I Love Monsters Band

The “free credit report” people are looking for a new band for its commercials, one that will cause people to take notice and hopefully recognize and remember the product. They may have found it with New York’s I Love Monsters band. The group has been appearing in a commercial for the new FreeCreditScore.com website, as part of a contest by the site’s owner to select an official band for the site’s advertisements. The commercial features the vocals of lead singer Brett Spigelman, and whether you like or hate him, his voice will cut through the drone of the usual commercial fare.

The I Love Monsters commercial is one of four commercials that FreeCreditScore.com is televising to show each of the four finalists in the site’s contest to select its new band. The credit reporting company that owns the site, Experian, had a lot of success with its previous set of commercials for FreeCreditReport.com (note the name difference). In those commericials, a fake band sang a series of very popular jingles that brought a lot of attention to the site. That campaign is over, but to help introduce its new product, new website, Experian decided to reuse the concept, but this time hire a real band that would present its own sound and not just lip-sync to session recordings.

Experian did talent searches in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, using event people and promoters to find the best “undiscovered” local talent and have them apply. Experian also allowed bands from all over to submit videos of themselves for consideration. The candidates were narrowed down to four finalists by the company and those bands were then shown on TV for the first time during the MLB All-Star game in July, 2010. At that time, the contest was opened to the public to vote for their favorite. The voting contest continues through August 9th, 2010, after which the winner will be announced. Among other prizes, the winning band will be part of the FCS advertising campaign for 18 months. 

Singer Brett Spigelman’s voice can be characterized as either addictive or nails on chalkboard (see video below), but either way it would cause the listening public to notice the advertisement. Brett (pictured below) graduated from Connecticut College in 2005, where he studied music and philosophy. He spent some time with a group called “Shorty 2 Inch”, and later in “4gether”.  He has notably been involved with charity work, including AIDS Walk in New York and San Francisco.



Brett is on bass and vocals. The other members are Micah Weisberg on guitar and vocals, Jonathan Tortora on percussion, and Jeff Joseph Jeudy also on guitar and vocals.

I Love Monsters formed in early 2008. Three of the four members of the band, including Brett, met while in college. The fourth member, Jeff, was added later.

The group got the inspiration for its name from seeing a little boy crossing Sixth Avenue in New York City with his finger in his nose and wearing a shirt that said “I Love Monsters.” They are indie-rock, and considers their sound to be a mixture of dance rock and pop. Their stated influences include The Arctic Monkeys, Weezer, Phoenix, The Get Up Kids and The Beatles.

Their music is available for free download at http://ilovemonsters.bandcamp.com. The songs available are Spine, Satellites, Stop Pretending, Heart/Beat, Rescue, Practice with Your Heart, and Seen a Ghost.

The music from their song Heart/Beat was used in a clip on the show Entourage. Their music has also been used several times on commercials for the show American Pickers.