SubModern Session: Mondo Cozmo

Coming from the music scene of the Philadelphia suburbs, Josh Ostrander spent years in bands Eastern Conference Champions and Laguardia before moving to California and finding the success that his talent deserved when he released the single "Shine" under a new moniker, Mondo Cozmo, in 2016.  After a fantastic debut in 2017, Plastic Soul, Mondo Cozmo is back with his second record, New Medicine.  Having known Josh for many years, it was great to catch up with him remotely right around the release of the album and have him record a solo live performance for our latest SubModern Session.

Your second album just came out, which is very exciting, but I’m sure this is not what you were expecting in a lot of ways when you planning the release.

Mondo Cozmo: Yeah, it’s a crazy time to be releasing music but it’s also probably the best time. I think people need it. I need it. You know… there’s that great quote where it’s like, "This is the time for artists to go to work." This is one of those moments.

Absolutely.  Well, I mean to go back to your first album and the first song that you released as Mondo Cozmo, "Shine," is a great example of a really powerful, healing song that can bring people together.

MC: Yeah, it was nice. I started getting a lot of messages too during the COVID stuff of people going back and sending me messages on "Shine." And it was like "How cool is that?" You know years later, I’m still getting messages every day about what that song means to people, how it brightens their day, or just comforts them in a way. So I am so thankful that song turned out the way it did.

Yeah, and on New Medicine I think there’s a lot of other songs on there that are going to touch people in similar and/or different ways.  But, it’s a powerful album and great job, again!

MC: Thanks, man! I worked my tail off on this one! (laughter)

You kind of spoon fed it to us a song at a time over… was it 8 months that you were releasing a song at a time?

MC: We’re not good with plans. We released "Black Cadillac" first. And that was because we booked Lollapalooza and we were playing the main stage. And I was like, "we gotta put a new song out because this is dumb." You know? So, we put out "Black Cadillac" and then that was just kind of like a taster and the record was in the process of being finished. So, we released that one first and then the reaction to that was really great. And then, I think the second single "Come On" came out. It started cookin’ at that point. The video was really great. I was really proud of that song. It came out really good.

But at that point, the album was still in the works?

MC: It was pretty much close. It was getting mixed by the time "Come On" came out. So, we were just finalizing mixes and stuff. We talked about putting the record out at Christmas time. We were going to rush it to get it done and then we were like, "Nah, let’s hold off." We kept trying to time it up, you know, because you want to be able to tour. So, there’s really no logic to our thinking over here at team Mondo headquarters.

So, there’s this story going around about the origin of the album that involves you punching through a glass door. So, if you want to expand on that a little bit…

MC: Yeah.  At this point, the band had been touring for 10 months straight. And within those 10 months, it was like right after "Shine" took off. It was the first time that I ever really… and you know me! You’ve known me since I’ve been doing it as a kid, you know?

A long time!

MC: It was the first time I ever had any success, you know, that was like notable. And, people wanted to interview me and take pictures and I was really blessed! I was saying yes to doing everything. I was doing every morning show. I was getting no sleep and I was doing every meet & greet and just hugging everyone and I was going into radio stations and doing it all. By the end of that year, I was fried! I was like physically fried. I was emotionally just spent. It was pretty much just like a year of being on and I was just looking forward to taking a little break and starting to write again because I wasn’t really writing very much that I was happy with at the time. And then, we did this one last show in Montauk. And, it was at this place called The Surf Lodge. And it was so much fun! (laughter) It was our last show and we had to fly back the next day after that. But, we went for it man. We just had a blast! 

Next day, we had a 15-hour travel day to fly back to L.A. to do a video shoot. And um, I didn’t want to do this video shoot. I didn’t like the idea of it. Every idea that I came up with it the label shot down. It was just something I really wasn’t looking forward to. I kind of prided myself up to that point of every decision that I was making, you know, from every video to every anything: the font, to how the mix sounded. And, I was really proud of that because I feel like I was making some really wise decisions. So, I went into this video shoot and the label’s there, manager’s there, band’s there, band girlfriends are there. There were a lot of people involved and it just went bad! This has never happened before and hopefully will never happen again, but I freaked out and I just started screaming and yelling at everyone. I was screaming at the label and it was just stupid. I turned and I thought I was punching like one of those foam walls. But, it wasn’t. I turned really fast and I busted out a window of a glass studio door, like a double-pane thing.

Oh my gosh!

