In simple terms, Mountain Man is a hardcore band from Massachusetts that has been doing their thing for the last 5 or 6 years. However, their new record "Rumination" which just dropped this past week is far from simple, nor is it confined to the sonic palette of most hardcore bands. While their earlier material often raged at a frenetic pace with songs rarely clocking in over a minute, they've become steadily more expansive over time. The new effort, a mere five songs, clocks in at nearly 30 minutes, and over the course of its running time incorporates acoustic guitar, violin, and glockenspiel (I think that's what I'm hearing!). In doing so it calls to mind the more epic sides of Defeater or Modern Life is War, as well as the more desperate and meandering sounds of later There Were Wires or Curl Up and Die.
Comparisons aside, I've been following Patrick Murphy's bands for quite a while now (he's also played with the incredible Last Lights and I Rise, among many others), so I figured it was time to reach out to him and learn a little bit more.
"Rumination" is definitely one of the top 5 records of the year for me; check out the links at the end to pre-order and stream the entire thing.
I know
you've been doing bands for quite a long time....discuss your background a
little bit and how you got into underground music. When did you start playing
drums? Did you come from a particularly musical family where your parents
encouraged it or did you start playing after getting involved in punk and
hardcore?
I started playing drums when I was 9 years old or so. My
brother is a few years older than me and he also played too. Our school had an
amazing music program, so getting involved was super easy. My parents were
awesome about it, but I didn't get a drum set until I was about 12, which was
around the time I was getting into punk and stuff.
I was always obsessed with music at a young age. I remember
Nirvana, Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails and Green Day specifically being
appealing to me and made me want to join a band when I was older. I'm the
youngest of 4 so a lot of what my siblings were listening to resonated with me.
My oldest sister was always listening to stuff like Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco,
Poe, you know? Stuff like that.
Around 2000 or so is when I discovered punk and hardcore. My
brother was into bands like Crass, Conflict, Doom, Code 13 and Dead Kennedy's.
His friends were all involved with the Straight Edge scene, which is what I
gravitated towards. Earth Crisis, Sick of it All, Converge and Strife were the
first hardcore bands I became obsessed with. Around that time I started my
first band and started booking shows. Everything changed when I heard Bane and
Ten Yard Fight, then bands like American Nightmare and Panic came out and they
were sort of the gateway to everything at that point.
I'm lucky enough that I lived pretty close to where all this
stuff was happening, and even at a young age I got to see these bands come out
and blow the doors open.
Yeah I
got to see Panic once, AN a few times and obviously Bane a bunch, but I can't
imagine how incredible it must have been to have all that going on right in
your backyard. Talk a little bit more about that era....do you think people
realized how special all that was at the time or was it just sort of routine
for kids from there?
It was definitely evident how special it was, to me at least
it seemed like everyone understood. Every show I went to there was always a
million kids who were actually excited to be there. Every show, every kid was just
going completely bananas. There were definitely bands I saw every week that I
didn't appreciate until later on though. For a time it felt like The Hope Conspiracy
were on every show, and I definitely didn't get into them until "Death
Knows Your Name" came out, and at that point they weren't playing much.
There is one show in Worcester that stands out to me, that
really had me like "Holy shit, this is such a great time to be going to
shows." It was Horror Show's first
show with American Nightmare, Panic and Count Me Out (there might have been 1
more.) Every band's set was just insane, there wasn't a single person not totally
captivated by every band. I'm really grateful I got to be a part of that.
Alright
so at what point did you go from attending and booking shows to doing bands?
What were some of your early bands prior to I Rise and Last Lights?
They all sort of happened simultaneously honestly. A friend
and I started a band, so then we started booking our own shows and attending
shows at the same time. That band was called Raise Your Fist and I think that
started around 2001. After that band stopped I started a band called Morris!,
then I was in The Agony, Eva Braun/Apparitions, God & Country and Ligeia. I
think that's it, I've played in a million different bands, I don't really
remember the time lines.
Alright
so I Rise. I absolutely love the stuff you guys did, particularly the SC split
and "Down". It seemed like things were moving very quickly, then all
the sudden you did "For Redemption" and the band pretty quickly fell
off the map. What happened with that band?
So, I actually joined I Rise after Last Lights, so I wasn't
even on any recordings. The dudes from I Rise were some of the first kids I met
playing shows, so we had been friends for a really long time. Right when Last Lights
was starting to pick up, they sort of became one of the bands we were
constantly with.
I honestly don't really remember how me or Jesse (who was
also in Last Lights and is in MM) joined I Rise, it just sort of happened.
Obviously
things ended tragically for Last Lights with the passing of vocalist Dominic
Mallory, and Mountain Man was born from the ashes of LL. Talk a little bit
about how MM came together....the bulk of your material has seemed to center
around coping with death; I have to imagine those early practices and writing sessions
were truly as much about collective therapy as they were about becoming a band.
Mountain Man really wasn't ever supposed to be anything
other than a recording. Josh Smith (our vocalist) had these 4 songs written for
a few months and had actually been talking to Jesse, Dom and I about recording them. After Dom passed
away it was a few months before Josh approached us about doing it again. Josh,
Jesse and I all got together and recorded our demo. The lyrics at that time
were more about work and the bleakness of life etc., etc.
