Black Mountain - A Stormy High

You're all involved with a various projects besides this one; do you ever butt heads when it comes to making time for Black Mountain?

Matt: "It doesn't seem to be a problem, when Black Mountain is working we all put 100% of our time into it and don't do anything else, but I can only do it for so long - like two years - before I'm sick of everybody and don't want to look at anyone anymore. We tried to go into the studio after we finished promoting the last album but everybody was really burnt out and unfocussed, so we abandoned the recordings and took a year off to do some other music. It's the only way this band can survive. Then when we came back to it last January everybody was amped. We wrote nine songs in five days. It's exciting just to come back after a break and know it's gonna work."

Most of you are also involved with Insite, an organisation that works with the poor, the drug addicted and the mentally ill in Vancouver. Lyrically and musically, a lot of your songs feel as though they could easily have been conceived by people who are caught up in those worlds. Has the impact of working in that kind of environment come to inform the tone of the music?

Amber: "We don't really write songs about our jobs or anything but it does come out one way or another. Vancouver has a major drug problem, it's pretty bad out there, so a lot of friends of ours - practically half of the people we know - work in the downtown Eastside, which is sort of like the ghetto of Vancouver. We've all worked in that field for five years or longer, so at this point we're all just casual workers at those places. When we're in town and we don't have any money we'll take shifts and whatnot. We're maybe not so into it as we once were, we're not as involved in social work anymore… Music is our number one right now."

The new album seems to align itself with an older, classic rock aesthetic, not least in its physical presentation. Is the artwork intended to hark back to the epic efforts of Floyd, Sabbath and Zeppelin in their day?

Matt: "This time around we chose to have Jeremy, our keyboard player, do the artwork, and Jeremy is a fan of [Aubrey Powell] who did the art direction for Houses of the Holy and all that killer shit, he's obsessed with this guy. I think that ties the whole album together."

A rather unlikely mix of bands have become fans of Black Mountain and since invited you to out to play gigs and record with them. What has your working relationship with these super fans been like?

Matt: "It's so awesome that Mudhoney and Portishead asked us to play All Tomorrow's Parties and UNKLE [wanted to collaborate with us], but they came to us and like our record… it's just a really nice compliment. Our influences, I think, are pretty exclusively not contemporary, with the exception of maybe some 80s punk, like Black Flag. My favourite band is this group called The Sadies from Canada who are completely unknown country rock, they sound like the Byrds, on Sweetheart of the Rodeo kind of shit. For me personally - being the bass player - when we go into the studio to write, all that's on my mind is James Jamerson, Mike Motown, the Meters, and stuff like that… The epic great bass players. (laughs) It's like my chance to pretend I'm those guys."

Is there anyone of a more modern style whose music you can get into?

Matt: "Well Ghostface Killah is my favourite artist in hip-hop ever. I actually rapped at a Ghostface concert, 'cos I snuck in when he was at South by Southwest and got right up front. It was this knee-high stage and he was like 'what do you wanna hear?' I called out a song, he did it and then he stuck the mic right in my face and I rapped for 30 seconds. It was like a dream come true."