TBC introduces… Chris Montague
How did the collaboration between you and Ant Law first come about, and what drew you to working together as two guitarists with such distinct playing styles?
The first time I met Ant was around 2014. I was playing with a trio called Troyka, and Ant was playing with a band called HLK. We were on tour together, and the first gig was in Edinburgh, a really nice venue called the Voodoo Rooms. Ant was playing as the support group. I was hanging around backstage, and I heard this guitar playing and thought to myself, "I'm not happy about this guy playing before me!" We met afterwards and had a chat in the bar, it was great. He was really into Troyka.
Fast forward to 2021, and Nicholas Mayer, a great guitar player who had played with Jeff Beck and people like that, started a concert series during the pandemic. He wanted to do a series where guitar players play in a duel against each other. He sent out a list of about ten or so guitarists, all the sort of usual suspects you'd recognise. Ant and I were on the list, so we agreed to pair up and put a setlist together, some of his songs and some of mine. It was all online, and it was really great. The videos are still out there somewhere.
When writing or rehearsing together, how do you divide roles - are there clear compositional boundaries, or is it a more fluid exchange of ideas?
Even though we're both guitar players, we're still just musicians. So, the same rules apply if I were playing with a horn player, a piano player, or a singer. If he's playing, I'll be supportive. I’ll wait for him to finish and fill in the gaps, and be conversational with him. It's the same the other way around.
I've always loved playing with other guitar players because a guitar is like the ultimate centre midfield position on a pitch. You need to be able to do a bit of everything - sometimes you're back in defence, helping the goalkeeper. Other times, you might be up front, scoring a goal. It's a very versatile instrument. You can play basslines, you can play harmony.
I'll write using distinct polychords. So, I'll play a chord, but I'll have Ant play another chord on top. You can get these 10, 11, 12 note voicings. There's a new tune I wrote where we are going to do that live. As we are both playing through amps, you just have to make sure that they're balanced right and don’t drown each other out.
What would you say are the main differences between the two of you? Why do you complement each other so well?
If we had a Venn diagram of me and Ant, there would be a crossover where we have similar influences. A lot of our influences stem from when we were kids - we both like ’90s instrumental rock, like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. We both love all the legato chops; we have a lot of that in common. We want to cover one of those songs as a homage, do a Vai song or something like that.
Ant has got a bit more of the fusiony element in his playing - very complex rhythmic music, like the Swedish extreme metal band Meshuggah. Whereas, when I was a kid, my dad had a lot of blues records, Jimi Hendrix and more soulful guitar players like Peter Green. I loved B.B. King when I was a kid - that sweet vibrato playing. Ant doesn't have so much of that in his playing. His lines are longer, fluid lines with more top end in his tone. My tone has a bit more mid-range in it. I love country guitar as well, all that pedal steel guitar stuff.
You recently played at the 606 Club and now the London Jazz Festival. How have audiences responded to this new partnership so far - are there any moments that stand out?
The 606 has just got a little bit of magic, hasn't it? If I'm playing my own original music, and a lot of what I do is improvise, where you have to stand there and do something in the moment that may or may not work all the time, I much prefer that at an intimate venue.
My favourite kind of venue is a small club that gets packed out, and the audience is right on top of you. There's something about the atmosphere that just makes you play a little bit more. The big stages are still mega fun, but you have to paint with a slightly broader brushstroke. If you're in a small ensemble, the band feels less athletic on a bigger stage because you're normally further apart, so communication is a bit harder.
I used to play with Squarepusher in his live band. He was an utter genius; his attention to detail is phenomenal. That was the most intense big stage gig that I have done to date. You'd be playing in Poland somewhere to a 4000-plus standing room only audience, all going mental. It was super loud and really intense, but there is much less room for improvisation. Whereas playing with Ant is less choreographed, we don't always know what section's coming next. We'll just cue it and see what happens.
