Monte Pride

My music has been described as mellow, calming, healing... I don't perform many upbeat tunes and only perform solo!

I've been performing professionally, touring around the state of Michigan, for the last 6 years or so. In addition to traditional festivals and music venues, I've performed at weddings, parties, and other private events, and understand the etiquette and role a hired performer "plays," so to speak. Within my mellow-wheelhouse, I can tailor the performance and style to whatever you have in mind for your event.

Monte Pride is a Michigan-born and based singer-songwriter and fingerstyle guitarist whose music recalls the delicate vocals of Simon & Garfunkel, with guitar-work reminiscent of The Tallest Man On Earth and early Joni Mitchell. Paired with electric, ambient soundscapes, he blends haunting melodies with vivid lyricism to create lush, experimental folk songs.

Monte has supported Michigan favorites like Joshua Davis, Luke Winslow King, Breathe Owl Breathe, Gifts or Creatures, Escaping Pavement, and The Ragbirds, and has performed at Wheatland Music Festival, the Ten Pound Fiddle Concert Series, Earthwork Harvest Gathering, Buttermilk Jamboree, Holler Fest, and Pumpstock. He began representation with The Stableford Agency in 2021, helping him continue to branch out within Michigan’s music community.

Monte's new, sophomore album, “Even in Absence," was released on August 21, 2020. The record, postponed from April 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, presents healing songs to remind that experience, relationships, lives, their love and light persist, “Even In Absence”. Themes of loss & resilience, trial & growth, culmination & change surface at the album’s center as Pride’s rich tenor voice, vivid songwriting, accomplished fingerstyle guitar technique, and lush arrangements spellbind. Monte Pride tracked the songs over a 12-month period throughout the state of Michigan. The album involved many active artists in the state’s music community, featuring Sam Cooper, Brandon & Bethany Foote (Gifts or Creatures), Drew Howard, Mark Lavengood, Max Lockwood, Laurel Premo, Lily Talmers, and others, with early production help from Timothy Monger.

“I’m incredibly excited to be sharing a collection of deeply personal songs,” says Monte. The album was written in a 3 year span following the release of his first full-length album “Hawthorne Morning Sound” in 2016, showing expanded artistic vision in instrumentation, theme, and honed songwriting skills. “The music and writing were inspired by 60’s and contemporary folk. The music of Nick Drake, Paul Simon, The Tallest Man On Earth, and Gillian Welch helped shape the sound, with influences from Michigan artists like Red Tail Ring, Joshua Davis, and May Erlewine.” In addition to his original music, Monte shares a cover of Michael Beauchamp-Cohen's song “Queen of the West, And Other Stories” from Red Tail Ring’s 2013 album “The Heart’s Swift Foot”, a tune that perfectly fit the new album’s theme. “I feel grateful to have had so many amazing friends, artists, and engineers contributing to and guiding the sound to achieve the album’s vision. I hope that the songs reach the hearts of listeners to heal and uplift them.”

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"Pride writes at a tempo that regulates the pulse, and he finds melodies that sound somewhere between a lullaby and a hymn, patiently arranging all the words for a comprehensive summoning of empathy."

"...music like Pride feels like it is the soundtrack for a journey. It can take a long time to heal. It can also take a long time to get to the point where you’re able to reflect upon everything that’s happened and process all those emotions. This album is a soundtrack for that process. It isn’t instantaneous, but these tones, these melodies, these words, can make it easier, and even make the days brighter, if even just a little."
- Jeff Milo, Current Magazine

"Echoes of classic late-60s / early-70s folk greats like Phil Ochs, Ralph McTell, and Roy Harper are filtered through his fleet fingerstyle guitar work and Michigan-anchored heart. It's the kind of calming, big-hearted music we need right now..."
- Timothy Monger

"With magical, pastoral references to the Grand River, Lake Superior, Pictured Rocks and other Great Lakes gems, Pride paints a seasonal, insightful canvas filled with introspective themes of loss, resilience, growth and change."
- Lori Barnard Stratton, The Stratton Setlist

"Even in Absence” - recorded at Ann Arbor’s Big Sky Recording, Grand Haven’s Third Coast Recording and Kalamazoo’s La Luna Recording & Sound - unfurls as an antidote to ease the pain of a pandemic that’s isolated people, often from the ones they love."
- John Sinkevics, Local Spins

I have all of my own gear! I own a PA system that can be used in large indoor or outdoor spaces. It can also be turned down to be used in more intimate environments. I have a smaller setup, too, used for even smaller-scale performances.

The only thing I need is power close-by, or power run to the designated performance spot with a 3-prong / wire extension cord (if the nearest source is further than approximately 30' away).