![](\"\/images\/mountaincultlive.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMountain Cult have been one of the biggest question-marks of my 2012 musical journey.
\nWho are these people? How did they get here? Why do they sound so damn bad, and why
\ncan’t I stop listening to it? They somehow managed to make the most amateur rock music
\naround, but in a way that cannot easily be replicated – their self-titled album isn’t
\nsomething that anyone else could just go out and create, of this I am sure. I got an
\nemail contact, hoping to determine if they were truly honest musicians doing all they
\ncould with limited means, or just cynical hipsters trying to play poorly in some
\nsort of art-school flippity-flop (they are from Brooklyn, after all). After this brief
\ndiscussion (and the sad news that they are no longer a band!), I can say with certainty
\nthat there were no motives behind Mountain Cult’s lackadaisical grooves beside the
\ngrooves themselves… lazy rock has never felt this right. All questions were answered
\nby Ben, the guitarist and vocalist of the group.<\/p>\n
Where does the Mountain Cult story begin? Were any of you friends or bandmates
\nprior to Mountain Cult?<\/b>
\nNone of us knew each other before the band.<\/p>\n
How did you all meet?<\/b>
\nCraigslist.<\/p>\n
Which one of you posted the Craigslist ad? Were there lots of responses, or did
\nthe only people who responded join Mountain Cult?<\/b>
\nIt was originally me and a friend on drums, jamming for fun. We put up an ad for a bassist
\nand found Maria. But before our first practice, my friend didn’t wanna play anymore,
\nso I put up another ad and found Dina. Those were the only two responses.<\/p>\n
Are you kind of blown away by how well Craigslist worked out for you? You should
\nteach a class on how to effectively use that site.<\/b>
\nI do. It’s every Tuesday morning, around 3:30 am. Bring a thousand dollars cash, and
\ndon’t tell anyone where you’re going. You can find the ad under “Casual Encounters”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Was there any particular idea behind the band, any specific sound you were going
\nfor as things got started? Or was it more a product of just figuring out your sound as
\nyou went along?<\/b>
\nDina’s first time playing drums was at our first practice. She would play a drum beat,
\nand we would play Pentatonic scales over it. We were trying to copy a ’60s blues\/psychedelic
\nsound: Blue Cheer, Cream, Hendrix.<\/p>\n
What does psychedelic mean to you, musically speaking? Do you think Mountain Cult
\nare psychedelic?<\/b>
\nI think we were attempting to be psychedelic, but never really succeeded at it. Definitely
\nnot with catching a ’60s sound.<\/p>\n
I guess what I mean is, how would you define the term “psychedelic” when it comes
\nto music?<\/b>
\nI don’t know how to define it exactly. Cream and The Beatles are both considered psychedelic,
\nbut musically they’re totally different. We were trying to sound like the heavier blues-
\nbased bands. <\/p>\n
I feel like Mountain Cult isn’t revered for its psychedelic properties, but its amateur
\nqualities, if that makes sense… how do you feel if someone says Mountain Cult is “so
\nbad it’s good”? Do you take it as a backhanded compliment, or an insult, or are you just
\npsyched that people are listening and enjoying it?<\/b>
\nThat’s OK. We’ve always been in it for the money.<\/p>\n
How did you get hooked up with Little Big Chief for the LP? Was it something you
\nwere already working on, and then the label offered to get involved?<\/b>
\nThe LP is one of our practice tapes from last August. Brock (of Little Big Chief) emailed
\nus asking we had any new material and we sent him that.<\/p>\n
So was the album kind of unexpected, then? Do you consider it an actual full-length,
\nor just a practice tape put to vinyl?<\/b>
\nNo, we were expecting it to come out sometime in August or September. If we considered
\nit a practice tape on vinyl, it would be named Mountain Cult PT<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Alright, alright, fair enough. So about your sound, I’d say that the inherent
\nlooseness to the music is a big part of what makes it great. Is that something you’ve
\nconsidered? Like, would you want Mountain Cult to eventually get really tight as a band?<\/b>
\nWe don’t play anymore, but the LP was probably us at our tightest. We could only practice
\none or two hours every other week, so each practice was sort like trying to remember what
\nthe songs were again. I think I read somewhere that Black Flag used to practice three
\ntimes a week for six hours or more. If you’re going to be a tight professional band, thats
\nwhat you have to do. The fun part was jamming, writing new songs and seeing how they would
\nchange week to week.<\/p>\n
So Mountain Cult is done? What happened? This is horrible news.<\/b>
\nLast time we played was December. Nothing really happened, we just didn’t feel like
\nplaying anymore.<\/p>\n
Do any of you have any new bands in the works?<\/b>
\nMaria left to do solo stuff and recorded an album, available on Bandcamp.com under the
\nname Maria Takeuchi. I’m in a band called Sex Scheme, also on Bandcamp.com, and Dina is
\nin a band but she didn’t tell me what it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mountain Cult have been one of the biggest question-marks of my 2012 musical journey. Who are these people? How did they get here? Why do they sound so damn bad, and why can’t I stop listening to it? They somehow managed to make the most amateur rock music around, but in a way that cannot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5976"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6094,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5976\/revisions\/6094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yellowgreenred.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}