When you are travelling around, do you experience a different vibe coming back to you from the audience? For example, playing live in the States versus Europe or the UK?
Yeah, very much so. Playing in the US is a very different experience. Not every time, but sometimes, an American audience tends to celebrate people who are good at things. If you turn up and you play really well, they tend to celebrate that a bit more.
The UK is different; perhaps it’s something to do with the former empire mentality. We tend to be a bit more reserved and not always throw ourselves behind someone in quite the same way, especially anywhere near London. In London, you get exposed to all the best music and arts from around the world. Often, the audience has seen it all before, so the bar is so much higher. You've got to really do your homework and play well to impress.
In Germany, the crowd is different again. In Japan, the audience is so respectful. Sometimes they are very quiet during the set, and applause is really muted. I’d be on stage thinking, "We're having a stink bomb tonight, lads!" And then at the end of the show, they go crazy for it.
Looking ahead, do you see this collaboration with Ant becoming a long-term thing, or is it more of an evolving project that adapts as your individual paths continue?
It's still early days for this project in a sense, because we're recording the album at the beginning of December. This is a chance for us to keep fine-tuning all the compositions that we're playing and making sure they're going to sound good in the studio.
After the release, we’ll look to tour it extensively; it’s definitely something we want to keep doing. It’s really quite nice and refreshing for me to have someone like Ant, because he's very proactive and enthusiastic. He has great attention to detail - if I'm flagging, he'll pick up the ball and vice versa. It works well.
If Ant were here now, what do you think he’d say you bring out in his playing?
He'd probably make some really derogatory comment, I'd imagine! I've always had a real keen interest in the compositions in a project; I don't like to just play anything. I've always got my head in the music, particularly in the early stages of composing. I'm the one who strips things out and edits things, the one who says, "That section needs to be better; we can get that way better."
I think he appreciates that. I hope he does, anyway.
And if that question were reversed - what does Ant bring to the table?
He's just very supportive; he's the more extroverted one of the partnership. He's great at corralling an audience and that kind of thing. I'm definitely a bit more of an introvert.
What’s on your listening list at the moment - are there any artists who are inspiring you right now?
We listen to a lot of vinyl in my house, so it tends to be all the old jazz records. At the moment I'm listening to a lot of Duke Ellington and some Lightnin' Hopkins - a brilliant blues musician and songwriter from Centerville, Texas. I've got some old records, some Bob Dylan. I like some early Steely Dan or some Jeff ‘Skunk’ Backster guitar.
In terms of modern guitar players, I like Julian Lage. I like the way he plays. It's very open, very stripped back, very honest guitar playing.
If you were on stage and you could choose anyone to be playing next to, past or present, who would that person be?
I think the ultimate musician for me would be Johann Sebastian Bach. I don't think anyone has ever come anywhere near to describing harmony with melody as good as that, ever. He blows my mind, almost everything he writes. Even if you hear a really poor performance of one of his compositions, it still sounds amazing. It's like a DNA strand that runs through all Western music.
It's just effortlessly perfect music, and I can't think of anyone who's done it better than him. I just can't figure out what he was listening to to do that? They only figured out how to tune the piano into 12 even tones a few years before. How on earth do you go from that to doing what he did? It's just insane.
What can we expect from your show with Ant at The Bear?
It's going to be a lot of guitars, so if you don't like guitars…! The music's exciting, and it's in a really good place now, with some really beautiful harmonies. Ant writes great harmony, great chord sequences. I’m playing overlaying sounds, and Jamie Murray on drums sounds amazing.
There's a young kid with us called Herbie Reece. He's absolutely outstanding, from the Royal Academy of Music. I taught him when he was about 14 years old, when he was at school. He's an absolute monster, fresh on the scene; he only moved to London last year. We had a rehearsal with him for the first time the other day, and he came in and just absolutely aced it. I kind of feel a bit of a responsibility for him, so you'd better be nice to him!
Chris joins us with his quartet on Saturday 29 November 2025