MC: Oh my gosh, Josh. I mean I pulled my hand out and it was just like (explosion sound) blood just went… My drummer came up and tied a tourniquet around my arm. They took me to the hospital. I was there all night. It was stupid. I nearly really messed myself up. I was there until like four in the morning watching the doctor just stitch me up. He’s like, "You won’t have feeling for the next two years." And I was like, "Oh, F! I gotta write a record with a cast on. I got no songs. I just screamed at my label and punched up their studio." It was a DARK time. And then, I had to go and apologize to everybody and started that campaign of being like, you know. But, it was good in the sense that we had to have a real conversation. And then, we had to be like, "Look, you guys have been running me into the ground. I’ve just been a greyhound for you and I can’t do it man. I have to be able to say no things and everyone needs to be ok with that."

It was a good conversation to have and it really kind of solidified how we were going to move ahead. And, everyone was really nice to me for a long time so it was good. (laughter)

And it kind of spurred the creative process on writing?

MC: The doctor put me on medication, and all this medication was… was penicillin. It was antibiotics, you know, because of the surgery. But, something triggered the following couple weeks after that. I would tape a pick to my hand, to my cast and I would just start writing.

Oh, wow!

MC: Like really simple chord formations and you know a lot of like downstroke stuff cause that’s all I could do. And I just started writing! I wrote "Black Cadillac." I wrote "Kicks (Positively Montauk)" after the Montauk thing. I wrote "Generator" which was just one of my favorite songs and it never would have been written if I hadn’t had been doing like a strumming pattern cause I had a cast on. It was really beautiful the way it turned out with the songs and everything to the point where I went back to the doctor when I ran out of medication and was like, "Doc, you gotta give me more pills, man! I am writing. I’m like Jimmy on acid over here." And, the doctor was like, "Josh, let me ask you this: Do you think it’s these pills that have nothing to do with anything? Or, do you think it’s the fact that you actually literally punched a wall and you had to deal with some stuff." 

Whatever it was, I’d do it again to get these songs. I would do anything for songs. I crave it. I hunt them down. I probably wrote 80 songs for this record! We picked 10, you know? We write… I write a lot. It’s all I do. It’s a fix for me. I gotta get it. There’s nothing more exciting to me than when I’m working on a tune that I can’t stop thinking about.

I know there were some notable folks who helped you out like Dan Wilson (of Semisonic), Peter Hayes (of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club), and Butch Vig. I love talking about Butch Vig. He’s produced some of my favorite albums of all time and, of course he’s drummed on some of my favorite albums of all time. How did he become involved with your record?

MC: I saw this thing in 2017… 2018 maybe. Somebody sent me a link and it was an interview with Butch. And, they were asking him what he was listening to, what would he recommend for people to check out that’s new. And he said, "There’s this guy named Mondo Cozmo and he put out a song called "Hold On To Me" and I think it’s great."
And, I freaked out! I was just like, "WHAT!? WHAT!?" I mean Nevermind, Siamese Dream! These are records that defined my childhood. It meant so much to me and I didn’t know how to get a hold of the guy. You can’t just be like, "Thanks, Butch!" I just was like, "Oh, that’s cool." And then, I was working on a song with this girl named LP. She was telling me how she was working on a song with Butch at the same time. And I was like, "Oh man, please tell him I said thank you for saying that. It really meant a lot to me." And she was like, "I gotta get you guys together." So I ended up going to his house, playing him some new music I was working on. It just started this friendship and this communication. And, it was right around the time when I busted my hand. It was amazing because I was sending him songs every day: just demos, scratch voice memos, just anything. I was writing at such a clip. It was nuts. I would send him songs every day and he would listen to the whole thing and send me notes or just be encouraging. He kinda just helped guide me through what songs I should kind of focus on. I thought it was so beautiful. At the time after the hand thing, I got dropped from my label. I was really like, "I’m screwed here. I don’t know what I’m going to do." Meanwhile, I’m writing but I had this cloud hanging over me. Just like, "I can’t kick this sadness, this heaviness." And, he just lifted me up and put the wind in the sails. He helped guide me to get the record done just as a friend. It was a really beautiful thing and I will always be thankful to him for that.

Does he have an official credit on the album or was it more of an advisory role, essentially like a guru to you?

