provides this successful remedy. It’s just this awesome fantasy band we can go and be a part of once a week.

Anything else Sea Monsters fans should know about?

Just come out on Sunday nights at 10 o’clock at Precinct and let the music do the talking!