The family band Secret Monkey Weekend (Jefferson Hart, Ella Brown-Hart, and Lila Brown-Hart) stopped by Live & Local this week, ahead of the release of their sophomore album “Lemon Drop Hammer.”
Visit SecretMonkeyWeekend.com.
Working to perfect a musical sensibility that’s been compared to the Beatles mashed up with Squeeze – bassist Ella cites Paul McCartney as her inspiration – “Lemon Drop Hammer” is only their second album, but Secret Monkey Weekend have been around for years. Stepdad Jefferson started teaching music to Ella (now 22) and Lila (now 17) when they were very young – and they took to it so well that the trio eventually decided to make a band out of it.
“I think we’ve all grown a lot as musicians,” Lila says about the last three years since their debut album “All the Time in the World.” “Ella and I have been doing this since we were young kids – and Jeff has been in the music industry a long time, but I think me and Ella have really grown as musicians and singers.”
(“Lila’s grown four inches,” Jeff jokes, “and I’ve gained ten pounds.”)
The band already has a penchant for inventing quirky titles with fun backstories – “Secret Monkey Weekend” was taken from a headline about the Monkees in a decades-old issue of Tiger Beat magazine, which the family now has framed on a wall at home – and “Lemon Drop Hammer” is no different.
“I was in the den one day,” Jeff remembers, “and I heard this loud banging coming from the kitchen…and I went in there and my wife Laura had a hammer on the counter and was banging on a bag of lemon drops (that) had been stuck together. We still have the hammer – we’ll probably need to get it gold-plated or bronzed.”
(Why did they have a decades-old issue of Tiger Beat in the first place? “We have a friend named Ricky [who’s] a collector of strange things,” Ella laughs.)
Recorded in Durham with the legendary Don Dixon (REM) returning as producer, “Lemon Drop Hammer” officially comes out on June 6 – but Secret Monkey Weekend will celebrate a few days early, with an album-release show Sunday, June 1, at Cats Cradle Back Room.
Visit CatsCradle.com to buy tickets to the show.
After that, the band has a busy summer schedule: they’re playing alongside Southern Culture on the Skids on June 21 in Wilmington, then heading on a northeastern tour in August that will take them through Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.
And in addition to the new album, Secret Monkey Weekend is also celebrating a recent regional Emmy Award win as well, for a Morgan Potts-produced WUNC documentary short about the band’s compelling story.
“I definitely felt a little bit like a movie star,” Ella says about the process of making that film. “I think our neighbors thought we were a little crazy…but it was a really wonderful experience and I think the documentary came out beautifully.”
Jefferson Hart, Ella Brown-Hart, and Lila Brown-Hart stopped by Live & Local to discuss the album and promote Sunday’s show at Cats Cradle Back Room. They also performed two songs, “We Could Be Friends” and “Merida.” Listen:
‘Lemon Drop Hammer’: Live & Local with Secret Monkey Weekend Chapelboro.com.
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