MC: No, that’s the funniest part. He’s essentially a guru. I mean we could never afford Butch Vig to produce the record, you know what I mean? It’s Butch Vig. If you buy a BMW, it costs this amount of money. You know what I mean? But, I also think Butch would say no to it because he knows my recording style is I sit in a room by myself and I have to figure these songs out myself. If I were to go into a studio with the band and record, we would just make a rock n’ roll record which I’ve done. I’ve done that a lot. But, there’s songs on the record like "It Fills the Room" which is essentially like me talking over some music. It’s one of my favorite songs but it never would have happened if I was in a studio with a band. I have to figure out the song but I also have to let the song lead me. Most of the time, I write in the morning. I’ll start recording it and by the end of the day, it is a completely different song. It’s either a heavy metal song or it’s a rap song. I follow the song. I don’t try to manipulate it. It took me years to figure that out.

What do you think is your greatest evolution on New Medicine?

MC: Oh, that’s a great question. I think "Upside Down," man. We did that in two days. I just started workin’ on it. And, my drummer, I was like, "Can you record drums on this?" That was at like ten in the morning and I got it back by noon and put the drums in with the samples. Started working on beats and put them in. And by three o’clock, I was putting a vocal on it. By the next day it was done. It took one day to mix. It was the easiest thing and I was just like, "this song’s nuts."

It is. It sounds like you but it doesn’t sound like anything you’ve done before.

MC: Yeah, and I loved that! That’s kind of how I listen to music. I’ll listen to Neil Young and then I’ll go listen to Beck. Then, I’ll go listen to The Fugees. I listen to everything. I just love music. I love a hook. I love Mondo for that because again if I was still in Eastern Conference Champions, it leaned towards rock n’ roll. I’m a pedigree of that, that’s where I come from. But, I like to challenge myself and try different stuff and put myself in awkward situations vocally and see how far I can push this. I feel like an artist at the end of the day and that’s the best thing I can do for myself.

I’m sure you’ve had the same exact thought but "Upside Down" you obviously wrote long before the world… I mean the world’s been upside down in a lot of ways for a long time, but literally with the pandemic it is absolutely just that. You would have had no way of knowing that your album would be coming out in the middle of a…

MC: A global pandemic! (laughter)

It did just kind of come out at the perfect time.

MC: Yeah, that was one of the last songs to make the record. I was watching the impeachment trials like non-stop. I was just waking up and watching the news every morning, every afternoon, every night. I was just addicted. This song lyrically was just like, "I’m sick of hearing people talk. I’m sick of watching the news." That’s where the premise of the "Every single night I watch the evening news and wonder." That’s where the idea came from and then it just went.

Clearly, you have other news of the day inspiration like going back to "Black Cadillac" and Brett Kavanaugh.

MC: Yeah, I remember asking Butch about that when I recorded it. And I was like "Butch, does it make sense to put this in? Is this like a year from now when this is out, will this still be relevant or is this just a dumb line where I’m just not seeing the forest through the trees?" Butch sat there and he stared off. And I was just like, "What is he saying? What is he thinking?" And then, he said the coolest thing. He’s like, "Well, it seems like he’s gonna be on the Supreme Court for a very long time so I think you should keep it in." And I was like, "Alright, Butch said I’m keeping it in. I’m keeping it in."

Taking the current events of the day and turning them into songs or being inspired by them to write songs and you said you’re always writing: there’s a lot going on right now that is going to be affecting people for generations. There’s a lot of change that’s going to come out of the protests that are happening right now.

MC: I hope so, Josh.

Does that inspire you to write?

MC: I mean, it inspires me to just watch and see what’s happening. These are truly historic moments that we are seeing. I’m humbled by it. I’m so proud of my country for doing this, my fellow citizens. Like dang, that is inspiring. When it comes to writing, it’s tough. If you try to sit down and write a song about this stuff, I don’t know. I fear being too on the nose sometimes with things. You know, if you look at like how Dylan handled it a lot of time, the metaphors and the way he would take you around the corner to get you to the point. There’s a way to do it and a way to do it right. I don’t totally know how to do it. I’m really excited because I think this fall and early spring there’s gonna be just… cause every band, every musician, every rapper, every singer is home recording their next record right now. There’s gonna be so much great music coming out soon. It’s going to be like the 60’s. I cannot wait to hear what’s going to happen. I hope to be a part of it but at the end of the day I’m a fan so I’m excited.

As we eagerly await the day when we can see Mondo Cozmo hit the stage again, check out video of Josh’s live SubModern Session performance here and find much more at MondoCozmo.com.  New Medicine is available now on Last Gang Records.

By Josh T. Landow