As we started to become more serious, everything started to
take a different turn. You're right about the material dealing with coping with
death, and not just lyrically. Musically it definitely started taking more of a
"desperate" sound I guess you could say.
Dom is constantly an influence to us, and I personally feel
like writing music is the best way to pay tribute to him. He was honestly an
insanely talented musician, a phenomenal writer and incredibly smart. Above all
that, he was one of my best friends and I'm truly fortunate to have been able
to play in 3 bands with him and collaborate on his solo stuff too.
Yeah
I've definitely noticed that in your sound over the years, but it's especially
prominent on "Rumination". I've always thought you guys were a solid
band, but I feel like the new record hits in a way that the earlier material
hasn't....it’s more dynamic, it just resonates in a different way somehow. Talk
a little bit about the collective headspace you were in while writing/recording
the new record....what were you trying to accomplish this time around
sonically, lyrically, emotionally, etc.?
Writing these songs was drastically different. In 2011, Josh
moved to California, and the writing process used to be Jesse, Josh and myself.
Typically, Josh would come in with some riff ideas then Jesse and I would help
form it into something a bit more cohesive. With these songs, it was just Jesse
and I, and the two of us spent so much time getting them to feel exactly how we
wanted. We really wanted to achieve something dynamic, experimental and sparse
at the same time. The past few years have been tough for all of us outside of
the band, so I definitely think that translates to the material.
As far as the lyrical content goes, that's really for Josh
to answer. He never practiced these songs with us and recorded them out in
California, so when he sent us the files back that's the first time we heard
anything. We didn't even really see the lyrics until afterwards either. Jesse
contributes a lot of vocals too, so splitting them up was also a little
different.
I
noticed just scrolling through photos that you added a second drummer a few
years ago. What does that look like in terms of the writing process as well as
playing live? I hear a couple parts on the new record with multiple/layered
percussion; in a live setting are you playing different parts or the same parts
for added power/emphasis? (I ask this question as a shitty drummer myself who
can barely keep time with guitar and bass, let alone adding a second drummer
into the mix, haha).
As I said before, the writing process was just Jesse and I.
With the 2 drummers thing, he and I just kind of worked on what we wanted the
parts to be (on the record at least.) There is only one song on the new record
with 2 drum sets playing at the same time, the other stuff is different snare
and tom parts played by myself, Jesse or Kevin (who plays live with us.)
In a live setting it's a bit different. A lot of it is Kevin
and I doing close to the same thing throughout the old material and just
playing back and forth off each other. I think the misconception is we have a
lot of gear and 2 drummers solely to be super loud. I see it as a way to be
more dynamic and open more sonic possibilities. In classical music, they have
multiple people playing the same part on the same instruments, and it's not to
be loud and abrasive. It's so they can really achieve the dynamics that the
piece calls for.
Label-wise
you guys have hopped around a bunch from Think Fast to Mightier Than Sword, to
No Sleep and now to End Result Productions so you've obviously gained a lot of
experience dealing with labels. What would you say you look for in a label and
how can they be most beneficial for smaller hardcore punk bands?
We got pretty lucky with our friends helping us put out our
records for us at first, and I truly feel like End Result was the perfect label
to release this record. All we really look for in a label is someone who is
cool with our insane ideas, gets behind the music as much as we do and will
work to get more people to hear us. How can they benefit a younger band? It
depends on who you're working with. I'll keep some of our experiences to
myself, but if you can get someone to pay to put out a record when you can't,
it's very helpful.
Touring-wise
you guys seem to do somewhat frequent runs up and down the East Coast and I
noticed you just joined forces with Tone Deaf Touring. Any chance kids east of
PA might be seeing you at any point?
Our lives outside of the band kind of keep us from touring
as much as we used to/wish we could. Teaming up with Tone Deaf is great because
they'll be able to alleviate the stress of booking larger scale tours or
weekends. We want to do more with this record, maybe go out west or to Europe,
but as it stands now we won't be doing a full US anytime in the foreseeable
future.
You've
obviously been at this thing for well over a decade now, and have played in
tons of bands. What would you say it is about music generally, and hardcore
punk specifically that keeps you inspired to write and play?
I just love playing drums and creating music. I think what
attracted me to being in punk bands was the idea that anyone could do it and
anyone could play shows. I feel pretty out of touch with the scene now and can't
really relate to it like I did before, but music as a whole means more to me
now than it ever has. I can't really explain what brings me back to it, but I
am constantly inspired to create. All the members of the band could talk for
hours about things they hear, read, or see that make us want to play music. The
only time I actually feel like myself is when I'm creating music.
Stream “Rumination”: http://absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=3732815
Pre-Order: http://www.cvltnationbizarre.com/collections/end-result-productions/products/mountain-man-rumination-lp
Promo photo by Ryan Martin. Some of the live photos by Reid Haithcock (http://www.reidhaithcock.com/). The rest pulled from the Mountain Man Facebook.
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