Monmouth County rockers hit the road

Status Green lead singer Lou Montesano (Credit: P Magnum Photography)

The Monmouth County pop-rock band Status Green is ready to take things to the next level, according to lead singer Lou Montesano.

"We feel like locally, in Asbury Park, we made a really good name for ourselves, we made a lot of friends, basically … so we're trying to get out there and spread our wings a little bit," said Montesano, whose band will be playing with Spindle and Last Perfect Thing on July 31 at Maxwell's in Hoboken. The band also will be performing an acoustic set at Toms River Fest at the Toms River High School North campus on Aug. 3.

Montesano recently checked in with Jersey Shore Metromix during a brief respite at his Howell home between tour stops in Milwaukee and Boston to talk about hitting the road, the band's single "Firebomb" (which sounds like a lost Strokes B-side, in a good way) and how high gas prices affect a band's beer options.

How's this tour treating you?
It's treating us really, really good. We had some gigs that fell through in Chicago, but we just started going door to door to clubs, just seeing if they'd let a New Jersey band play on the bill for the night, and we wound up getting two really good gigs out of doing that, just on the road hustling shows.

Summerfest in Milwaukee was great; we had a huge crowd, really great reception. Unfortunately, we didn't stay for that long because we got right back in the van. … Boston was next, but we just decided to come [home] for a quick pit stop, sleep in our own beds for a night, because sleeping in the van sucks and sleeping on a couch isn't that fun after a while.

These different cities in the Midwest -- how are they different from the crowds in Jersey?
Our hometown crowd, I've never found anywhere that even came close to that because it's like support rather than coming out to see a show; it's like kind of a family feeling. But the shows in the Midwest, they're cool in their own way because the people out there, it's just different. Out in Chicago and Milwaukee, they seem to be a little nicer.

The random New Jersey person won't even stop smoking a cigarette to come in and check out your set, but everyone wants to hear music out in the Midwest, it seems like. … We're already booking September back out in the Midwest. Chicago and New York couldn't be two more different cities. We kind of enjoyed the Chicago scene a little bit more than the New York scene. It's more welcoming to good music.

Is "Firebomb" off a new record you guys are working on?
We have it on a new EP right now that we're putting out. I've been writing a lot of songs, and it's kind of hard to pick and choose which ones you want to put on an album, so we put out a five-song EP so people can hear it. You don't want to keep music from people too long. We're eventually going to work on an album, and we're hoping we can maybe get some kind of deal where someone else can pay for it this time because it's just so much money to go into the studio.

As hard as we work, we really can't keep up with the budget, it's just crazy, especially when you're trying to get out there and bring your music to different markets. With gas prices, forget about it. It's like the worst time to be in a band is right now, between the Internet and gas prices.

How are gas prices affecting touring?
It really just puts your back to the wall; you can't really do things you were able to do before that, especially with our van. It costs almost $140 to fill a tank, and we're pulling like 800 pounds of equipment, so between the van, four guys and a trailer full of gear, it just weighs on the budget a lot more, and you really feel it. You start drinking Pabst rather than Budweiser.

Back to "Firebomb" -- the lyrics ("sign my deal, and I swear I'll never let you go") read like you guys have a bit of frustration with the music industry and with the promotion end of things in particular.
Absolutely, you hit the nail on the head, man. It's just the basic B.S. that you go through when you're a band. Every great band has gone through it, every crappy band has gone through it -- it’s just part of the business. To me, people just take advantage of the fact that you’re a musician, you’re in a band, you’re always getting the short end of the stick, no matter what.

Sometimes you luck out and you're able to get someone who’s fair, but between A&R guys, we’ve done shows in New York where you get the same idle conversation where it’s like, "Oh, we like the band, we like your music, we want to hear more songs." And then you write more songs, you go in the studio and spend time recording them and paying for them and then they're like, "Oh, I really like those new songs; let's do some more songs" or "The hooks aren't there, blah blah blah." It's just the same idle conversation with these people, so ("Firebomb") is just me venting in a pop kind of way.

You won Top Male Vocalist at the Asbury Music Awards two years in a row, in 2006 and 2007. Who are some of your favorite singers on the scene right now?
I think Greg Wilkins from Last Perfect Thing has got a tremendous voice, and I always love the way he sounds in songs. It’s like he's got the perfect voice for what he writes, which is nice that he can recognize that.